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glitteryvSTAYC (their name is an acronym for Star To A Young Culture) is a 6-member girl group that debuted back in 2020. I knew of them because of a random YouTube docu (that I think you can only watch on YT Premium?) called K-Pop Evolution.
Each hourlong episode covered an aspect of K-Pop: its origin, the first idols, the globalization of K-Pop, Fandoms, Trainee Life, how K-Pop MVs get made, and how trainees end up debuting as a group. FWIW, although I do think they went a bit too heavy with mentioning BTS (they don't appear in the docu per se; only clips from concerts do), it's a good starter pack for folks who might be curious abt that whole world.
In any case, there was that one episode that focused on how an agency chooses trainees from its roster. It's partly told from the trainees' POV (there are many scenes of them practicing in order to make the cut; their dorms; short interviews with some of the trainees) AND the other half is told from the execs' POV (the SRS BIZNESS meetings where the producers and directors assess each trainee; the planning that goes on given that they have an actual deadline to prepare a group for debut.) There's some drama (some of it due to Year 1 of Panini) too. At the end, 6 trainees go thru the final elimination and STAYC is born.
Musically-speaking, STAYC's "thing" is cute and upbeat music. Their songs are meant to shake you out of a bad/sad mood. There was one attempt to move past that image via a late July 2022 title track called "Beautiful Monster" that was a bit of a 180 turn. The song itself is fine? But, even though the members were v. excited abt it, fans didn't vibe with it. IMO, I think it was a matter of the song being somewhat too mature (both in terms of mood and melody) for a group of mostly older teens (3 out of the 6 members were under 20 y.o. and the oldest member was 21 at the time.)
So STAYC decided to go back to the bright and adorable concepts that are, LBR here, their wheelhouse. NO ONE DOES THAT CONCEPT AS WELL AS STAYC DOES. #IT'S A FACT
Their latest song is called "Bubble". Despite the loopy MV, the lyrics are pretty good (like most of STAYC songs are, actually. There is a lot of thoughtfulness under all that fluff.) The members sing abt how awesome it is to be weird. There's this one line ("I'm one of a kind and I like it this way") that I like (and I can imagine being v. comforting to many.) It's also pretty neat how they equate other folks' negative criticisms as 'bubbles' that they (STAYC) choose to pop cuz they don't have time for that, heheh.
The MV
Trigger warnings: Plenty of visual f/x from beginning to end
Dance Practice
Fave live performance
Trigger warning: V. INTENSE BACKGROUND GRAPHICS, typical K-Pop show camerawork that includes a lot of tilting and zooming in/out, flashing stage lights, and the crowd is singing-yelling (fanchanting).
Each hourlong episode covered an aspect of K-Pop: its origin, the first idols, the globalization of K-Pop, Fandoms, Trainee Life, how K-Pop MVs get made, and how trainees end up debuting as a group. FWIW, although I do think they went a bit too heavy with mentioning BTS (they don't appear in the docu per se; only clips from concerts do), it's a good starter pack for folks who might be curious abt that whole world.
In any case, there was that one episode that focused on how an agency chooses trainees from its roster. It's partly told from the trainees' POV (there are many scenes of them practicing in order to make the cut; their dorms; short interviews with some of the trainees) AND the other half is told from the execs' POV (the SRS BIZNESS meetings where the producers and directors assess each trainee; the planning that goes on given that they have an actual deadline to prepare a group for debut.) There's some drama (some of it due to Year 1 of Panini) too. At the end, 6 trainees go thru the final elimination and STAYC is born.
Musically-speaking, STAYC's "thing" is cute and upbeat music. Their songs are meant to shake you out of a bad/sad mood. There was one attempt to move past that image via a late July 2022 title track called "Beautiful Monster" that was a bit of a 180 turn. The song itself is fine? But, even though the members were v. excited abt it, fans didn't vibe with it. IMO, I think it was a matter of the song being somewhat too mature (both in terms of mood and melody) for a group of mostly older teens (3 out of the 6 members were under 20 y.o. and the oldest member was 21 at the time.)
So STAYC decided to go back to the bright and adorable concepts that are, LBR here, their wheelhouse. NO ONE DOES THAT CONCEPT AS WELL AS STAYC DOES. #IT'S A FACT
Their latest song is called "Bubble". Despite the loopy MV, the lyrics are pretty good (like most of STAYC songs are, actually. There is a lot of thoughtfulness under all that fluff.) The members sing abt how awesome it is to be weird. There's this one line ("I'm one of a kind and I like it this way") that I like (and I can imagine being v. comforting to many.) It's also pretty neat how they equate other folks' negative criticisms as 'bubbles' that they (STAYC) choose to pop cuz they don't have time for that, heheh.
The MV
Trigger warnings: Plenty of visual f/x from beginning to end
Dance Practice
Fave live performance
Trigger warning: V. INTENSE BACKGROUND GRAPHICS, typical K-Pop show camerawork that includes a lot of tilting and zooming in/out, flashing stage lights, and the crowd is singing-yelling (fanchanting).
