iKON
What is good about this 7-member-South Korean Boy group?
It is November
and iKON is coming to town. On 18th November
2018, B.I, Bobby, Jinhwan, Ju-ne, Donghyuk, Yunhyeong and Chanwoo will be
holding a concert at Tennin Indoor Senayan, Jakarta as a part of their stop
from their Continue Tour all over Asia. Their last week concert at Asia Arena
in Manila, Philippines successfully attracted 18.000 iKONICS (iKON’s fan name)
and this week Jakarta concert is expected to draw same amount of hype.
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Who
is iKON ? What makes them special among the buzz of K-Pop World singers,
especially the ones called as idols.
Before we answer
these questions, let’s go digging further about what idol is in the context of
South Korea’s music industry.Big Bang is called an idol group. Likewise BTS,
who has named themselves as the biggest K-POP Acts in 2018. Name others, and
you will get popular names such as SNSD, 2NE1, Twice, Blackpink and more. On the
other hand, I.U is an artist as well as Paul Kim, Roy Kim and Akmu. The bottom
line for the separation is on the system of how both performers are born. The
former is born through systematic procedure; they are scouted from various
channels – audition, scouted on the street, trained for years as preparation
before debut, made certain images before being launched to the public – in this
case unfortunately we can say that they have similarity of products since the
soon-to-be singers’ image is defined and made by the company- Meanwhile the
later comes naturally into music industry. Both of them are performers, singing
songs to the public, yet the public has different treatment. Idol usually must
meet the expectations of fans, that’s why, often do we see the articles state
that they are not allowed to involve in romance relationship, drive, and should
behave well in front cameras etc.
Apart from the separation term
used to differ singers into artist and idol, some of them cross the boundary
and create vague definition in between. G-Dragon, the leader of K-POP’s re-known
group Big Bang, since the beginning of his career has involved a lot in the
production of his band’s music. A lot of Big Bang’s songs are written and produced
by him together with his band mates and other artist. Lies, Haru-Haru, Blue, Bad Boy, Fantastic
Baby, Monsters and many other Big Bang’s hit singles are created from
G-Dragon’s artistic touch as musicians. Other names such as B.T.S’s R.M,
(G).Idle’s Soo Yeon, Winner’s Mino, and iKON’s B.I are also considered as their
producers of their hit songs.
Let’s talk about B.I in connection with the
title of this article, What is good about 7 member South Korean boy group,
iKON?
iKON was firstly introduced to
the public via survival show program by Y.G Entertaintment, broadcast by Mnet
in 2013. They were known as Team B. At that time, there were 6 members aging
around 17 years old (Kim Hanbin –B.I, Kim Ji Won- Bobby, Kim Jinhwan, Song
Yunheong, Go Junheo, and Kim Donghyuk). They had to competed against Team A
(Song Minho, Lee Seunghoon, Kang Seungyoon, Nam Tahyun, and Kim Jinwoo) to get
a debut chance in 2014 under the name Winner. Unfortunately, They were lost to
Team A. One year later, Team B had to
compete once again in another survival show, produced by their company, Mix
& Match to debut as iKON. iKON means icon (English definition), letter c is
changed to k as representation of Korea. Therefore, iKON is spoken “aikon”,
not “aiken”. The program added another
new member for the existing 6 member named Jung Chanwoo.
On 15 September 2015,
they officially released their first single My Type, marking their journey as
K-Pop performers until now. At the beginning of their career, iKOn was dubbed
as the next Big Bang for several reasons. First, their leader, B.I has the
ability to compose songs in a similar way as Big Bang’s GD (My Type was
produced by B.I and became a pilot charter for iKON-previously this 1996 born-guy
also helped Winner with their first single Empty). Aside from that, Bobby- the lead rapper won
the pretigious rap competition (Show Me The Money 3), breaking the prejudice of
idol rapper in South Korea, even before iKON’s debut date was released. The
combo of B.I and Bobby and “friends” made them promising group as the next Big
Bang loaded with full of talents. This
was proven with iKON’s ability to pull any concepts and genre’s of music in
their album. In Welcome Back, their debut album, various song genres starting
from pop, both light and heavy hip-hop and rock were pull out well. Their main vocal – Go Ju-ne - has raspy
strong typical-rock vocal (one of a kind on K-Pop’s idol industry) who is able to belt from low pitch song until
high note (Rhytm Ta, Missing You So Bad). Another vocalist, Donghyuk a.k.a D.K
has soft voice with amazing falsetto completing this assortment with beautiful
vibe of songs. Not to be forgotten, Yunhyeong and Chanwoo who has the ability
to wrap up every songs with their not-too-much voices.
Besides singing most of their
self-composed songs, iKON is also involved in the production of their
choreography of their dancing performance. The program WIN together with Mix
and Match showcased the boys ability to create any dancing moves. This talent to
be applaud, of course, none other than the leader B.I. In one of the interview
conducted after releasing the single of their New Kids: Continue, B.I stated
that the choreography for the single Killing Me was created by the foreign
dancer, yet he and Donghyuk also participated in making some of the dance
parts. iKON’s involvement in almost most of their songs’s production proves
that this group also cross the blurred line between idol and artist.
2017 was titled as not so-good
year for iKON. Fierce competition among Korean's idols especially boy groups and few promotions in
Korea made them failed grasping the public attention. In addition to that, they
spent most of their time in overseas promotion in Japan and China. Their heavy
hip-hop singles like Bling-Bling and B-day didn't reach high position on the
chart. At the same time, BTS gained massive popularity domestically and overseas
(especially in the USA) , overshadowing other boy groups, iKON was not exception.
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The release of their second full
album, Return in 2018, marked their return to South Korea’s music industry with
a more mature and improved iKON. Love Scenario successfully peaked all
S.Korea’s music chart for the consecutive 43 days,a breaking record for Boy
Group, even for singers there. The simple beat of the song captured lots of general
public fans, not only the iKONICS, adults and even children enjoy the song as much as iKON's avid fans. The popularity of Love Scenario spreads outside Korea with the help of social media platform such as You Tube, making it as the most South Korean Popular song in 2018; this claim maybe is right in Indonesia.
Indonesians’ hype for iKON
Asian Games’s closing ceremony
held in Jakarta in August this year became the significant mark of iKON’s
popularity in Indonesia. Not only the K-Popers, the band’s name was suddenly
familiar among the general public in Indonesia. Referring to the comments posted
by Indonesian’s internet citizens under the Love Scenario’s video posted by SCTV,
thousands of comments positively
acknowledging the band’s quality in making the song and confessing as the
newly-made fans.In Indonesia, general public dont have positive image of K-Pop
performers as they are considered not manly enough (due to he excessive use of
make up for the men). Moreover, Gibran –
Indonesia’s president’s first son shows his fondness to the band by promoting
their music video’s Goodbye Road (released at the beginning of November) on his
Markobar (Gibran’s Indonesia’s pancake franchise) Instagram. He even offered
the 7 members of iKON free-life time martabak (Pancake) when the boy group comes
to Indonesia this week (sadly this offer got cold response from the promoter of
the concert).
So are you ready to welcome iKON?
They are definitely coming to town.
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