Discovering the talents of Code-V in their latest album, "Honestly"

The boys of Code-V --- (L to R): Min Ho, Jaewon, Naro, Sangwoo and Sol

I honestly wasn't sure what urged me to review Code-V's recently released album "Honestly". A lot of things weren't really working for their favor to get a lot of attention for their launch...

1. They aren't a well known Kpop group. For the most part, they are obscure internationally (I didn't even know about them, and I research a lot already!)

2. Their album didn't really ring a lot of bells in terms of media exposure. The album was released with the least amount of pomp I've seen for a group that seems to be making a comeback (yes, they've been around... since 2007, in fact! Although they've already changed group names already). No bells and whistles on Korean TV and not many appearances to help promote the album (which is really unusual for a male idol group).

What made me review this album then?

Well, you'd understand what I felt when I began to listen to their music. It's hard for me to admit, but this group is composed of some of the most talented vocalists I've ever heard in a male idol group.

Ladies and Gentlemen --- get ready to swoon over "Boyfriend"...

The boys of Boyfriend --- (L to R): Hyun Seong, Min Woo,
Kwang Min, Young Min, Dong Hyun, Jeong Min

I'm always game to review new acts when they come out. One new male idol group that has recently caught a lot of attention from a lot of people is the rookie group Boyfriend. These guys are being produced by Starship Entertainment, the same agency that backs up Sistar and K.Will --- which means they have a lot of starpower to back them up.

The 6-member male idol group, consisting of members Min Woo, Kwang Min, Young Min, Jeong Min, Dong Hyun and Hyun Seong, just recently released their debut mini-album and MV for their single "Boyfriend" last May 26. They've started promotions early for prior to the release of their album both through print and TV (they're debut is even being covered in a reality TV show!). With all the exposure, it's not surprising they've become instant stars practically overnight!

It's a wonderful 3rd Anniversary for SHINee!

The boys of SHINee --- (L to R): Minho, Key, Jong Hyun, Taemin, and Onew

I've been ACHING for a chance to able to write about my favorite male idol group, SHINee! (but I promise to make it as succinct as possible since it isn't an album review hehehe!)  This is the perfect chance too considering they just celebrated their 3rd anniversary since debuting in Korea in May 25, 2008. Ever since 2008, they have churned out hit after hit, and they're not stopping.

On their 3rd year as a group, they're expanding their reach, and they've begun promotions and debuted their song "Replay" in Japan as a digital single. How cool is it that the song that launched them to stardom in Korea would also be used as their stepping stone to conquer Japan, right?

Rock is back in the house with FT Island's "Return"...

The boys of FT Island --- (L to R): Song Seung Hyun, Lee Jae Jin,
Choi Min Hwan , Lee Hong Ki, Choi Jong Hoon

Just like CN BLUE, I first encountered FT Island through the drama "You're Beautiful". FT Island's lead singer, Lee Hong Ki starred alongside fellow music superstars Jang Geun Seuk and Jung Yong Hwa. Hong Ki was absolutely funny in that drama, and wore his character well both in light and dramatic scenes. When I realized that he was also an idol star, that led me to read more about his group, FT Island.

It's an exciting time for FT Island since they just recently topped the Oricon charts in Japan (together with 2PM) with the release of their Japanese album "Satisfaction". They also recently released their Korean comeback album, "Return" last Tuesday.

Super Junior's out to conquer Japan with BONAMANA / BIJIN...

My entire love for Kpop was started when I first started listening to Super Junior. These boys are ultra-talented, and they know how to work a crowd. It also helps to boost their popularity that they are considered the largest single functioning boy band / male idol group in the world currently composed of 10 active members (although there is another larger group now, A-Peace, that's composed of 21 members; they're supposed to be split up into three different sub-groups similar to what JYP did with One Day when they split them up to 2AM and 2PM).

