| Every year, we all make a big deal about the year's best, about all of the really good things that happened. It's great, right? All that positivity going into the new year? Well, maybe. But I've always felt that a healthy dose of skepticism helps keep things in check. Boundless optimism means nothing if all you do with it is make the same mistakes as last year. So, in the interest of figuring out what went wrong this year, in order to weigh it against what goes wrong next year, I'm going though my biggest disappointments of 2013. From B.A.P's lack luster follow-through, through the actively offensive M!net 'reality' show #mykpop, all the way up to so-called experts deciding 'mind-blowing' and 'successful' by made up rules... |
| In all honesty, 2013 was a year without much in it to make me angry. I get up in arms pretty quickly if I find something ridiculous going on, particularly if other people refuse to recognize it. The worst part of 2013 in the Kpop world from my perspective were the weeks between late January and early May. There were some bright spots, some really great releases, but over all it was a pretty blah period. Especially in comparison to the West, which saw 2 break-out star albums drop, and 3 comebacks from legends, including Fall Out Boy. This is the first year since I got into Kpop that I have ever thought that the year's music releases in the West were even comparable, and honestly I'm saying it was better. | 
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| But truly, there's not too much I disliked this year. B.A.P is probably my biggest letdown group this year. They started out beautifully. One Shot is easily one of the very best MVs of the year, possibly the decade (at least so far). However, they've gotten less and less acceptable as the year's gone on... Coffee Shop wasn't terribly exciting, Hurricane was meh, and then Bad Man was just . . . awful is really the only word for it (read more HERE). They've such a great group that it's tragic to see them floundering like this. I'm hoping that they'll be back to their very best when they return in 2014. |
| The only other specific thing that peeved me this year was a reality tv show created by M!net. It followed a number of American Kpop fans and was supposed to show the world that people from all walks of life could enjoy Kpop. To that end, it only went so far. The fans they selected were predominantly female, and they were late-teens early 20's (with one older fellow, but he was still fairly young). It could have been a great moment in Kpop history, showing non-fans that fans aren't as psychotic as our reputation makes us seem. There's a huge stigma on Kpop, people I know are avid fans only admit to liking it in public if you press them on the issue, and even then it's often a guilty pleasure. It shouldn't be and #mykpop had a chance to prove that. Unfortunately, all it did was perpetuate the stereotype. Honestly, it was almost insulting how the focus was on fanaticism. Certainly, the whole personal story thin was neat, but the reason for the passionate love of Kpop from every participant was reduced to x personally spoke to y from my own life. It wasn't represented as something that was just plain good, which it easily could have. | 
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| Beyond those three things, there were only a few more issues I had with the Kpop world in 2013. SHINee's ridiculous number of comebacks got to be a little much, but all of them were pretty decent, especially Everybody, that was great. But it did start to feel excessive, unnecessarily excessive, and I began to worry more for their health than rejoice in their music. Another thing was EXO's releases: they were too strung out and disconnected, their tracks were really all variations on a single track (a great track granted). Henry's debut being marketed as some great step forward for him was also sort of off putting, though the debut itself was fun. |
Even with those little brown spots, 2013 was a pretty dang fantastic year! Here's to hoping that Kpop's 2014 is even better!!
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