People obviously would take advantage of fan culture to bring in some more money in various ways at the expense of fans watching and supporting their artists, like through competition. It’s been a week since the “Kingdom” finale and I had a lot of thoughts about it so I might as well just write about them.
“Kingdom” wasn’t like any other talent competition because they feature those who are already in the industry, in this case, K-pop. It was preceded by “Queendom” (Hwasa and Kei’s unit performance, Mamamoo’s “I Miss You”) in 2019, and “Road to Kingdom” that featured even newer groups in 2020. So they’d done this before. The channel that produced and broadcasted them isn’t exactly free from controversy, with some issues with other artists or entertainment companies in the past, and even leading up to the premiere of the show, there were some issues and concerns regarding fairness and contestants of the show. After all, it’s a show that’s supposed to bring in money so the show still went on.
A brief about who are participating and what I can highlight about my impressions and their runs on the show.
- The Boyz. Known for having the most number of members, their dance precision and synchronicity. It’s like watching an army marching. Their numbers become their advantage as they had more tools to work out their well-executed concept to show off the group uniform movement, which mostly were inspired by Game of Thrones, one of them being “The Red Wedding”. Other GOT references: “A Song of Ice and Fire” and “Stormborn”. They raised people’s expectations on the show as they were the winner of Road to Kingdom (Taemin’s “Danger” cover, “Reveal”, “Checkmate”), thus advancing them to the actual Kingdom show this year. They were already showing the level of creativity with performance, camera work, staging, and visuals combined last year — daredevils when it comes to stunts and props indeed. One moment that stood out was just the brief seconds during the 100 seconds Introduction Stage, “The Stealer” (Epic version), where post-chorus, they suddenly did an arabesque to piano melody and strings accompaniment, shifting to a softer contemporary routine in contrast to the sharp hard-hitting moves from the beginning. I found myself binge-watching Juyeon and Q’s fancam because daymmn, I am never not in awe with their dancing and acting. Having that number of members may be a challenge for the general public to keep up with as well because so far I had only seen Juyeon by himself on the variety show, “Hangout with Yoo” during the episodes that remade a Yoo Jaesuk’s old show and invited variety rookies, like LOONA’S Chu, rising actor Jo Byung-gyu, Kim Hye-yoon, and other junior comedians and rappers. With their numbers, it’s hard to recognize who’s who but all in all, having the most number of performances prepared (from Road to Kingdom) definitely has put them on a map, which certainly makes us wonder “how were they able to come up with that many ideas for that many people?”.
- ATEEZ. Probably one of those types of groups or artists that have stronger international fandom compared to local (by local, meaning Korean) so that is why the show is another great opportunity for them also to show their talents. They have appeared and won on Immortal Songs, and I had “Answer” on repeat. Turned out I was hooked with was Jongho in the chorus, the group’s maknae, and one of the most exciting vocalists in the new gen to look forward to (who happens to be able to split and squash fruits open with bare hands while singing). Also got chills when they performed it on MAMA 2020. It was especially memorable because it’s been a while since I watched stuff on TV. Then during the show, I was drawn into San’s fancam (here for more San, and here for a compilation of San), and also Hongjoong’s (the leader, rapper, and producer of the group) because he just exuded the charisma that I really enjoyed watching.
- SF9. The only group that I had no first impression of before the show. I only knew that they come from the same company as F.T. Island and CN Blue, and a few of their members in K-drama or hosting music shows (e.g. Rowoon, Chani). I had seen Taeyang, the main dancer, did a penche and aerial during a special performance film that put together all groups’ main dancers. Once the show started, soon the other groups and all of us noticed their towering model-like figures — their body lines are definitely amazing to watch when dancing. That made their performances even more interesting to look forward to because think about the gorgeous lines that they could have with their physique. They had a great run rising to the top — that showed that they could only get better after each round. They were playing along with their sexy image at first but later they sent a message “we’re humans before products”, as we see that underneath their “ideal” figures, they could still laugh, be excited, and cry too. Honorable mention for Chani’s part in MOVE because we used to see him being the innocent, model high school or university student — that filial son in K-drama like in Signal or SKY Castle.