The boys of Suju --- (L to R) Upper Row: Ryeowook, Donghae, Siwon, Leeteuk and Sungmin;
Bottom Row: Yesung,  Eun Hyuk, Heechul, Kyuhyun, and Shindong

The boys have extended their popularity beyond Korea, and are considered international superstars in Southeast Asia (including the Philippines... they're a big name here!), Taiwan, and China (through Super Junior-M) and now in Japan. Their latest efforts  in promoting their brand of Kpop is focused on Japan with the release of the Japanese version of "Bonamana" --- "Bijin".

Top of the Charts for May Week 3 (courtesy of Soompi.com)

Here are the top songs of the week, folks... courtesy of Soompi.com (http://www.soompi.com/) 

NOTE: A vid featuring a sampler of the top 50 songs are at the bottom of the post. The time tracks for where the songs are featured in the vid is indicated in the list below... just in case you want to skip to a song you're interested in listening to.

More than ballads for Baek Ji Young in "PITTA"...

I got excited over Baek Ji Young releasing her newest album, "PITTA", last Thursday. There are lots of really talented soloists in Korea, and if there were any solo artists that I wanted to hear more of, one of them would be her.

Baek Ji Young is considered the Queen of Ballads in Korea, and her voice is absolutely a joy to listen to. Deep, rich and passionate, and often leering towards the desperate when the message of the song calls for it. She's not exactly a power diva, but she knows how to make people tear up... that's real talent!

[POLL RESULT] Who won our most anticipated comeback poll?

AND THE WINNER IS... 2NE1

Yes, the girls of 2NE1 topped our poll for the past two weeks! Their return single, "Lonely", had been highly anticipated for weeks, and had been a quick hit as soon as it hit digital stores last week (the single apparently achieved an "all-kill" in all music charts in Korea).

Thanks to all the people who voted in the last poll! It was a neck-and-neck contest between 2NE1, 2PM and SNSD... it was good that a final vote came in hours before that broke the tie.

Post a comment... whose comebacks are you looking forward to?

But of course, it's time for another exciting poll from The Pinoy Kpop Fan!!!

And here it goes...

Kim Bo Kyung - A Diamond in the Rough

I've got to give it to Kim Bo Kyung... she's an amazing singer, and she's got a success story that would make you cry a river full of tears. What makes the situation dire though is that not a lot of people know about her outside of Korea, eventhough she is probably one of the best female vocalists there are around.

Sony Entertainment Korea, her signing agency, has just released her latest single titled "Even If I Forget and Erase" (yeah... it's a rough translation, but it sounded worse through Google Translate, trust me!). Her first mini-album release last January, "Haru Haru", was a tremendous success, and she's had a cult following since then.

Top of the Charts for May Week 2 (courtesy of Soompi.com)

Yes... I am now permanently featuring both the Gaon and Soompi charts in my blog. Both charts have differing points of view, and it's always good to have more references on hand to check on the top of the top in Kpop-dom.

Here are the top songs of the week, folks... courtesy of Soompi.com (http://www.soompi.com/) 

NOTE: A vid featuring a sampler of the top 50 songs are at the bottom of the post. The time tracks for where the songs are featured in the vid is indicated in the list below... just in case you want to skip to a song you're interested in listening to.

A crazy day with new releases --- SPOTLIGHT on 2PM and After School!

Album jackets for 2PM's "Take Off" and After School's "Virgin"

It's another crazy day in Kpop-dom, and it seems that a lot of the agencies just chose to drop a lot of their new songs and MVs this week! It's always a welcome problem to have new stuff to listen and watch to, right? I'm sure the fanboys and fangirls are just going nuts with all the new stuff coming out one after the other... hehehe!

This time around... we're going to focus on a new song and an MV release.

From who? Why 2PM and After School, of course!

[UPDATED] BEAST's "Fiction and Fact" is a journey of the heart...

The boys of BEAST --- (L to R): Doo Joon, Dong Woon, Yoseob, Kikwang,
Hyun Seung and Jun Hyung

May 19, 2011 9:05 a.m. MNL (GMT +8)
Again, my head going for a spin right now since there's a ton of new stuff that just went online a while ago, and I didn't know where to begin! Since I already have a review for BEAST's new album, I thought it would be best to post the newly released MV for "Fiction" first. It's a great follow-up to the initial release of "The Fact" --- both songs meant, of course, to bridge each other to create a story (you can read more after the jump!). 


