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The article fails to mention that some of the songs including the lead single have vocal performance by members of Twice, consistently one of the most popular k

by sho_hn 1y ago

The article fails to mention that some of the songs including the lead single have vocal performance by members of Twice, consistently one of the most popular kpop groups in the past decade. So these also come with a built-in audience and not exactly out of nowhere. It's a bit like Mariah Carey singing the soundtrack to an animated movie in the aughts or something: Yeah, that sells. It's a little more surprising that in 2025, the BBC couldn't find a knowledgable music editor to fill this piece with relevant detail.

notahacker 1y ago
Yeah. Also sounds like Gorillaz (which for those unfamiliar is a cartoon "fictional band" publicly associated with Damon Albarn from Blur, one of the iconic British bands of the nineties. Their mixture of catchy music and cartoon characters sold very well when they launched in the early 2000s, collaborated with other bestselling artists and are still releasing albums, and even touring with a cartoon band projected behind the silhouetted actual band). Would an obscure cartoonist releasing similarly catchy songs without a Blur connection have gained the momentum to manage multiplatinum albums and UK No 1s? Probably not...
- IAmBroom 1y ago
  You've omitted a couple tiny details in Albarn's success: outstanding compositional talent, and an eagerness to collaborate. IMO, that eagerness to collaborate was brought into modern music by rappers. It's almost not possible to build a discography of modern rappers, who happily take roles from background singing to minor rap sections in each other's works - not to mention sampling. It used to be "Bing Crosby, with the Andrews Sisters". Now the "featuring" section is sometimes ten names long, almost never absent, and Damon was right there as the revolution was televised. His previous success greased the wheels, sure, but Gorillaz was right-idea/right-time.
  - notahacker 1y ago
    Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, Albarn didn't get to be one of the nineties best known songwriters by accident and the collaborations were critical in reaching audiences that Blur didn't. But that's the point really: Gorillaz was a "made up band" but it was also the project of a high profile talent and notable hip hop artists who wanted to work with him, and they were more important than the cartoon characters with made up back stories. I'm less familiar with K-pop, but I'm assuming there's a similar dynamic here and fans know exactly who they're listening to
theshrike79 1y ago
> vocal performance by members of Twice, consistently one of the most popular kpop groups in the past decade This is lampshaded in the movie where HUNTR/X is a clear number one, Twice is #2 and then the others are WAAAY behind :)

by sho_hn 1y ago

notahacker 1y ago

Yeah. Also sounds like Gorillaz (which for those unfamiliar is a cartoon "fictional band" publicly associated with Damon Albarn from Blur, one of the iconic British bands of the nineties. Their mixture of catchy music and cartoon characters sold very well when they launched in the early 2000s, collaborated with other bestselling artists and are still releasing albums, and even touring with a cartoon band projected behind the silhouetted actual band). Would an obscure cartoonist releasing similarly catchy songs without a Blur connection have gained the momentum to manage multiplatinum albums and UK No 1s? Probably not...

IAmBroom 1y ago
You've omitted a couple tiny details in Albarn's success: outstanding compositional talent, and an eagerness to collaborate. IMO, that eagerness to collaborate was brought into modern music by rappers. It's almost not possible to build a discography of modern rappers, who happily take roles from background singing to minor rap sections in each other's works - not to mention sampling. It used to be "Bing Crosby, with the Andrews Sisters". Now the "featuring" section is sometimes ten names long, almost never absent, and Damon was right there as the revolution was televised. His previous success greased the wheels, sure, but Gorillaz was right-idea/right-time.
- notahacker 1y ago
  Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, Albarn didn't get to be one of the nineties best known songwriters by accident and the collaborations were critical in reaching audiences that Blur didn't. But that's the point really: Gorillaz was a "made up band" but it was also the project of a high profile talent and notable hip hop artists who wanted to work with him, and they were more important than the cartoon characters with made up back stories. I'm less familiar with K-pop, but I'm assuming there's a similar dynamic here and fans know exactly who they're listening to

theshrike79 1y ago

> vocal performance by members of Twice, consistently one of the most popular kpop groups in the past decade This is lampshaded in the movie where HUNTR/X is a clear number one, Twice is #2 and then the others are WAAAY behind :)