GFRIEND and their music world
GFRIENDと彼女たちの音楽世界
Another piece of history has been made. GFRIEND's hit song "From Today, We Are" has become the first girl group to surpass 100 million streams on the Kaon Chart.
"From Today, We Are" is the title track of GFRIEND's second mini-album "Flower Bud" released on July 23 last year, and is the song that made GFRIEND a top-class girl group a year and a half after their debut.
A year has passed since its release, but it is still popular enough to rank in the 40s and 50s of the Melon Chart, and has even been given the nickname "Since Last Year, We Are."
Last year alone, "From Today, We Are" recorded a whopping 50,169,974 streams (ranked 35th, based on Kaon Chart). In January of this year, GFRIEND made a comeback with "Run Through Time" and again, recording nearly 10 million streams per month in February and March.
Since then, they have recorded at least 1 million streams every week, and as of the third week of July this year, they have reached a total of 100,755,085 streams, finally surpassing 100 million streams.
(From K-POP News)
Even while they were away, GFRIEND has been building up their track record. Their activities are only getting better...
At the KCON venue...it is said that tickets (83,000 yen) for the three days were the first to sell out.
It seems that this was unthinkable in 2012.
The hall was filled with thunderous cheers when Korean star Lee Min-ho appeared.
There was a camera set up above the stage from which I watched GFRIEND's performance, and no matter where I looked, their dancing was beautiful and orderly.
They really are the best, their performance perfectly realizes a stage (world) of "beautiful and wonderful".
GFRIEND seems to be quite popular in Korea.
Judging from the number of views of their music stages and videos on various TV stations, I think they are as popular as TWICE.
What about in Asia...?
TWICE generally has the advantage in China, Taiwan, and Japan, and in Asia as a whole, TWICE's advantage becomes even stronger, and the further away you go, the more popular TWICE becomes.
That's how I see it.
As well as attending K-POP singers' stages, I also occasionally go on flash mob tours, which have become popular in various countries around the world.
K-POP flash mobs are becoming more popular around the world, but it seems that there are more indoor ones these days (it's a bit strange that there are none in Japan).
The style has also changed.
Now, a method called "K-Pop Dances in Minutes" seems to be becoming popular.
I happened to watch "K-Pop Dances in 26 Minutes," which was held in commemoration of (KCON LA 2016).
In "K-Pop Dances in Minutes," the members gather together to draw an oval to create a square.
A part of the circle is cut out to create a spot with a microphone and speaker, and from there, they play excerpts from K-Pop hit songs one by one.
Fans who know the choreography to those songs jump out into the square and perform the dances, competing with each other.
Since they only play the excerpts from popular songs, fans can enjoy the dance at their own pace.
Let's go back to GFRIEND.
In a flash mob I happened to see about a month ago, when their song "ROUGH" was played, only two or three people jumped out into the center and danced.
The dancers were met with applause.
However, on this day, when "ROUGH" started playing, about 20 people jumped out and performed the difficult dance with a smart touch.
It seems that GFRIEND's music is steadily gaining popularity in the West.
KCON seems to have a variety of events, including a handshake event.
GFRIEND members appeared and took photos with the fans, and then the handshake session with the fans who had gathered for the event began.
America is truly a multi-ethnic country.
The fans lined up and began high-fiving the GFRIEND members.
It seemed a strange combination when they were shaking hands with a tall, middle-aged white man.
I began to wonder what it was about them that this man, who must have listened to many great songs from his own country, liked so much that he came all the way to a handshake event.
I couldn't help but wonder.
Could he have understood the romantic song and dance of "ROUGH" as well as I did?
The middle-aged white man seemed to enjoy high-fiving the GFRIEND members.
Yuju and Umji seem to be able to speak English, so there may have been some exchanges between them.
Seeing this scene made me think that the day when K-POP becomes popular all over the world is not far off.
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