May 15th (so they said) will see the US release of the single Nobody, a great song (already released in Korean) by one of my recent favorite acts, the Wonder Girls. They are already very popular, becoming almost instantly popular since the release of their first single Tell Me in 2007 from their first cd. They are similar to Danity Kane, as they came about from a MTV show (in Korea) called MTV Wonder Girls, where they showed the recruitment of each girl in an episode, and finally the group together. The process was all very organic, with the four girls rehearsing and making the album together as the fifth girl Yubin is not on the album as she joined too late.
I think the Wonder Girls really hit stride in 2008 with the release of Nobody, from the Wonder Girls Trilogy, a Motown inspired 4 song EP with songs and production actually assisted from old Motown producers. It's really good, and the video for Nobody is just great fun. (BTW, the man in the video they displace to sing the song is their producer JYP who is a very famous singer /songwriter / producer in Korea.)
NOBODY MV
There is a real charm and energy about the girls which is infectious and it's really easy to see why they are popular. They also have wonderful production, can actually really sing, and a lot of effort is put into every release to make sure it's worthwhile (For anyone who follows Asian pop, this is far from a given. Cookie Cutter releases are often not the exception, but the rule.)
The Wonder Girls are currently set to release a single in the US as part of an english album (a lot of this is speculating, it's all been announced but not announced) and as part of their swing through the US to support the third season of their TV show, which is about them living in NY and trying to become US pop stars. They wound up with a small blurb in People magazine (in an article about the Asian invasion of pop stars, Utada, Se7en, BoA and the Wonder Girls) and blog postings of their videos and twitters about them from an unlikely fan, Perez Hilton (the gossip maven). Note: you can watch their third season here WITH subtitles. I just discovered this, and need to go through it and figure out exactly where they are in NY and accidentally run into them.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=34BAE96F446BB399&search_query=wonder+girls
Can they break into the US market? It's doubtful. I'm not entirely sure they really even care about the US market, I think it's all just something for their TV show which is just so well done and well planned out that it's having some impact. They are a fantastic marketing machine, when they decided to come to NY they have people filming them making a scene at JFK, their myspace page up immediately, ringtones out for free and everyone of their songs available on ITunes and Nobody popped up on the front page. That's so far beyond what Utada Hikaru, the japanese star had for her US debut and her second US release that its just laughable. They are a really fun pop act and I always thought Korean pop stars had a better chance at the US market style wise (more R&B than pop), and their looks (tall and pretty is not a bad thing). I hope for the best, and will be downloading their song on ITunes the first moment it is there and I recommend that you do too.
(Note: One of the things i loved that they did was they went on youtube and found english versions of their songs their fans made (when they heard the Wonder Girls were coming out in english) they put a blurb that says "The Wonder Girls and JYP sponsor this" or something of that nature on the video as they own the material copyright. If you are a fan, that's just wonderful. Normally a blurb says "we don't like or allow this"!)
TELL ME - Their first single. The simple little dance was very popular in Korea.
Wonder Girls Land in JFK in April of this year. (With the amount of times I am picking up people there, at that same terminal and how long I have to wait, why doesn't this happen when I am there?)
LINKS
http://www.myspace.com/wondergirlsusa - Myspace US Page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_girls - Wikipedia Page
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