- iKon. You may have heard “Love Scenario” that we all can vibe in together. It was that song back then in 2018, deserving all the public attention and awards. I was surprised to know that they have already been in several competition shows, especially the group’s rappers who competed individually before debuting as a group. iKon, as expected, maintained that YG sound and showed why they had become the inspiration for some of the contestants, especially by fellow rappers. Their footing with their own sound was what made it exciting to watch as it really felt like something that they would do at a live concert, and the price would be worth it (context: to achieve the desired concepts and due to having no audience, most of the performances are more suited for TV or a short film) so of all the groups that have both raps and dance elements down, iKon is the one that would be able to pull off live performance very easily, just like how their confidence just oozed effortlessly out every time they performed. I regret not being familiar with each of the members because everyone just had a different tone that I really like. It was a nice experience watching a group that just performed and express themselves; going in different directions with different intentions from other groups, and not tied into something. They did one thing really really well and that was to command everybody watching.
- BTOB. You may have heard “Missing You” or “Beautiful Pain”. Probably not the group that we’d expect for a competition that had us imagining the crazy stunts, intricate dances, and concepts. One person tweeted that how would great vocalists like Changsub compete against a 20-year old who could jump off from a 6-feet platform or do acrobat moves? That’s because they are far more seniors — they’ve been around since the early 2010s (while most of the contestants were still in school) and mostly considered as a vocal group. They indeed represent the other end of the spectrum, being the oldest, more experienced, and consists of some of the industry’s best and most well-known vocalists like Eunkwang or Changsub. It was unfortunate that two of their members were still in the military but that’s why their participation in Kingdom was also so surprising because they were announced much later than the other, and that it was Minhyuk’s idea to try it out after they debuted a quartet sub-unit last year. I would’ve love to see Sungjae in the competition but the BTOB hyungs never ran out of dongsaeng to play around with. They really brought in the warmth, friendliness, and ice-breakers because all of them are such crackheads (undeniably still having that charisma, I mean, look at Eunkwang in shirt, black and white shoes for their No Limit performance). And for their ‘finale’, BTOB was back with their standing mics like when they first performed.
- Stray Kids was another rabbit hole that I fell into just last year during the pandemic. It started with “God’s Menu”, “T.O.P”, “Blueprint”, and the one that solidified my obsession with them, “Back Door”. I was just amazed at the amount of work they’ve been able to do in not just a year, but in less than three years since debuting in 2017; the group’s rappers and producers (3RACHA: Bang Chan, Seo Changbin, and Han Jisung) each bagged 60–70 copyrighted songs credited their names, which were quite a lot for artists that only started towards the late 2010s. Their strength has always been with their music; be it the lyrics or arrangement. They are very confident with their own directions because they are sure in what they put in and put out; starting from the introduction in MAMA, they performed “Victory Song”, which was a B-track released 18 months prior. It was what they wanted to convey at the time so it made sense for them and the fans. For their 100 seconds Introduction Stage, they redistributed the parts for “Miroh” to fit all eight members. This was just a glimpse of the extent they were willing to do by making changes even from the track as well. They showed an even more, darker, grungier side, and conceptualization taken from their lyrics and wordplay with a God’s Menu x Side Effects mash-up, then their emotional side through a cover of BTOB’s vocally-challenging “I’ll Be Your Man”. An honorable mention for Han Jisung who again got people asking “isn’t he a rapper?”, and Changbin’s singlehandedly doing the two people-rap with a couple of breaths, that just rumbling underneath supporting Han and Seungmin’s high long notes. Can I quickly mention that the piano as a heartrate monitor in the first verse was really haunting?
I might be biased toward them, although I decided to watch the show because I had known half of the groups (besides BTOB and iKon) as well. I put down a playlist of ATEEZ, The Boys, and Stray Kids’ videos link for those who have yet to know them. And in one year, it’s been wonderful to see them grow.
