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boysplanetrecaps · 3 months

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Build Up Episode 0: Getting to Know the Boys Part 4: Team Unique

Hey, friends! This is the fourth and final post in my “episode zero” series of my MNET’s Build Up recaps. I’m giving you some basic background info on each of the boys, including where you may have seen them before, the group they’re in normally if applicable, and my opinion/analysis of their teaser performance. In the previous post, I covered Team Power. This will wrap things up with Team Unique. Woot!

Kang Hayoon

Hayoon is 20, and before this, he went on LOUD and Kookmin Singer. He may have met Jung Soomin (the kid from Chicago) on the show Loud, and he may have met Kwon Euibin on Kookmin Singer.

He was V07, and his teaser song is One and Only by Adele. He has a genuinely unique singing style that doesn’t at all match the way he dresses and looks. It’s a very specific vocal color that might not appeal to everyone -- deliberately somewhat nasal, but in a controlled way. It sounds retro-modern, the way that a lot of Western artists sing these days. He’s obviously a genuine talent, but I can almost feel his throat closing up as he sings. He needs a bit of training to really use that amazing instrument he has. I hope he gets it, and that it doesn’t destroy his natural color.

Jeon Woong

Hair-stylist Unnies, what the fuck? Seriously.

Much better, thank you.

Woong is 26 years old, and was V11, performing Bad by Christopher. He sings the song almost exactly the way the original performer does, even down to the little purposeful vocal kicks. I would have liked to hear a bit more of his interpretation of the song instead of karaoke version. He uses falsetto to hit some of the high notes, but that’s ok, they’re very high notes and he sounds good. I like his singing in an instinctive way, but I’m not sure how well trained he is.

Woong is in AB6IX, a four member group (used to be five) from Brandnew music. Like CIX, this is post-Wanna One group; Daehwi, a former member of Wanna One, is the center and face of AB6IX. Woong, meanwhile, is the main vocal. AB6IX started off doing pretty well, but one of their members, Youngmin, had a DUI arrest and had to leave the group in disgrace. It hurt the group pretty badly, and they haven’t really bounced back. Hopefully, going on this show will draw some good attention to the group, who I’ve always liked but thus far haven’t stanned. The song of theirs that I like best (of the ones I’ve heard -- there are lot of kpop songs, you guys, I don’t always keep up) is Close.

And if you want to hear more of Woong’s voice, here’s his solo song, Moondance.

Sunyoul

Sunyoul is 27 and a member of Up10tion.

He has been on a few shows before this, including two reality shows devoted to trot, a uniquely Korean style of music, and a stint on King of Mask Singer in 2016 where he managed to convince everyone that he was a female trot singer. People were pretty surprised when they found out who he was! Seriously, check out his performance -- I don’t think I’d guess in a million years that this was a man.

For his teaser performance, he was V04, and did a song called Twenty Five Twenty One. He had some shaky moments, but showed his strong lower register and some serious vocal agility, moving from low to high notes almost effortlessly. I think he’s one to watch.

Let me talk briefly about Up10tion. They debuted as a 10 member group in 2015, and didn’t really catch the world on fire. Several members went on ProduceX101 and two members did well enough that they basically started solo careers afterward instead of really bringing the fame home to the group. (I’m not criticizing them -- that was mismanagement on the agency’s part, not their fault.) Three members have left the group, and two members went on Boys Planet (Hwanhee and Xiao). Several members have left the agency, including Hwanhee and Sunyoul, and the future of Up10tion is really dubious at this point.

Meanwhile, I’ve liked a few songs of Up10tion over the years, so it’s a bummer that they never really worked out. I think the first song of theirs that I liked was Blue Rose. Also, What if Love is great, especially the chorus, even if it sounds like they’re saying “ready for love” instead of “what if love”. In my opinion, a lot of Up10tion songs have weird intros and kind of mid verses and then awesome choruses held down by Hwanhee’s marquee vocals and Sunyoul’s sweet higher register. So if you listen to the first 30 seconds and you’re like “meh?” give the whole song a listen. Also, their song Spin Off was one of the best songs of 2021 and lives forever on my playlists. It’s one of those full-on kpop songs that isn’t really any genre, just sort of pop that makes you feel happy.

