K-pop Goes February: Day 20- TVXQ

Hello bitches, it’s Saturday. And don’t worry, it’s totally OK that I opened the review like that, because it’s the title of a K-pop song. So there. We’re nearing the end of our Second Generation week, and today we are back to the boys, and further back in time than we’ve yet gone. Yes, it’s TVXQ.

Who are TVXQ?

Once again a complicated name, and once again varying numbers of members. At least in the UK we went for names like Girls Aloud or One True Voice (may they rest in peace), at best lame puns. Not in Korea. Buckle up babies. TVXQ debuted back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and I was eleven years old, in January 2004, under, yes, you guessed it, SM Entertainment. I swear I am not a company stan, but it is weird how this will be the fourth group in the week from the same company. You have to remember that I’m listening to all the groups I never tried before, so this isn’t even really a compliment to SM: before this I just loved Red Velvet and occasionally peeped at NCT or EXO. Anyway.

TVXQ began with five members, put together as a vocal dance unit to compensate for the loss of First Generation groups H.O.T and Shinhwa. In 2009, three of the group’s members split with SM on the grounds of unfair contracts, schedules and pay (sadly fairly commonplace in K-pop), and from 2010 TVXQ has performed as a duo. As a duo they’ve released music up until 2019, and thus have been two members for longer than they were five. I was initially wondering whether to only include their work as a full band, but when I saw the amount they’d produced since, this seemed unfair. It will be interesting to see how the dynamic changes as the members dwindle, and I legit can’t think of many other duos, in pop generally, that I might be able to compare them to.

Now, the name. TVXQ is actually an initialisation (not an abbreviation: that’s when initials spell a pronounceable word. Dad I know you’re proud of the pedantry here) of their anglicised Chinese name, Tong Vfang Xien Qi. I know right, soooo predictable. In Korean it comes out roughly as Dong Ban Shin Ki (동방신기), or ‘Rising Gods of the East’. All righty roo, I guess. More intense than ‘Take That’ isn’t it? The name is also stylised with an exclamation point (TVXQ!), which I will always strongly support as a concept, but I’ve already typed the name, like, seven times, and I cannot be arsed to perform the basic find and replace function to change anything. What’s done is done, just know you can shout the name with glee if you choose.

Their musical style is listed on Wikipedia as including elements of EDM, R & B, hip-hop, rock, dance pop, and, most excitingly, orchestral pop. I am not sure what that is, but I am ruddy well excited to learn. I assume it involves bassoons. It’s certainly eclectic, so let’s dive in.

The First Song

TVXQ (exclamation if you want it!)’s first single was January 2004’s Hug. This song felt like what would have happened if Boyzone (at their least queerbaity) had been Korean. It’s a classic early 2000s slow jam, with too fast a tempo too be an actual ballad, but still driving with the emotions. Not much stands out musically, except for the random inclusion of some jarringly funky slap bass guitar at one point. The harmonies the members create are notable though, as is the layering in their hair. My god the layering. Also, the video has full choreography that completely doesn’t suit the beat, and also a cat. Points all round from me.

Five of the Big Hits

Thank you once again, citizens of Reddit, for coming to my aid. They were the main factor in driving my five choices: Rising Sun, Catch Me, Tri-Angle, Keep Your Head Down and, of course, the infamous Mirotic.

I started with Mirotic, whose Korean title translates to ‘Magic Spell’. I have heard of this song before, and from what I can remember it caused a bit of a sensation when it was released. It was the most successful song of their career in terms of awards, and from listening, whilst it didn’t exactly wow me, I can kind of see why. It’s obviously hard to place myself in a mindset that would find music from 2004 innovative or exciting now that we’re in 2021, but I can imagine that this sultry slice of R & B influenced pop probably was new enough back then. It feels like much of the classic Western boyband output of around the same time- steady instrumentation, strong beat and matching poppy synths, and a central chorus refrain that slides suggestively over the central line of “I got you/under my skin”. It’s classic, and maybe that’s why, retrospectively, it doesn’t really impress me.

Next up, randomly, is Rising Sun, an earlier track, from 2005, rather than Mirotic’s 2008. This one is a little bit more experimental in style, incorporating a violin backdrop (ahh, think I might be close to guessing what ‘orchestral pop’ is), rapping, and, in one remarkable left-turn, something that sounds to me almost like bhangra. Prior to this section I was going to say that the different styles were melded together well, but this part did feel kind of plopped in, with little connection to what came before or after.

YouTube randomly suggested Keep Your Head Down next, which is a song from the duo era of TVXQ in 2011. This one really upped the ante for me, with as simple a beat as about possible in the form of stomps and claps, not a million miles away from the base of We Will Rock You. The song never shies away from staying on this simple rhythm, allowing the members to belt, and occasionally growl, their lyrics to great effect. Brass enters in the later part of the song, creating a full-on marching band sound, the instinctive beats of which are hard to resist. The curling descent of the line “keep your head down” (coupled with a great move by the backing dancers) is reminiscent of Mirotic’s central seductiveness, and I’m starting to guess that this might be a theme.