In their No Limit round performance, they incorporated their stories facing the shockwave and quenching their thirst for overcoming the challenges with Blackpink’s “Ddu du ddu du”,
Spit out the “ddu ddu ddu ddu ddu”, snap your neck “ttuk ttuk ttuk”
Peel off the mask of the innocent sheep
A wolf with eyes gone mad, I’m a sucker for pain
Control the unnecessary tension
I am thirsty at the summit, give me some water, I want it.
I am predator of any prey that comes my way
I can’t pretend to be nice
No thanks to joking around from thе first round
Better raise up your hеad
I’ll show you up when you’re off guard
Then with Blackpink’s original lyrics, “think twice, I can’t pretend to be nice like everyone else. Don’t be mistaken, it’s for me to smile easily. You probably still don’t know me well. If you really want to, test me. You are as obvious as seeing the fire. If you wanted something easy. Oh, wait ’til I do what I do” sort of warning us that they have more things to show, making it not just an anthem of unapologetically confident about themselves and embracing swaggers but also a proclamation of who they are. “Stray Kids World Domination” indeed. They catapulted themselves with their God’s Menu last year, with the infamous, “ige uri tang, tang tang, tang! DU DU DU DU DU DU!”.
Stray Kids everywhere all around the world
Hit you with that, hit you with that
Du, du, du, du, du, du
Ranking the performances
Nah, kidding. I wouldn’t dare to put a number before each performance but if I or someone has to, most probably the Mayfly vocal unit sits at number 1, and everything else comes after in second. Everything comes down to our preference; some are visual performers so every detail needs to be captured by 10 cameras for better viewing experiences to captivate us, some others are
live performers who don’t use as much but the energy is undoubtedly felt to just equally captivate us.
In this performance, we can see how BTOB’s Eunkwang, who is 10 years senior or sunbae of Stray Kids’ Seungmin and ATEEZ’s Jongho, really did a great job with the distribution and supporting the two juniors or hobae, both of whom are Millenium babies. Just from their position, forming a triangle where Jongho and Seungmin are steps ahead Eunkwang; Eunkwang “being there”; the way they communicated each other with their eyes; how their voices just blended and dissipated at the right time for others to shine; the simplicity of the stage— I haven’t been this speechless watching a vocal performance during the pandemic. Both Seungmin and Jongho’s group might not have been able to allow them to shine the way they did —and it’s not anyone’s fault, performing as a group is different from performing as individuals. Thus this performance is something that will always be remembered. It just felt like another landmark for both of them. Seungmin said it himself that one day he’ll look back to this performance again — and it deserves to be watched again, even someday I hope they get to sing together again, just how special, one in a million kind of thing, the performance was. If only they release the studio version, otherwise I will convert it into audio myself.
Watching the show, we can also agree that creativity is being stretched to its limit. Other than the series of Game of Thrones’ reference (The Boyz), there were also some references to Pirates of the Caribbean (ATEEZ), Money Heist (ATEEZ), Deadpool (Stray Kids), La La Land (BTOB), and mafia movies (SF9). Giant animals like squid and snake also made an appearance. Some of the performances also featured parts of Dvorak’s “New World” symphony, Schubert’s “Erlkonig”, Vivaldi’s “Summer”, Mozart’s piano concerto, and even Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”. As a fan of musical theatre and orchestral music, the show still managed to find ways to incorporate the dramatic visual, and audio story-telling with the storyline and the different musical styles and nuances.
I have been deprived of competition shows because So You Think You Can Dance hasn’t returned yet, and many of the long-running shows were probably also halted because of the pandemic. The older formats have kinda plateaued, for me at least. Not sure how singing/talent/dance competition shows or shows like “The Amazing Race” could be refreshed. I feel we need to get past the “competitiveness” spirit, abandoning the one-dimensional tropes, cattiness, backhanded compliments, and trash-talking in the confessional booth, or occasional eye-rolls (unless it’s RuPaul’s Drag Race), instead of entertainment seeing the creativity, the vulnerability, and the joy in doing what they do. There are ways to “do whatever it takes” but still put a focus on our own performance — when people say, “we’re competing against ourselves”, then what matters the most is how far they’ve improved from before. That is why it has been a nice couple of weekends catching up with the show.