Original post date: May 17, 2011 5:34 p.m.MNL (GMT +8)

I've been looking forward to May 17 for a week or so, since today is the day BEAST releases their first full album "Fiction and Fact". I was a little surprised to learn that since their debut in 2009, BEAST has never released a full album. This isn't unusual though in Korea, where the concept of  a "mini-album" is predominant.  Mini-albums are easier to produce and to scale up, and it allows for multiple releases in a year (making a band more predominant in terms of presence in TV shows like Inkigayo and Music Bank).

I'm glad though that BEAST came out with a full album this time around. What I'm even happier about is that this album isn't filled with rehashed music (which, based on my recent observation, has been a trend with full albums for lots of idol groups. It becomes sort of a compilation of hits --- sure fire seller, right?)... almost all of the songs are brand spankin' new! 

JOO and Leeteuk are as sweet as "Ice Cream"...

JOO and Leeteuk in a promo pic from their release "Ice Cream"

It's been a while since I've heard of any Korean releases from Super Junior since "Bonamana" was released last year. Being a big fan of Super Junior myself, I was particularly piqued by JOO's latest release titled "Ice Cream" which features Leeteuk, the leader of SuJu, on the cover. Collaboration has always been a strong point of Kpop, and being able to see pop stars like JOO and Leeteuk work together on a single is always a treat.

Summer K-drama invasion begins with "Romance Town"!

Romance Town, from KBS TV --- (L to R): Min Hyo Rin, Jeong Kyeo Woon, 
Sung Yu Ri and  Kim Min Jun

It's about that time of the year when new dramas come in to replace some of the ones that come in the early part of the year. I have to admit that I'm sad to see one of my favorites end within a week or so ("49" is ending next week), there are a lot of new K-dramas to look forward to within the next month or so. "Romance Town", which premiered just last May 11 in KBS,  is another highly-anticipated drama starring Sung Yu-Ri (who used to be with female idol group Fin.K.L, and is now a movie and TV actress) and Jeong Kyeo Woon (from "Dr. Champ" and "Loving You A Thousand Times").

X-5 : An interesting and "tall" addition to the Kpop world

The boys of X-5 --- (L to R): Ghun, Sul Hu, Haewon, Taefung / Typhoon and Zin

Open World Entertainment had recently debuted a new male idol group named "X-5", with their mini-album titled "Xenos". This album has been around for a couple of weeks now since they released their first album last April 21. I've been reading about how many people have swooned over these boys because they're all so tall (apparently their average height is around 186cm, which is around 6ft 1in in the standard scale --- whew!). Image wise, the guys are always well dressed, and are being marketed as an idol group defined by classic chic fashion.

Of course, no matter how well polished a group's image can be, it's always the music that will determine whether they're going to fare well and build up a good fan base. Let's see how well these guys fare.

Top of the Charts for May Week 2 (The Gaon Chart courtesy of KPNET4)

Here are the top songs of the week from the Gaon chart as compiled by KPNET4. Please visit the Gaon website for more details on the Gaon chart, and please subscribe to KPNET4 --- that is guy is one hard working vid compiler! 

Gaon.com --- click here

KPNET4 --- click here

[UPDATED] Check out what's new with BEAST and Jay Park....

BEAST's "On Rainy Days" and Jay Park's "Take A Deeper Look"

May 14, 2011 12:40 p.m. (GMT +8)
BEAST and Jay Park apparently are both very busy bees since they release ANOTHER set MVs each last Friday (for BEAST) and earlier today (for Jay). I was supposed to post the updates earlier today, but Blogger was still down then. Better late than never, eh? Check the vids out after the jump!


Lots of new releases just came out mid-week, and I plan on waiting a bit for some of the full albums to come out before I start doing reviews. Although that doesn't stop us from appreciating the new work coming out from our favorite idols and artists, right?

Here are some of the awesome new songs and videos that came out in the past couple of days...

