Killer Choreography

If someone types ‘difficult choreography into the Google search bar, most of the results are going to have Kpop in the name as shown below. I even had my roommate, who has a deep personal hatred towards Kpop ever since her brother came back from Korea and would force her to listen to it, to double check my search results to make sure that they were not biased. They were not. (Here are screen shots of the results below.)

One thing that it seems any Kpopper can get a nonKpopper to admit is that Kpop has some noteworthy dance moves. Some may argue that it’s the difficult and unique choreography that has been aiding in the steady increase of views of Kpop music videos over recent years.  When Kpop was first starting to develop, many routines were heavily based on traditional dances or didn’t include any choreography at all. However, in the early to mid-1990’s, the influence of western music and dance began to flood Korea and the choreography of Kpop began to morph into the art form it is today.And funnily enough, western music doesn’t really include dancing the way it did back in the early to mid-1990’s (the entire era that influenced Korean choreography). Three main styles of dance make up the core of the Kpop choreography world; B-BoyingFreestyle, and Hip-Hop.

It may be called B-boying in Korea but break dancing originated in the Bronx, NY in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.maxresdefault B-boying became a staple in the U.S. choreography industry and influenced more modern modes of dance, such as hip-hop. It consists of the top or up rock, footwork, spinning moves (power moves), and freeze.  A prime example of a Kpop group that is probably known for using B-boying the most, is JYP’s Got7 who combine B-boy with martial arts to add flair, appeal, and uniqueness to their choreography.

Freestyle originated from the early days of disco in the 1970s on street corners and public places where dancers would show off their improvisational skills.

Some performances are choreographed or partially choreographed, but improvisation is the main force behind freestyle and many people prefer the freedom of Freestyle dancing to other conventional types of dancing.
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95ae75135d24fec867c0989ddc6a68c3The roots of Hip Hop were informal and group-based, but today the art form has become so popular that audience cultures informal performance venues started developing during the 1990s. Popular hip hop dancers can not only ‘rock a club scene, but they can also mesmerize an audience of dance experts or wow national television audiences.

So, the real question remains… what Kpop group or Idol has the most difficult choreography? There is no unbiased source for this information so I watched thirteen very different countdown videos for most difficult Kpop choreography with over 237 choreographies in all thirteen videos. And because no list is ideal, some videos were male groups, some were female groups, some dated back to a few years ago and some dated back to as recently as a month ago to balance each other out. I also looked at different list people made online, but at least with videos, I can see the dances too, so I promise I did my best to make the lists as fairly as possible and they will probably be out of date by the time I finish it. With that many videos a person is bound to get a couple different answers, so I’ll have two lists.The first one, (list 1) will just be groups who had multiple songs throughout the different videos the more videos a group or an Idol had and the more often each video appeared the higher their rank will be. The second (list 2) will be the songs and groups that appeared the most often and they won’t be ranked because there are a lot of ties for some of these songs.

List 1-groups with the most difficult choreography based on how often and how many of their songs appeared.

List 2-Songs that had the most difficult choreography based on how often they appeared.

WINGS is Soaring to the Top of Charts.

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1.Begin 2.Lie 3.Stigma 4.First Love 5.Reflection 6.Mama 7.Awake. To the unknowing public these just seem like words that have nothing to do with each other, but for those who thrive on the life source that is Kpop, these seven subjects are titles to seven solo tracks whose messages plagued the minds of all who watched them with innumerable questions. These seven solo tracks come from an album that has taken not just Korea but the world by storm.

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Bangtan Sonyeodan (BTS) has been capturing the attention of music lovers around the world with the release of their newest album WINGS on Sunday, October 10, 2016.With the release of WINGS, came a series of record-breaking feats. After dropping the album and music video for their title track, “Blood Sweat & Tears,” on, Sunday. BTS’ record-breaking streak was officially sparked.

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The title track “Blood Sweat & Tears”, was written with reggae, moombahton, and trap influences but still, manages to capture BTS’ signature style. Within hours of its music video release, “Blood Sweat and Tears” broke the YouTube video view record for most viewed video in the first 24 hours with 6.34 million views. And,  BTS only continued to claim record after record. They were the second Kpop performers, after PSY, to break 10 million views.  Today the “Blood, Sweat, & Tears” music video already has over 83 million views.  The WINGS album also managed to sweep music charts across the globe from South Korea to South America.

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 What is the meaning behind such a successful album? BTS’ leader Kim Namjoon (Rap Monster) explained the concept of the album as the temptations of growing up, “the harder a temptation is to resist, the more you think about it and vacillate. That uncertainty is part of the process of growing. [Blood Sweat & Tears] is a song that shows how one thinks, chooses, and grows.” Lead Rapper and assistant composer/producer Min Yoongi (Suga) added, “the wings pictured in the music video are one of the symbols of growth, the song relays an optimistic determination to use our wings to go far, even if we are met with temptations in life.”

Not only did BTS break YouTube music records, WINGS broke Kpop history by ranking 1st place on the iTunes Top Album Chart immediately after it was released, setting the record as the first Kpop artists to ever place 1st with a full-length album on the Top Album Chart. And for the first time in history, all fifteen tracks from the album  place spots1st through 15th on the iTunes K-Pop Chart,dance  deeming the event in history as “Lining Up.”  BTS set records all over the globe on charts in American, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Sweden and more for a total of 27 countries. 

Several world-famous music channels, such as FuseTV, I Heart Radio and more all sent out praise for the group. The very next day after the album’s release, Billboard wrote an article with the title “BTS Soars to New Heights With ‘Blood Sweat & Tears’”. The article claimed “2016 has been a big year for BTS”, and described how each member has grown as musicians through their 2nd full-length album. Billboard cited the group as a key player in spreading K-Pop all throughout the world

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Watch “Blood Sweat and Tears ” MV

Whether people’s attention is held hostage by story behind BTS’ album/songs, the extraordinary video quality,  the  difficult choreography that’s made to look simple, captivating vocals, the hypnosis of how strange the whole Kpop thing is or any number of other things, BTS has made it clear that they are not here to be just any other idols. There’s a saying when it rains, it pours; BTS are proving themselves to just be the first raindrop in a flood of Noah proportions.

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