Here comes the cliche,
Everybody is a winner. They were able to show what a music show, music video, or a brief interview can’t especially in the ultra-competitive industry. That makes a couple of minutes of performance and interactions even more significant to not only showcase their talent but also their individualities and the hard work behind their team. They got to show themselves to not only just fans but also other groups’ fans and a fraction of the general public. Although BTOB participated as a contestant and TVXQ’s Changmin (my first bias) took the role as an MC, they have certainly been reintroduced to the newer and global audience too. Let this also be a reminder that it is important to give everyone a stage. We’ll never know what we’re gonna get.
At first, people were already expecting snake edits, as there were several brow-raising questions, but we got wholesome interaction between groups that will continue to linger on the internet. From showing support from the side of the stage in the beginning, to comfortably cheered for each other in the narrow corridors and backstage. Not to mention the reactions of other groups during each performance in the waiting room. It has reopened my eyes to how other groups and artists are restricted from a lot of things. It was also very refreshing to see how the producer, leader, main dancer, and main vocalist were able to bring the dynamics (where else would we see DK and Hyunjae, the main dancers of iKon and The Boyz respectively, being in a vocal unit for the special stage in the final episode?) in facing the different hiccups. Let them just be themselves and do what they feel like it. We also need to keep in mind that most of these groups have unfortunately lost a member for various reasons, like hiatus or leaving the group.
We know we will not stop talking about Changbin-Wooyoung's friendship from the first episode they told each other “let’s grow taller…” after seeing SF9’s towering physique, Eunkwang’s “Hey, Mr. Chan”, Felix being “adopted”, Minhyuk being everyone’s hyung and visual. When I saw Minhyuk interacting with Soobin in a music show several months ago (because of how their resemblance to each other), I realized that now that there is a big hole when it comes to senior-junior interaction, especially when they are from different companies. The Sport’s Day episode definitely was a great intermission and served as a nice bonding activity for the groups although, at that point, they were grouped into two, it wasn’t short of lovely moments. The show may have ended but this opens up a door for what can happen in the future, and many people should be comfortable in expressing support and being comfortable with themselves and other people, including their works because after all, they work hard to inspire and make our lives better. Certainly, businesses need to compete, but artists, as humans, should be allowed to enjoy and engage with others. That is why it is very refreshing to see friendships blossoming or strengthening again. No one else knows what it feels like to be in their position other than fellow K-pop idol groups. It’s inspiring to see the camaraderie amidst the tight-grip competition.
But can I just say that the bigger winners are also the artists whose work inspires the Kingdom performances? Besides the films or classical pieces, we had two female soloists, Taeyeon, IU, and Blackpink for having two songs covered. We also got to celebrate Taemin’s iconic MOVE, which is just basically an ultra-soft Magic Mike (before his scheduled military enlistment at the end of May).
Joining and/or winning the competition can bring a lot of benefits that may serve them as groups who will always be the face of the production team, supporting performers, and leaders behind them who poured out ideas and worked long hours to make the performances happen. After all, this is an industry that employs many people and brings in revenue to the country. But it is rare to have millions of people witnessing the growth in less than a year. We witnessed how Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and many others evolved throughout the years as they grew older; the same as all six participants of Kingdom who have grown in their own ways as a group. If they can grow and pull off different things in less than a year, what can they do in five or ten years? Even outside the competition, many K-pop acts are not just one-dimensional as they have been able to showcase different sides and just as impressive growth without the competition element. I wish that audience will always remember that there are hundreds even thousands of people working on an artist, thus appreciation is the least we can provide in return. They have all earned them.