Catch Me follows, another duo era track, this time from 2013. This song feels like Rising Sun’s younger brother, who’s had time to learn the tricks and what not to do. Similar to its big brother, Catch Me throws several styles at the wall; straight-up electro; orchestra pop (yay I think I get it!); euro pop, and even dubstep. The difference here is the craft in layering them all together, as here time has been taken to mesh these different tones into one overarching roar of a dance floor filler. Of course, the central hook is tight and catchy: I don’t think K-pop from this era had much of a problem with that. And the dancing in the video is amazing, incorporating costumes to make the dancers’ arms into pulsing electric wire. It is, for want of a better phrase, well cool.

And finally, we have Tri-Angle. I’m listening to this on the basis that a Reddit user said it was SM’s attempt at a Bohemian Rhapsody style track, and if that doesn’t tempt me, nothing will. The song is, of course, not BohRap at all, but I can see the grandiose aim behind it, blending heavy rock, a pop base, and violins sampling Symphony No. 40 in G Minor by some guy called Mozart. The track features the rock group TraxX and the soloist BoA, the latter of whom has a wonderfully powerful section in the middle of the song. The rock group is fun too, but again dropped in without much thought to actively blending in their sound to what preceded or followed it. Aside from this, the melody of the vocals works cleverly with the classical music sample, and for the most part the three elements come together entertainingly. I just feel like the impact of this is slightly lost on someone who’s heard so much of what’s come after it. That’s not TVXQ’s problem, of course, but this music has dated. Again, it’s fun, but not a life changer for me.

The Latest Song

Whilst TVXQ have released music up until 2019, the latest work is Japanese, so we’re sneaking back just a little bit earlier to 2018 for their latest Korean single, Truth. This is a massive jump from any of the rest of what I’ve listened to (perhaps no surprise as it’s five years after the latest one I looked at), with a tight, snappy funk beat and matching bass guitar licks. This is minimal groove K-pop, with brass only flashing in to add an extra touch on the corners of the chorus. The second verse gives us tinklings of piano, and in the final lines, our two members seem to scat a few lyrics each- not what I was expecting. It has that level of production polish that we have come to expect in the third/fourth gen eras, though it definitely lacks the ambition of Rising Sun or Tri-Angle, or the naughty wink of Keep Your Head Down or Mirotic. Like T-ara, SHINee or Infinite alongside them, it seems as though they’ve actively taken the edge out of what they do in the more ‘modern’ era. It’s a shame, as we’ve seen from our queen groups that you don’t need to do this.

The Latest Album

Again, we’re going with a Korean release over a slightly more recent Japanese one, in 2018’s New Chapter #1: The Chance of Love (shut up no I DIDN’T have to google how to do a hashtag on a Mac- again). Gosh these K-pop artists don’t like short snappy album titles much, do they?

The album has an overarching tone of tight groove: there is no huge production or dramatic use of violins here. The opening track, Love Line, shows us what we’re in for, with tight rhythms, neatly strummed funky guitars, and spotty little electronic hooks to simply decorate the soft vocals. The next song, The Chance Of Love, opens with slightly bigger vocals and more of a hip-hop base, but it’s still remarkably controlled. Broken echoes more of the classic boyband sounds that the group worked with when they began in the 2000s, while Only For You picks up the pace with some house piano in the chorus, and confident rapping. But the big standout for me was member U-Know’s solo Puzzle, almost entirely because of the deep, heavy club synths pulsing through the song’s chorus. It’s a cleaner way to do the big, dance sound than the style of synths the group were using in their heyday, but the song is stronger for it. Later on we have Bounce, a song that, naturally, takes the idea of its title into the song, with a bouncy little sax hook forming a solid funk track. The central melody of “I just wanna do my thing and bounce” is in the same sensual mould that TVXQ have pulled off so effectively, and here it makes for possibly the most fun song on the album. Following this little bop is Wake Me Up, with a springy, clicking beat, and sunny piano/brass instrumentation straight out of an eighties pop song. This song is in the same family as Wake Me Up Before You Go, or something by Billy Joel, a joyous, more innocent moment. The album actually slows down for the last three tracks, Lazybones, Without You and Sun & Rain. The first two of these didn’t really leave much impression on me, though Without You effectively employs the smoothness of a 2000s easy listening R & B track. Sun & Rain is the most interesting, sticking pretty much to piano and vocals. As much as it is essentially a ballad, the melody is actually more playful, again bringing in an edge of soul that at times reminded me of BTS’s gorgeous Singularity. The harmonies are, of course, beautiful to boot, and I really like this decision to go with such a chill, calm, and accomplished song as the album’s closer.

Thoughts?

For the most part, I feel I can’t really contextualise TVXQ in the way that they really deserve. As much as their music was always fun, here I felt the biggest barrier of time between me and the music: it often just felt a little too dated for me to really feel its impact. Songs like Mirotic are known for being iconic, and it is, clearly the forefather of so much boyband work that came after it. It’s just not something that hit me in the same way as it obviously hit at the time, because I’ve heard so much of what came later already. I think my favourite of TVXQ’s work was their initial stuff as a duo, as it lent most heavily into the full bombast of second gen pop, without feeling too out of reach. I’m impressed at the direction TVXQ seem to have taken in recent years, as the songs are now tight, sharp groove fests rather than anything showier. I guess it makes sense as the destination for a group that have been going for quite so long: try the excesses, learn your style, and hone it to a point. As a survey of recent K-pop history, TVXQ show me a lot in one artist, which in itself is interesting enough, even if the music doesn’t grab me like it grabbed the world years ago.