You can’t blink once in Seoul without seeing Twice—selling bottles of Pocari Sweat on TV, grinning coyly from posters in every other subway stall.You can’t blink once in Seoul without seeing Twice—selling bottles of Pocari Sweat on TV, grinning coyly from posters in every other subway stall. Since their creation in 2015, and the explosive popularity of songs like “TT” and “Cheer Up,” the nine-member multicultural girl group has swung the K-pop pendulum back toward unadulterated sugar pop. It’s the twee hand gestures and wide-eyed innocence first made famous worldwide by bands like Girls Generation and Wonder Girls and that Twice themselves are taking overseas, as seen in a headlining set at KCon New York this year. Yet Twice is putting their own spin on the thing. Take their latest album Twicetagram, which officially debuted this morning with a new music video for the lead single, “Likey” that racked up more than 2 million views in five hours. It is entirely made for and by the social media generation (the girls range from 18 to 22 in age), named after the Instagram account they use to communicate with more than 3 million followers. Rather than album art or other promotional fare, they share cute, casual selfies, often enhanced by heart stickers and the cat-ear Snow filter. “On set, in the waiting room, every moment we get, we are constantly taking photos and videos to share with our fans,” they revealed as a group. The key is sheer quantity (Nayeon and Chaeyoung shoot the most) which then, they humbly admit, leads to quality: “If we take a ton of them, a lot of pretty ones are sure to come out, no?”
POST: 2024-04-27