Wumuti

Wumuti is 24 and is from China, though he’s actually an ethnic Uyghur, a Turkic ethnic group that is an officially recognized ethnic minority in China. If you read my Boys Planet recaps, you know that I have a soft spot for him. He just wants this so bad. Plus, and I don’t want to bum you out too much, but the Uyghurs are facing some pretty serious problems, including forced sterilization and labor camps and it’s really really bad. So I can’t help but always cheer for Wumuti, you know?

He also seems like a really sweet, genuine, and hard working person. He seems pretty fluent in Korean and has been on all the Korean reality shows: Road to Star, The Dance & The Voice, Super Idol, Under Nineteen and Boys Planet. So this makes the third survival show in a row that Wumuti and Jay will be on together! (The other two were Under 19 and Boys Planet.)

Here’s one of my favorite Wumuti performances, gross lollipop aside. (He’s the one in the white hat.) Oh, now I miss Boys Planet!

Then there’s his cover of Antifragile, which he released shortly after getting kicked off Boys Planet.

Ok, as for his teaser song, he was V12, performing Seven by Jungkook. He sounds fine, though I wouldn’t say at all his voice belongs in Unique. I think I’d call it Allround -- I couldn’t promise that I’d know his voice just from hearing it the way I would with, say, Hwanhee or Jay. Also, the rapping is a little cringe, but TBH it’s cringe even in the original version of the song.

I think he was hoping to get people’s attention by singing a super popular song in English. His end game isn’t to make the top 4 of this show -- he wants to launch a solo career. I mean, that’s what I assume, anyway. I’m not sure if that will work out for him, but I hope it does.

Lee Gwangseok, aka, Lee Kwangseok

Gwangseok is kind of a question mark overall -- I know nothing about him, not even his age. We actually learn on the first episode that he has no training at all and works as a model (!). So he has never been on any other show and he’s definitely not in an existing group.

He’s V19 in the teaser song, showing off a unique, smokey, extremely thick kind of voice. I enjoy his performance, even though he’s singing a ballad, so that says a lot, though I know that some people may not personally like this distinctive style. I wouldn’t necessarily have guessed that he has no training. Maybe he just has good instincts, or maybe he had some light vocal training, like in high school chorus or something like that, because he can hit some fairly high notes in his chest voice. And some singers are charming without training -- Joni Mitchell comes to mind as someone like that. They sing the way they sing, and people can like it or not.

I’ll be really interested in see more of Gwangseok. I don’t know if he’s right for a vocal group based on harmonies, because his voice is so distinctive. However, he’s apparently quite handsome* and that combined with genuine vocal talent and his sort of self-effacing charm could give him a decent solo career.

*Those of you who regularly read my recaps know that I have no idea who is and who isn’t “handsome” or “pretty” in the kpop world. I often pick out the member who everyone thinks is the “ugly one” in a group and choose them as the one who’s best looking! So I have no idea. But the other guys on the show react in such a way as to indicate that he’s really handsome, and he works as a model, so I guess he’s handsome.

Hong Sungwon

He’s a musical actor, and that’s about all I know.

He was V21, doing Desperado by the Eagles. He sings it with a slight country twang, which is wild for a non-native speaker. (I assume he’s a non-native speaker? Maybe I’m wrong.) He has a rich, warm tone and impeccable pitch. I don’t love all his weird rhythmic choices in the song, but he’s trying to show that he’s fully singing live. It’s hard to critique a voice like this -- it’s just really good without necessarily really being all that unique. I like it a lot, don’t get me wrong. It’ll be nice to hear him sing more on this show.

Neon

He’s listed as a solo singer, but I can’t figure out much more about him. There’s another Korean singer in this world named Neon Bunny (check out her song It’s You, one of my all-time favorites -- she’s not a kpop singer, she’s an indie artist and the song is amazing) and another Kpop performer named Neon who is a band called About U, so it’s hard to find out info about this particular guy with the same/similar name. I do know that he’s 28 years old -- that’s about it!

