#1: Augmented Reality Idols

What was your last concert? Mine was Ode to You in New Jersey, January 10, 2020, the first stop of Seventeen's US tour. Nine days later Seventeen also became my first live-stream concert of 2020. I felt silly for buying an online concert for a group I saw live a little more than a week before. But what was another $29.99 on top of $1,343? ¹

$29.99 instead of $1343 is different. I'm sure that's what investors were thinking about last spring when stocks in the big three entertainment labels dropped by as much as 35%. But the year instead ended with the record industry profiting more last year than in 2019, against the odds and by using a host of new technologies. The idol industry has persevered through and via change. But 2020 was less a pivot for the industry than a reallocation of existing investments. We're used to pay-per-stream concerts, false scarcity, and new events untethered to a particular tour or a new album.

I think this is why SM's æspa debut is by far the most important of 2020. Many groups debut with elaborate concepts, but æspa’s is especially ambitious: to introduce four human members alongside four virtual avatars. Their name is a combination of “the words æ, which means Avatar X Experience and the word Aspect” (and I am surprised that Grimes and Elon Musk didn't think of it first

Virtual idols are not new in Asia ー there’s K/DA, a 2018 girl group made up of female League of Legends characters. And Japan’s virtual idol, Hatsune Miku, still sells out stadiums a decade after her debut. ² The idea of combining both imaginary and real idols into one group rings both novel and totally inevitable. Other labels worked on creating better long-distance experiences, using AR to float objects, characters, lyrics, and virtual sets on stage. SM is promising to put idols in your living room. Maybe it’s all upside: the real group can sleep while their counterparts take the night shift. Avatars can also endorse a lot of products, even ones æspa’s humans would not (remember when Gorillaz did Motorola commercials?

I haven’t spent more than five days of the last nine months out of my apartment. I see the appeal of idols that you can have in your own home, idols you can talk to and idols who truly know you, or at least know the dataset called you.

It seemed like most of 2020 was recreating the concert experience via AR and VR, though old-fashioned ticketing and merch still seemed like the most IRL aspect of their concerts. When I saw Seventeen, I paid extra for the privilege of shopping at the merch booth 2.5 hours before the doors opened, to watch soundcheck, and to sit a bit closer. Likewise, online concerts sold tickets that offered first dibs at the online store, where you could get a commemorative concert ticket, extra lightstick batteries, and concert banners, tokens we'll need to remember an event we never gathered for. At Seventeen's Incomplete concert in January, fans paid a little more to get multiple simultaneous camera angles, the equivalent of getting courtside vs. BTS actually had their online concerts sell out.

I am enjoying one of k-pop's covid adjustments: the online fan sign. These events are rarely held outside of East Asia, and fans are not allowed to film their interactions (though they try Since each signing takes about two minutes of the artist's time, it is finite.

Online fan signs existed pre-Covid, but they were never frequent. But there's something special about these calls, because they don't seem like regular fan signs. The vertical video and the overcompensating image algorithm make faces and rooms look flat, wide, and wonderfully close. Even the distortion and awkwardness is charming because it's reciprocal. And for each one that makes it online there's got to be a dozen that fans never upload, choosing to keep secret the one true idol/fan interaction they'll probably ever get.

Anyway, God bless any group that looked at 2020 and said, "Fuck it, we're debuting."

Here are some of my favorite debuts of 2020.

"Bebe" - Precious

Debut tracks have to pack a punch, which sometimes means the introductory single and its video need to be everything at once. Precious's debut single 'BEBE' eschews this — it's got a sparse trap beat and room to breathe between the verses, literally: the song pauses so you hear a single exhale.

On the video:
A whole storyline The girls, determined to get it back, transform into black lipstick baddies, flatten the villains, and take the ring back. ³ The demanding fight scenes show off the girls' athleticism, which is another strong point — they first got attention with their covers of challenging boy group choreography before their debut.

Yes, they are called Precious, and yes, their debut video has them tracking down a ring. The internet has been unsuccessful in convincing the girls to name their fandom Gollums.

"Ddalala" - Xum

Xum almost buried the lead on their debut — "Ddalala" begins with a rote dancehall beat and siren. That plus the onomatopoetic song title makes you think you've heard this a million times before, which is several thousand times too many. But after that intro, the BPM cranks into the breathless 150+ range and transforms into straight Jersey Club, chopped samples, whip sounds and all. It's something I haven't heard before in k-pop. They also seem to be serving old-school vogue choreography in the video. We are living in a borderless, age-less post-Level Up challenge world. It brings me one step closer to my dream. ⁴

Note: That was quick In retrospect, doing a livestream where you read off your DNA test results and comment on them was a bad, bad, idea.

"Ice Age" - MCND

"Ice Age" annoys you the first time you listen to it, but that spoken-sung chorus goes straight to your subconscious. The track opens with a lite samba before all five members chant "Come into ice age (what) / Make it 눈 ice hail." I point that out only because they keep the ice metaphor going for the entire song. MCND sells that chorus with their confidence -- it feels like the boys are pounding out the rhythm on desks during detention.

"So Bad" - StayC

Listen to this and the b-side "Like This." I think it's rare to hear song production and vocals intertwined this way -- lots of tracks sound like the artist and producer worked in isolation. I went to look up their producer and it turns out this group was formed by production duo Black Eyed Pilseung. I particularly love that drum'n'bass intro, which also shows up at the start of Twice's "Cheer Up" (one of their many lead singles with them). Their production provides just the right contrast to ceiling-high female vocal melodies, so I'm looking forward to what they do with their first girl group.

¹ Let me emphasize this was for three (3!) VIP tickets plus two (2?!) seated tickets. The ticket level that included a preview of the merch and a staged rehearsal were for floor/standing. I'm too short and have too small a temper to stand for a whole two hours.

² Hatsune Miku was booked for Coachella this year. But their one pandemic-proof headliner will have to wait for humans to get their shit together.

³ Grandma's ring inside the jewelry display, so I need to know, was she planning on selling the ring?!

I really want to talk about this Legendary House of In2It video but I will save it for another newsletter.