2NE1 shows their growth as artists in "Lonely"

The girls of 2NE1 --- Sandara / Dara, CL, Minzy and Bom

I nearly popped a vein in my head a while ago when I checked online saw how many releases hit the shelves today (I'll try my best to feature some of the new releases within the week... just keep tabs on my blog, or through my TPKF Facebook page for updates!). The release that caught my attention the most was 2NE1's single "Lonely". Along with the release of the single, the MV of the song was also posted in the official YouTube channel of the girls (and I'm not even surprised that within the span of a day someone had actually created an English subbed version of the MV in YT... amazing, right? That's dedication for you!)

IT'S HAPPENED AT LAST....

THE PINOY KPOP FAN HAS REACHED 2000 HITS!!!

The past month has been very exciting for me... I didn't really know how I would fare since I haven't blogged for such a long time. I'm glad that there are people out there who love Kpop like I do, and I appreciate that there are people who pass by to at least check what I've done. I do sincerely hope that you like what I've been sharing; if you do, I would appreciate a word or two as a comment if you'd like to have a Korean artist reviewed, or if you'd like to suggest an album produced in Korea that has recently been released. The entire point of my blog is to explore and to appreciate.

Again, thank you for the support! It means a lot to me!

~ Dennis, "The Pinoy Kpop Fan"

The "coffee girl" and "coffee guy" are back in "Lie to Me"!

One of the most anticipated K-dramas for the summer season in Korea has finally hit the airwaves --- "Lie to Me". It's a new romantic comedy starring Yoon Eun-Hye (of Goong / Princess Hours and Coffee Prince) and Kang Ji Hwan (Coffee House).

Top of the Charts for May Week 1 (courtesy of Soompi.com)

Here are the top songs of the week, folks... courtesy of Soompi.com (http://www.soompi.com/) 

NOTE: A vid featuring a sampler of the top 50 songs are at the bottom of the post. The time tracks for where the songs are featured in the vid is indicated in the list below... just in case you want to skip to a song you're interested in listening to.

Chillin' the afternoon away with Eluphant...

Hip-hop duo "Eluphant" --- Minos and Kebee

Every once in a while you stumble upon an album that makes you think "I wonder if they're any good?" I'm really thankful that the internet and YouTube have become my portal to learn more about groups that otherwise would've slipped my radar.

While going through the list of new albums for the first week of May in Kpop7.com, I saw a new post for "Eluphant". It's an unusual name for a group... at least they got my attention there. Now I'm glad that they did catch my attention, or else I wouldn't have been in for a treat with their latest release, "You're Still Beautiful".

BEAST making a comeback on May 17!



The boys of BEAST: Junhyung, Doojoon, Kikwang,
Hyunseung, Yoseob, and Dongwoon

 I wanted to post this earlier today, but there were some issues with Blogger's new publishing tool (apparently the app wasn't loading properly, and was stuck with the loading icon running for minutes on end... drove me crazy!). I got a excited when I read the best piece of news from Soompi.com --- BEAST'S COMEBACK DATE HAS BEEN SET!

My long-awaited review of CN BLUE (at last... talk about overdue!)

The boys of CN BLUE --- Jung Shin, Jong Hyun, Yong Hwa, Min Hyuk

This review is looooong overdue!

When I finished my review for Infinity, I had planned on working on my album review for CN BLUE's new album "First Step". Of course that was preempted by several other releases that caught my attention (namely, the releases for After School, Sistar19, Miss A and Seo In Young... lots of distractions, eh?). Now that I've pushed aside distractions (well, they pushed me around first... hahaha!), I can focus on the boys at last!

Who was your favorite feature for the month of April? (...and our new poll too!)

2AM --- Jo Kwon, Seulong, Jinwoon and Changmin

And our winner is.... 2AM!

These guys have been very busy with their Asian tour, and with their recent promotional tour for "Saint O'Clock" here in Manila, it's not surprising that most of the folks who voted for 2AM were from the Philippines (45% of my blog's hits and pageviews for the month come from my home country... thanks for the support, mga kababayan!).

Drama and emotion courtesy of Seo In Young

The always fabulous Seo In Young

Apparently it's a week for comebacks and new releases. Another fave of mine, Seo In Young, has also released a new single titled "Wash", which is part of her latest album release "Lov-Elly Part 02" (Lov-Elly was the title of one of her previous album releases).