He was V33, doing Rush Hour by Crush. He has clean, nice vocals -- not particular unique, despite his category. He’s just really nice to listen to. Good pitch, good breath control, good power, all the good stuff. In fact, I think I would have put him in the Power category. You can see him in his silhouette performance standing quite a distance from the microphone, still singing loud enough to be heard clearly. I’m looking forward to hearing more from him.

Kim Seohyung

Soehyung is a musical actor and has a similar singing style to Kim Seongjeong and Choi Haram. So it’s just not going to appeal to me, as much as I can respect his skill. His teaser song was V18, Me After You by Paul Kim. He did falter a little on one of the high notes, but I mean, it was just 90 seconds of singing one song, and mistakes happen. I think he belongs in the Power category, not the Unique category, but that’s just me.

A fan of his made this “Kim Seohyung cut” of episode 1 -- all 90 seconds that we got to see of him in episode one. MNET really doesn’t care much about Seohyung!

Lee Hwanhee

Hwanhee is from Up10tion, but you might recall him from Boys Planet as the guy who ended up on General Gunwook’s team for Kill this Love. (Performance) You might also remember that he had to withdraw from the show midway due to his health issues.

He is V38, performing Tomboy by G-Idle. He did the song justice, I thought, putting enough snap and sass into it. There were some backup prerecorded vocals that make it tough to tell how much he’s singing live. But I’ve heard enough of his vocals to know that he’s capable of some excellent singing.

I never got the sense that many of my 3-4 readers liked Hwanhee much, but I think he’s a really good vocalist. I like his distinctive, Baekhyun-esque vocal color, which adds nicely to Up10tion songs. However, he might be a tad outclassed by some of the other guys on this show, who have more training than he does. I think sometimes he wears out his voice and kind of runs out of steam while he sings.

I think I would have put him in the Power category, but maybe I don’t really understand what the categories are about.

Kwon Euibin

I can’t get over this official picture. Imagine being like, “Yes, this represents me. This is my brand. I’m going for that, like, pissed off substitute teacher vibe.” I mean. IDK.

He really likes beige sweaters over white shirts, I guess.

Ok, so Euibin is only 25 years old, and my scouting tells me he’s a trainee going for the idol life. He went on two other shows: The Idol Band: Boy's Battle and Kookmin Singer. On the latter show, he may have met Kang Hayoon, the one who sang the Adele song for his intro clip.

He was V35, another fecking ballad, but his voice was unexpectedly sweet and pretty compared to his serious countenance. He strained a little on some of the higher notes and the whole thing felt a little uneven, occasionally kind of shouty. It’s nice to listen to despite all that. I’m not quite sure what to make of him so far, so I’ll reserve judgment for now. But again, not sure he’s “unique.”

Taewoo

Taewoo is 26 and my sleuthing tells me he’s a songwriter who appeared on a few other shows I haven’t heard of, Sing Again 2 and Vocal Play 2.

He’s V28, Thought of You by John Park. I really like his voice. It’s slightly gravely, in a good way -- it has character. Finally, a unique singer who is actually unique. It’s hard to say how trained he is based on this clip but I know I want to hear more of him!

And that’s it! Gang, we did it. We made it through all 40! Now, I’ll move on to the recap at last.

See you then and there!

#bpr recaps build up #build up mnet #mnet build up #up10tion #lee hwanhee #wumuti #kwon euibin #kim seohyung #neon #hong sungwon #lee kwangseok #lee gwangseok #sunyoul #woong #Ab6ix #kang hayoon

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boysplanetrecaps · 3 months

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Build Up Episode 2: Decalcomanie

Welcome back to another recap in my Build Up recap series! In the previous one, I covered Sum (Breath). In this one, I’ll cover Decalcomanie, a song originally performed by Mamamoo. This will be an interesting one, so let’s go!

Ok, before we dive in, I thought I might tell you a bit about the song itself! It was released by Mamamoo in October of 2016. It was a huge hit, kind of part of their launch from lesser known girl group to big time. It was part of the 1-2-3-4 hit string of Um Oh Ah Yeh, You’re the Best, Decalcomanie, and Yes I Am.

