London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

Saharial’s Entertainment Weekly: SISTAR19’s sultry single, LEDapple’s covers and more

Teen Top performed in London on Friday as part of their European Tour. Due to release a full length album at the end of February, the concert sounds like it was a success and is sure to herald more acts coming to the UK in the future. They continue to Paris (a sell out date) and Barcelona in the next two days. Another group with an eye on Europe is KARA (DSP) who have had an offer from Kobalt Media to begin promotions on our side of the world after their success in Japan. (Now that‘s a band I’d go to see. Ed)

Daesung

In YG news – Daesung from BigBang has his Japanese debut in the next two weeks under the alias D-lite. The PV for the single ‘Utautai no ballad’ can be seen here, and the full album will have twelve songs.

SHINee (SM Ent) are due to release their third full length album on 19 February, with teaser photos already being released. The title track and indeed the full album will be released on iTunes as well as in physical format. Musical teasers will be posted next week if released. U-KISS (NH Media) also have a 3rd album due out in March.

CNBlue

CNBlue’s management company FNC has been vindicated in the buy-back speculation mentioned last week. The monthly figures for the Gaon/Hanteo charts have been released showing there is no foul play. The mini album continues to do well in Korea as well as Japan and Taiwan and I hope we gte to see them return here after April when they begin their first world Tour.

Classiquai had their comeback this week and released their 5th album ‘Blessed’. Love Recipe is their current single – a stylish ballad. (Currently on my iTunes playlist. Ed)

Kan Jong-wook: Stupid

Kan Jong-wook of the group J2 has released a ballad single ‘Stupid’. A powerful voice, he has been making his name ‘Prince of OST’ for his work on recent dramas. A powerful and rich voice he conveys emotion well and I can see why he has become popular.

Psy has confirmed a new song in April. Back from promoting in China he is now the most followed Korean celeb on Weibo (Chinese Twitter) and after a short time with his family for New year has already jetted off to the USA and then will continue to Brazil, back to Korea and then in March onto Malaysia to attend the Future Music Festival. His pistachio commercial (video here) duly screened during the Super Bowl, along with a range of ads from Samsung, Hyundai and Kia.

B.A.P

B.A.P (TS entertainment) are about to celebrate their 1 year anniversary as a group. The teaser for this boyband’s single ‘One Shot’ doesn’t say much, but I’m sure its has fans of the group excited about the upcoming release. They have been doing well in Germany this year with their song ‘Warrior’.

Still from Nu'est MV Hello

Nu’EST (Pledis) also have a teaser out for their ballad ‘hello’ whose visual reminds me of Kim Ki-Duk’s ‘3-iron’.

And SISTAR19, a sub-unit duo of the girl group SISTAR (Starship Ent), have continued to dominate the kpop hot 1000 Billboard chart for the last 9 days with their song 있다 없으니까 (Gone Not around any longer). Singer Hyorin, who drama fans will know from ‘Dream High 2’, has a very lovely voice with a husky edge to it, and the song – a catchy mid tempo ballad – is worth listening to. Check out the MV here for the sexy, stylish and graceful choreography.

LEDapple

LEDApple (Startory Entertainment) have released a digital single ‘I’ll be there for you’. They also released covers of SHINee’s ‘Sherlock’, which can be heard here plus Girls’ Generation‘s “Mr. Taxi“, Bruno Mars’s “Talking to the Moon“, and Big Bang’s “Love Song

And finally, the NUGU section:1

Purplay

Purplay, a four girl vocal group with an electronic club beat track, from the sounds of the teaser – but their choreographers already face accusations of plagiarism.

  1. Nugu is the label given to all new bands at debut. Taken from the the Korean ‘Nugu?’ meaning who? []

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.