BABYMONSTER, More Than Just an Old-fashioned Strategy
[더팩트=정병근 기자] Industry officials said that this year for YG will be a “Year full of change”. With BLACKPINK’s contract terminating this year, and whether they’ll renew their contract being unclear as of now, the corporation’s value will be evaluated. Adding on to this, expectations are running high with YANG HYUN SUK, YG’s executive producer, resolving his judicial risks, and the performance of YG’s 7-member rookie girl group BABYMONSTER.
Including BABYMONSTER, YG plans to add wings to their artists’ content including G-DRAGON, BLACKPINK, WINNER, AKMU, and TREASURE. Attention is particularly drawn to whether BABYMONSTER will be a success, as it’s YANG HYUN SUK’s first official launch ever since he returned to YG as an executive producer.
Even though it’s been a month since YG notified the launch of BABYMONSTER, all of its members haven’t even been unveiled yet. This is quite slow compared to industry trends. But there’s something very interesting about this. The skills these members have are more than enough to fill in that time gap. With only 6 1~2 minute videos, it’s expected that the group will surpass 1 million cumulative views on YouTube. This clearly shows how much interest is being paid to the group.
BABYMONSTER was known as the group YG has been preparing for years now. At the end of last year, YG made the launch official by unveiling a poste showing 7 silhouettes, and the members garnered even more attention with their live performance clips. As it’s shown in the figures, they are already seeing explosive popularity. They’re definitely the rookie-group receiving the most spotlight this year.
It’s quite common for agencies to release content ahead of their debut for promotion. But it’s difficult to get as much attention as BABYMONSTER. Based on the trust people have about YG trainees as ‘Made By YG’, the members gained even more attention with their outstanding skills.
Unlike other major entertainment agencies, YG has always been quite conservative when it came to launching idol groups. But whenever they do so, the presence they held was more than top class. In terms of girl groups, both 2NE1 who made their debut in 2009 and BLACKPINK who made their debut in 2016 became the best girl group of all time. BLACKPINK, who has 84 million subscribers, is practicing enormous global influence as an artist.
BABYMONSTER is a girl group YG is releasing in 7 years since BLACKPINK. They became YG trainees after beating through a competition rate of thousands to one, and received training for an average of 4 years. They’re known to be a multi-national girl group.
YG is more than confident about the group and is expecting them to take over the music scene, as YG’s executive producer YANG HYUN SUK notified the launch himself in 3 years and 6 months as a producer. Producer Yang said, “They’re babies that have the genes of YG. They’re the first group we’ll be launching in our new building, and they shocked me over the past 4 years during monthly evaluations”.
HARAM, which was the first to stand in front of the public, reinterpreted Mario’s ‘Let Me Love You’ with her own emotions. Her vocal skills and level of understanding made it difficult to believe she is only 15 years. Without any special stage effects, she filled the whole space with her soul, singing on top of the piano sounds. Her ability to control her strength and the details were more than outstanding.
AHYEON, which was the second to be unveiled, was also 15 years old. She sang Saweetie & GALXARA’s ‘Sway With Me’, and showed how she can be an all-rounder with her explosive rap and outstanding singing skills. Her confident energy, expressions, and hip-hop swag were enough to amaze the viewers.
CHIQUITA is a 13-year-old girl from Thailand. She interpreted JJ Lin’s ‘Bedroom’ in her very own style. She expressed complicated emotions after a break-up with her soulful voice and proved her expression skills despite being so young. She even showed techniques of going back and forth between different voices.
ASA from Japan is 16 years old. She performed to ‘Joyner Lucas-Look Alive(Remix)’ and swept the stage with her trendy voice and explosive rapping. Viewers could see her intense hip-hop identity by seeing her freely dancing along the beat and enjoying the stage.
The 5th member that was revealed was a 14-year-old Korean member, RORA. She sang Kiana Ledé’s ‘Forfeit’ and dug into the heart of audiences with her low-tone voice. She knew how to control her strength as if she’s swimming along the music, and her trendy groove was more than enough to put the audience in shock. She even showed how relaxed she was by showing subtle smiles during the performance.
Just like Producer YANG’s confident introduction, all 5 members of BABYMONSTER unveiled so far boast outstanding skills. Now, 3 more members, a Korean, Thai, and Japanese member will be unveiled.
However, we’re living in times where 8 episodes of a drama are unveiled in a single day. The strategy of releasing one member every 4 days might seem old-fashioned. Their strategy stands in contrast with NewJeans’ strategy where they omitted the teasing content process and suddenly appeared in front of the public – which became a great success.
But if you think of this differently, this is YG’s color and is a representation of how confident they are about the team and each and every member. The reason why they released the live clips in black and white is that they want the public to judge them objectively with their skills while focusing on their voices and energy. With the amount of attention the group is receiving already, it’s quite obvious that their confidence is working very well.
The clip where YG artists introduce BABYMONSTER for the first time has already surpassed 30 million views, and apart from RORA’s clip, which was the most recent clip, all their dance performance and live performance clips have surpassed 100 million views. In the shock of their skills, global fans are showing their expectations for BABYMONSTER. They’ve already received 2.5 million likes and 150,000 comments on their YouTube clips.
Although the exact date of their debut hasn’t been unveiled yet when looking at the speed of their promotion, it’s most likely they’ll make their debut sometime in March. With competition among rookie girl-groups becoming more intense since last year, attention is being drawn to whether BABYMONSTER can live up to the title of YG’s next-class girl group.
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