Seo In Young has been around for quite a while. She debuted as part of the female idol group "Jewelry", and has been working at a solo career since 2007.  I like Seo In Young for a lot of reasons:

Miss A in English! Truly A-mazing!

The girls of Miss A --- (Clockwise from L) Fei, Jia, Min, Suzy

I easily get excited when I get to hear news about idol groups that I've listened to who have impressed me in the past. Today, I was able to read about one of my favorite girl groups, Miss A, who just recently released a single titled "Love Alone" in collaboration with South Korea's Olympic ice-skating champion, Kim Yuna.

The school bell rings... After School is back!

 

The ultra-talented girls of After School: L-R (Row 1) Kahi, Bekah, Jung Ah
(Row 2) Nana, , E-Young, Lizzy (Row 3) Jooyeon, Raina, Uee

When you hear female idol groups, a few come to my mind when you talk about certain characteristics. If you talk about pure over-all popularity, SNSD and Kara are definitely in it for the win --- both groups are very popular both in Korea and in Japan! If it's about style and fashion, 2NE1, f(x) and T-ara are the first ones in my books. When it comes to ballads and romantic singles, I usually look up to Davichi.

Ok... I know some of you might not agree with what I've mentioned so far... but I know most Kpop fans will agree with me that when it comes to a good balance between good music and awesome dancing, it would be fair to say that After School is a good fit.

SISTAR19 --- a sweet and refreshing departure from the usual

The girls of Sistar19 --- Hyorin and BoRa

I seldom get distracted when I'm focused on doing something... say example when I'm blogging. It takes a lot to take away my focus on something that I'm writing on (right now I'm doing a review of After School's awesome new album, "Virgin" --- that should come out by tomorrow). That was until I caught a glimpse of the new song that came out from the new project group of Sistar --- Sistar 19 (composed of Hyorin and BoRa). The song and the music video was just released yesterday (it's THAT recent! hahaha!).

In a word, the song captivated me.

INFINITE and beyond...

The boys of INFINITE --- Dongwoo, L / Myung Soo, Sungjong, Hoya,
Woohyun, Sunggyu, Seungyeol

Infinite is another male idol group that's caught my attention in the past couple of weeks since I got my hands on their latest album, "Inspirit". It's the only album that I've reviewed where I've put all songs of the album in my iPod.

Well, there are only three songs in their mini-album, but normally you'd expect a song or two to act as fillers, while there's one outstanding song that serves as the cover song for the entire album. I was impressed with all the songs --- so much that I've constantly played them through most of last week, and I've had people listen to the tracks, and I've gotten a pretty consistent reaction.

Top of the Charts for April Week 5 (The Gaon Chart courtesy of KPNET4)

I'm doing something different this week for the weekly Kpop countdown. This time I'm featuring a vid that's usually posted by my favorite countdown channel on YouTube --- KPNET4 (to subscribe to his page, click here). What sets his countdown vids differently from others is that he painstakingly edits video's together, and indicates movement week per week along the chart.

KPNET4 uses the Gaon chart as a reference for his (or her... not really sure who he/she is) weekly posts. Here's a little background on the Gaon chart from Wikipedia.com...

"The Gaon Chart is the national record chart of South Korea, similar to the Billboard charts...

The Gaon Chart originally started in 2009 for monthly top single sales, it has expanded to contain weekly single and album sales. It is run by the Korea Music Content Industry Association and sponsored by South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism after one year of work.^[1] The charts are released each Friday...

Physical album sales from LOEN Entertainment, SM Entertainment, Sony Music Korea, Warner Music Korea, Universal Music, and Mnet Media are synthesized in the album chart. All music sales except physical sales is estimated by digital chart. The digital chart is the combination of the mobile chart and the online chart. The mobile chart estimates the best selling ringtones, while the online chart calculates downloads and bgm sales as well as streaming services. All charts are offered monthly and weekly.^[2] "

Website - http://www.gaonchart.co.kr/