You may have noticed my hesitancy to feature virtual or animated acts on the blog. In my mind, a company’s focus on this technology only steers them further from putting effort into the songs themselves. Maybe I’m self-flagellating by continuing to approach K-pop for the music. After all, the industry has transformed into a true multimedia art form. At this point, songs are only a small sliver of the K-pop pie.
Superkind is a mostly-real group, with five human members and two virtual idols. (Just writing that creeps me out, btw). This unique configuration could be an excuse to develop cutting edge, technology-themed music. But with Beam Me Up, the guys have delivered… a typical boy group track. Its most interesting aspect (to me) is its large amount of Japanese lyrics. The song is divided almost equally between Japanese, Korean and English, making for an international brew that targets multiple markets at once.
There are some cool ideas happening in the production, too. The electric guitar is especially nice, though the instrumental feels like it’s mixed too low compared to the vocals. The members sound great on the chorus, delivering an SM-style blend that elevates an otherwise bland melody. But ultimately, there’s nothing here we couldn’t get from a fully-human idol group, making Superkind feel more extraneous than they should.
| Hooks | 7 |
| Production | 8 |
| Longevity | 8 |
| Bias | 7 |
| RATING | 7.5 |
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
ok uhhh….can we at least have a bridge pls.
8.5 for me (9, 9, 7, 9)
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also im not a huge fan of the autotune they used in the second verse…
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that isnt autotune… it is a synthesizer/vocal effect… it fit perfectly fine with the instrumental…
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Funnily enough I was reading about this group the other day and I found out that for a while, one of the virtual members was “on hiatus,” which is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read in my life
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maybe accidentally deleted the file
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As a matter of fact they did make an official statement about his software needing an upgrade or some shit like that 😭
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That takes the phrase “cancel culture” to a whole other level.
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I just want to point out that there’s no such thing as AI idols because AI equals artificial intelligence (obviously.) AI isn’t developed enough for that to even be possible yet. Virtual idols are created by humans while there’s real people essentially voice acting for the characters and the people behind the characters often use motion capture, so with that explanation out of the way, I don’t really get why there’s such discourse around virtual idols when they are still idols through and through – they choose not to show their faces/reveal their identities to the public which considering how toxic the kpop industry is, I can’t say I blame them for doing so. Anyway. I recommend checking out PLAVE and Apoki. Both artists put out music that I think you’d like.
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This is a fair point. I think I would feel differently about it if the marketing was transparent about the fact that there’s a real person behind these virtual idols (idk if that’s the case for all of them, even— some of the older ones look too cheap to even be motion capture lol)
But the thing is that these companies insist on talking about virtual idols in this fictitious way, which I think encourages people to accept the “AI” angle, if you know what I mean. Like I read a quote from a member of superkind saying they “feel close” to the virtual member. It’s weird how they have to do this and I actually think it’d be cool to meet this person behind the virtual idol and do behind the scenes stuff, even if their face is covered and identity is still hidden.
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Just realized that this song is a chimera of 2 songs in the EP, which reminds me of SHINee Sherlock/Clue and NCT Resonance. Listened to the EP and the individual songs comprising the title track, and they’re all bland. Plus points for the fact that they combine 2 songs into 1, though.
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Speed (2D) + Beam Me Up (3D) = Beam Me Up (2Dx3D)
Sherlock is still the best hybrid song in K-pop. No hybrid can surpass Sherlock.
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I wouldn’t have guessed it’s a hybrid mix of two songs. It’s actually quite seamless and fits together well. Unlike other songs that very obviously sound like two or more songs were chopped up and pasted together, but are purported to just be one “edgy” track.
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I just found out today that Superkind disbanded last month.
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