So decalcomanie (French term, decalcomania in English) is a technique by which engravings and prints may be transferred to pottery or other materials. What does that mean? Well, would it help if I pointed out that a shortened version of the word is “decal”? Basically, it’s kind of like screen printing, or stencils, or iron on transfers -- in that vein. You might be wondering, “Ok, so… wut?” Especially if you’ve noticed that there are lots of other kpop songs with the word in it. What’s that all about?

Well, basically, in Korea, the word decalcomanie has come to mean the idea of a mirror image or doppleganger. The song by Mamamoo is about this idea of two people who are coming together like two faces on either side of a mirror -- finding a connection that’s impossible to break. In other words, it’s about sex. Ok, great, that’s solved.

And, fun fact, apparently Mamamoo avoid singing this song when they can because it’s so hard to sing.

Fun Korean word of the day: 위험한, wiheomhan (sound like “wee-oh-may” when they say it fast), which means dangerous. You hear it many, many times in Decalcomanie, but you’ll also hear it in a million other kpop songs. Heartburn by Sunmi, Venom by Stray Kids, Wee-oo wee-ooh by Pristin, Overdose by EXO, and a lot more. Plus there’s some EXO song where Chanyeol goes “Danger, wiheomhan” and I can’t remember which one it is. Brain is broken. Ok! That’s enough of that.

Let’s get back to the episode.

We see that the guys are super nervous, because they have to sing the song in front of the original singer.

Dahee says that this is her personal favorite song. When the song is revealed, the other judges applaud for Solar, I guess for being part of this song in the first place.

She’s excited that her song is being used.

Solar tries to put on a serious face, but I think she’s just happy about it.

The guys approach!

LTR: Bitsaeon from M.O.N.T., Ji Yeon Woo, Sunyoul from Up10tion, and Choi Su Hwan

Bitsaeon introduces himself as a chameleon who can do any genre.

Yeonwoo seems pretty nervous, then introduces himself as a trainee from RBW, which is Solar’s agency. Solar says she didn’t know he was going to be on the show, but she has actually evaluated him before because she does the evaluations at her agency. They aks him how it went, and he says she was scary, telling him he wasn’t good enough.

Suhwan says he wants to be remembered as an outstanding singer. Vocal Coach Guy (VCG) says that he remembers Suhwan from Produce 101, and that he’s very good. Suhwan is so happy.

Then Sunyoul says “I want to be a beautiful melody on stage. I’m the main vocal of Up10tion, Sunyoul.” You’re already a beautiful melody, Sunyoul. The judges know his voice and approve of it.

We flash back to the first episode and see 8th place Sunyoul running immediately to Decalcomanie. He says he feels confident with his high notes. This is as good a time as any to remind you that Sunyoul sang multiple songs on King of Masked Singer dressed as a woman, and convinced his listeners that he was female. That’s the kind of voice he has!

So Sunyoul joined first, then 14th placed Bitsaeon and 19th placed Ji Yeonwoo (in the suspenders) joined while all options were still open. Bitseaon said he wanted a song with ryhtm and groove, and like, same. When Yeonwoo joins, they ask him, “wait, aren’t you at RBW?” and he’s like, yeah, but it wasn’t so much that he wanted to sing a song by his sunbaes as that he wanted a faster, less depressing song.

Suhwan was in 33rd place, and when he joined, four of the songs (Ditto, Tomboy, Shall I Love You Again, and Beautiful) were all closed. But Decalcomanie was his top choice, so he could show his high notes, even though he wasn’t sure he wanted to be compared to Sunyoul.

Suhwan tries to laugh about it with Sunyoul, but kind of can’t.

They do the part distribution, and there’s a part no one wants. Sunyoul thinks that Yeonwoo, the trainee, might do well with that part, and then says “but you can be honest about what you want.”

Yeonwoo voice-overs, “There were a lot of cameras….”

. … and they show us this amazing shot. There are in fact a LOT of cameras and people watching and listening. “It was my first time on TV,” Yeonwoo explains, so I was extremely nervous. People I’m working with have years of experience. I was discouraged.” (Side note: My spy network had told me that Yeonwoo had gone on another show called Wild Idol, so I wonder what’s going on with that.)

