“Until now it’s 60 points, we will earn the rest by working hard.”
The rookie group who debuted just two months ago are writing the K-Pop industry’s new story. The heroes, EXO, are from Korea’s best company representing K-Pop, SM Entertainment (aka SM), the company is ambitiously presenting a new group 2 years after f(x) and as for the male groups, 4 years after SHINee.
Extraordinarily for rookies, they recorded 100,000 sales a month after their debut and went up to 1st place on the Korean music charts. They also received attention from overseas as they got 1st place on Tower Record’s charts even though they didn’t debut officially in Japan nor did they have any activities there.
EXO is composed of two teams, EXO-K promoting in Korea and EXO-M promoting in China. Before their debut, they had a 100 days global promotion and splendidly debuted in Korea and China through large-scale showcases.
EXO-K is formed with Suho, Baekhyun, Chanyeol, D.O, Kai and Sehun, they show a charisma on stage that isn’t like other rookies’ and a perfect performance, they’re coming up as this year’s best rookies. All of the 6 members basically have handsome looks and have the perfect dance and singing skills allowing them to get all of the fangirls’ love.
EXO’s title song ‘MAMA’ is the work of the hit songs’ composer Yoo Youngjin, it has the orchestra’s imposing sound doubling the mysterious mood. The dancebreak’s sharp synth and guitar riff even show a powerful feeling with the strong shouting, it properly shows us the revival of the SMP (SM Music Performance: SM Entertainment’s unique music performance).
“You can see that we’re representing SM with the SMP, a genre that our past seniors did, but we’re really proud to be able to do it. We first received the song and studied it while watching H.O.T or Shinhwa seniors’ images. We were also really pressured because we had to do even better since it’s been a long time since the SMP was used but we took pride in it and are working hard to not deceive the expectations.”
Since EXO-K are the new group from the K-Pop stars’ cradle, SM, who produced BoA, DBSK, SNSD, Super Junior, SHINee, f(x), etc; they received a big interest since predebut from the fans and the music representatives. They must’ve been really pressured as well because of that. How did EXO-K overcome that pressure?
“It’s true that we were very pressured. We knew that the expectations were high for us, as the first SM group after a while. The 100 days of promotion weren’t a short period, and during that time, we also felt that the expectations about us were rising. We worked even harder to live up to these expectations. Instead, it became an opportunity to get tougher. We’re still pressured but we will make even more efforts to not taint our seniors’ reputation.”
EXO-K and EXO-M are currently promoting ‘MAMA’ in Korea and China at the same time. Wouldn’t there be any rivalry with EXO-M who are promoting in China?
“Since we spent our training period with the EXO-M members, we’re more friends that are like a family than rivals. We monitor each other’s stage and give advice to each other. We make even more efforts to have a win-win situation between EXO-K and EXO-M. Because EXO-K and EXO-M are in one group, EXO, we’re promoting proudly.”
On May 20th, EXO-K went on ‘SMTOWN LIVE’ World tour’s stage at LA, only two months after their debut, they were having a concert abroad.
“We were dreaming of becoming singers while watching our SM seniors like DBSK, Super Junior, SNSD, etc., so the fact that we were standing on the same stage as these people was exciting and overwhelming. The schedule lasted only the short period of 2 nights and 3 days but we felt really a lot of things while feeling our sunbae’s awesome image on stage with them. Foreigners prepared more fanboards than what we expected and sang our songs with us too. We were really amazed and thankful.”
This year, more rookie groups are debuting in the music industry than during any other year. Among so many groups, what is EXO-K’s strong point?
“We think that our strongest point is that we’re promoting at the same time in Korea and China with the same song with EXO-M. We also have an infinite potential and always show new stages, we’re a group who has a lot of things to show. And on the basis of this strong point, we want to challenge this year’s rookie award. We want EXO to be known not only in Asia but all over the world, we hope you can enjoy that with us while listening to our music.”
cr: source asia today; translation cr emilie @ exok-trans
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