ANTM and Kpop collaboration?

News of America's Next Top Model (ANTM) and K-pop seems to have hit the news waves, in particular because ANTM was shooting in South Korea for Seoul Fashion Week. ANTM, from what I gather, has decreased in viewer ratings in the U.S. and seem to be capitalizing on the Kpop craze.  There are pictures of Miss Jay (one of the judges and the catwalk instructor, for those who don't know) tweeted a picture with BTOB (who appeared as judges on the show). Also, models (often used in ANTM for concepts), famous people, and also a performance by 2NE1.

Fashion, Kpop, and ANTM. Who knew?

Lady Gaga and... Crayon Pop

In case you hadn't heard already, Lady Gaga recently announced the opening act for her upcoming tour: K-pop group Crayon Pop. Do you know them? Perhaps not, but they wear helmets and jump up and down, if that helps you at all. T-ara also started their career with a signature paws for their first song, and Crayon Pop now looks to headline one of the biggest music acts. Lady Gaga recently announced it on twitter, as did Billboard, so we know it to be true, and I wonder if this will mean anything for Crayon Pop's international career. 

And the other question, at least I asked immediately, was why? Why Crayon Pop and not another group? They are relatively new, so they don't exactly bring anything to the table for Lady Gaga's tour.

Of course, there is also the comparison between the Wonder Girls / Jonas Brothers and Crayon Pop / Lady Gaga. Of course, Wonder Girls were significantly more established than Crayon Pop in Korea, whereas Lady Gaga is significantly more popular as a pop artist than Jonas Brothers in the U.S. And of course, she has connections to a non-tween fan group that will certainly cement Crayon Pop more. So we'll see what happens with this latest development.

Relationships: the catch 22

So a culmination of a multiple of things I've seen recently made me want to watch this post.

I'm watching K-pop star (more on my favorite people later) but one of the things Park Jin-Young (head of JYP Entertainment) said to one of the youngest auditionees the past two rounds was that because she was young and didn't have as many experiences (particularly relationship-wise) her singing wasn't emotional.

Despite the fact that I would counter that by saying you can use other experiences in your life, not only from romantic relationships to portray emotion in songs even about heartache, that's actually not the point of this post.

So where am I getting to?

New Kpop Group... Jackie Chan style?

Apologies for the lack of posting these past couple of days but let's get right to it.

I flagged this news piece so I could write on it. Jackie Chan is creating a male Kpop group called JJCC (I read somewhere it was for Jackie Jackie Chan Chan... but I can't seem to find that report anymore. It's looking like they will go by "Double JC"). 

Anyway, in their 20s, 4 of the members are Korean and 1 is Australian-Chinese. 

So why did I feel the need to flag this news report? 

Kpop to Socal (Southern California) & YG

Every year, there is a Kpop festival at the Hollywood Bowl. This year, or actually I believe most years, it's held in May. This year, KBS has agreed to sponsor a free festival in the LA area, with a good K-pop lineup. I'm actually curious as to why they agreed to this, considering there is the Hollywood Bowl concert each year, and its a pretty hefty price tag to bring everyone to the U.S. for one concert. But that actually isn't the main story in this post.

Why SoCal (for those who don't know... SoCal = Southern California)?
Well, in terms of Korean diaspora, Southern California has the largest Korean Diaspora population in the U.S. The greater Los Angeles area is the #1 metropolitan area with the highest Korean American population (see the 2010 Census, or.. wikipedia)

Several K-pop stars hail from the LA area as well, including Tiffany (SNSD), Nicole (Kara), Nichkhun (2pm) and more. In part, because well... because there are k-pop concerts and also places to audition. Particularly with the rise of survival audition TV shows, one of the locations guaranteed to go appears to be LA (and also NY seems to be another popular spot) for K-pop Star, Superstar K, Birth of a Great Star, ect. In addition to concerts (Kim Bum Soo, 2ne1, Big Bang, SM).

So why am I bringing this up?