Sunyoul seems cognizant of all this, and the age gap between the rest of them and Yeonwoo. I’m not sure how old Yeonwoo is, but Bitseon is 28, Sunyoul is 27, and Suhwan is 22. “This is his first survival show,” Sunyoul says. “I was worried that he might be hesitating to speak up.” Aww! Sunyoul! Sweet Sunyoul!!

We see a brief montage of the others helping Yeonwoo a bit, showing him how the in-ear monitors work, and offering him shoulder squeezes. He interviews that he’s feeling a lot better from all the support from the others.

And the performance begins!

Here’s the link to the version without all the reactions.

The guys approach!

LTR: Bitsaeon from M.O.N.T., Ji Yeon Woo, Sunyoul from Up10tion, and Choi Su Hwan

My thoughts:

First off, this is a cool arrangement. It’s really fun to listen to. And who doesn’t like this song? It’s just so catchy. As for the performances, well, mostly pretty great -- good enough to end up on my playlist. But no one here made me go “ahhhh” the way I did when Taehwan, or Neon, or any member of Breath sang. It was all really really good, just not extraordinary for me. I hope you understand what I mean.

Next thing I have to note is that my opinion of the performance seems to be very different from the judges’, so in editing this write up, I’ve had to think about things I’ve missed, opinions I might change, and in the end I have to stick to my guns and disagree with the judges. You’ve been warned!

Poor Yeonwoo forgot the words right at the beginning. Oh noooooo. He sounded sooo nervous, but pretty nice, and I was cheering for him, and then I heard a “nanana” where there should have been other sounds. Oh nooooooooooooooooooooo. Thank dog, he did a lot better later, but he never seemed to totally relax and get back into the song, except for the part where he was trading “I feel good!”s with Bitsaeon. I think the guys really didn’t know who the judges would be, so when Yeonwoo found out it would be Solar, he panicked a little. Poor guy. I bet he did it perfectly in practice dozens of times. I really liked his teaser performance, and I think he has a ton of talent, so I hope he can figure out how to get over his nerves. Even nervous and unsure, I could see glimmers of his talent and technique, and I overall enjoyed his performance.

Man, I love Bitsaeon. I love his fuzzy sweaters, I love his energy and swag, I loved his “Whoo!!” at the beginning and his “yeah yeah yeahs” at the end, and I love his voice in general. He has impeccable pitch and a big open sound that manages to be both clean and textured at the same time. I was surprised that the rap part was included, but he did a good job with that too.

On the negative end, he was a tiny bit ahead of the beat in his first chorus, but I didn’t notice that problem later in the song. Also, his highest harmonies were a little thin and nasal, and he had to go into his falsetto and I’m not quite sure if that was his plan.

Choi Suhwan sounded so great for the first section he sang. He has just the right amount of vibrato to give texture to his voice, and a nice natural color. If I judged his whole performance by those four lines, I’d give him the win. Also, he carried a lot of the rapping and he did really great with that, bringing a Moonbyul-esque tone to it.

Then partway through he started to sound more and more strained, almost like he had to swallow or clear his throat or something, or like he was getting a bit hoarse. It made my throat hurt listening to how strained he was. He still hit that great high note in the “wiheomhan, wiheomhan , WEEheomhan” part, perfectly on pitch. He wasn’t as nasal sounding as he was in some other performances of his, but the problems I noticed with his upper mix were still there. He still sounded good, though, overall. All four of them did, for the most part.

Sunyoul’s voice is really lovely, with varied dynamics and little growls for texture, and I loved the energy he brought. He even did a little of the choreo, almost like it was reflexive. Sunyoul himself is so cute and loveable that I wish I loved his voice a little bit more than I do. It’s just a tiny bit too high pitched naturally to tickle my ears. But I adore Sunyoul. I don’t understand how their agency fucked Up10tion over so badly, when it seems like they have so many talented and lovable members who only seem to get noticed when they go on reality shows.

