BY: Jemin | NYAN Host & Blog Writer Dec. 5, 2019 | 9:00 PM
I always said I had 3 introductions to kpop. Once, ages ago, to SHINee, then again in 2016 to EXO and Big Bang, and finally, in 2018 to BTS. The first time I hadn’t heard the music but I saw the name: SHINee. I saw the album covers, somehow, on some social media site. I thought SHINee was the biggest group in Kpop. That they had such extensive global reach. I was a little off in my estimation as years later I had found that Big Bang and EXO had reigned supreme over Kpop with such hits as Loser and Monster being the first to grace my ears. Somehow, though, I never did get into them the way I eventually did with SHINee.
It wasn’t until a full 2 years after hearing Big Bang’s Loser for the first time that I learned of BTS while scrolling through YouTube videos in my recommendations. It was their performance of DNA on the AMAs that caught my attention. I was amazed by these colorful men with an exciting performance unseen from a boy band since the likes of classic faves like New Edition. I binged BTS--everything from music videos to crack videos. I must say that I’ve always had a taste for the finer things in life and the BUDGET on Kpop videos drew me in and made me interested in seeing more. Soon enough I was knee-deep in EXO Kai dance videos and watching SM groups practice their English. Simultaneously because of EXO and BTS I rediscovered SHINee. In light of recent news, Kpop YouTube had taken to reacting to Jonghyun performances--both solo and with SHINee. I think I fell for Jjong and the SHINee members immediately then. I remember watching hours of performances of Prism, Feel Good, and View. SHINee World IV had been the most recent concert dvd at the time and I watched the entire thing on YouTube, then again in pieces.
Then, I ventured into SHINee solos, finding TAEMIN’s Move, and Jonghyun’s Story and She Is. And when SM released Jonghyun’s Poet | Artist, I streamed it so much it was the only thing in my Spotify history at one point. I think that’s what really did me in. To say the least, I had become taken with Kpop. With SHINee, I finally saw what others had seen with their ult groups.
And now, here I am, over a year later and a year older, discovering new groups each day, and falling deeper into the SHINee rabbit hole (thanks, Obama). Next up is NCT.