In terms of what the four of them brought to the arrangement, I think other teams did a bit more to arrange their songs, but what these guys did was good. Something I liked about their harmony is that they sort of took turns taking the lead with it, so when they were in harmony sometimes Bitsaeon’s voice would come through strongest, or sometimes Yeonwoo, etc. That’s a subtle thing to work through and they did it! But the harmonies weren’t quite as complex or interesting as some done by the other teams. They were still good, just not anything that made me say, “oh, hmm, that was cool.”

Also, I liked that they did the rap as rap. I think not enough people view rapping as a vocal skill, and of course it is. There’s a musicality to rap, where you find the right tone to rap on. It’s almost like you’re using your voice as a drum instead of a piano, but drums and pianos are both instruments, if you feel me. Oh, and I was wondering if they rewrote the rap at all, but no, they didn’t, it’s the original rap. The only change was instead of “Mamamoo is coming back for you” it’s “Build up is coming back for you.” (That’s perfectly fine, it’s not a rap competition, but I was curious.)

If I had to pick a top tier member, I think it’d be Sunyoul. I’d almost say Bitsaeon, but I think his problems with the tempo might disqualify him. Sunyoul sang well, performed well, and led the group, and I think he deserved top tier.

The MNET edit starts with Dahee reacting to the “whoo, let’s go!”

When Yeonwoo forgets the words…

… of course it deserves an instant replay. In the MNET edit, we can clearly see Sunyoul looking over to Yeonwoo to nod at him after the mistake, as if to say it’s ok, keep going. Sweet Sunyoul!

Raise your hand if you love Sunyoul! Ok you can lower it again, you need it to scroll.

Link to the judging.

The judges applaud, but they also say “Aigoo!” Backstage, the guys are still sad on Yeonwoo’s behalf. He has a nice voice, so it’s a real bummer that he forgot the words.

Solar leads off the critique, saying the song isn’t easy to sing. As an expert on this song, she was a bit disappointed with their version. And Yeonwoo forgot the words.

“Here it doesn’t matter how experienced you are,” Solar says. “You need to do well now in this moment. What you do affects other people. You should take this opportunity to improve yourself.”

Eunkwang jumps onto the dogpile saying, “You shouldn’t have given up. It sounds like you gave up. From now on you should train yourself to get your act together even after making a mistake.”

Just to pour a little salt on the wound, Solar mentions that the words he forgot were in the section of the song that Solar usually sings!

“Oh god, it wasn’t just Solar’s song, it was Solar’s part, I am actually in hell, what if I could just implode into a puff of smoke and blow away to another galaxy?” -- Yeonwoo, probably

“OMG, he messed up Solar’s part? Oh god, the pain, the pain, the cringe, the cringe, I am so so so glad I am not Yeonwoo.” -- Everyone, probably

Some of the guys backstage are like, “He’s not going to be able to sleep tonight,” and truer words were never spoken.

Then Eunkwang tells Bitsaeon about his rhythm/tempo issue, which is fair.

Solar praises Suhwan for starting off the song so well, which is fair. Those first few lines were really great.

Baekho praises Sunyoul, which is also fair and accurate. Thank you, Baekho, for staying my unproblematic fave! Others join in praising Sunyoul.

The judges reveal their votes:

Baekho, my darling, chooses Sunyoul, but everyone else chooses Choi Suhwan. VCG says his voice would suit all genres and he thanks them. But then..

… then Eunkwang has to make Suhwan feel awful by saying that his jacket is too short. I think it’s meant to be cropped, but he’s got a short torso, so instead of looking cropped, it looks just a bit too short. So now even though Suhwan won, he gets to feel terrible. Thanks, Eunkwang. Thunkwang.

I stand by what I said -- I still think that Suhwan’s later singing in this song wasn’t as fabulous as those first four lines. But I don’t hate that he won. Like everyone on the show, he is a really good singer.

As the boys walk off stage together, they try to comfort Yeonwoo, and you can hear Sunyoul promising to buy Yeonwoo some chicken.

Protect Sunyoul at all costs, fam.

Ok, one more song to go! I’ll see you in the next one, my loves, and thanks as always for reading!

#bpr recaps build up #build up mnet #mnet build up #up10tion #m.o.n.t.#mamamoo #solar #choi suhwan #ji yeonwoo #bitsaeon #sunyoul

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