#4 Line Distribution

Controversial Line Distribution

Many fans struggle with one thing. Line distribution. It has been the cause of fan wars many times and is still a ongoing issue within fans. Especially with groups that have foreign members. Today I will prove that maybe, just maybe, having less lines is better.

I don't know how you guys think your top class Korean music is produced, but I can easily tell you, it is produced with top class standards. And I mean, literally scrutinizing the music to every beat, every second, every word.

Korean idols have stood out against crazy producers, hard recordings and scoldings many times, but for some reason, fans choose to ignore it. Idols have dropped hints and more hints, over and over again but fans never took heed. I'll show you all the everything you probably never noticed as well.

Self producing idols are more likely to talk about the process of recording the song but it doesn't mean other idols don't either. Despite having some members produce songs, GOT7's title songs usually come from Park Jin Young himself. GOT7 members took a daring step in revealing JYP's ridiculous standards when it comes to recording, telling fans on a live broadcast that recordings can last for days. And let me remind you, a song on average is 3-4 minutes long. They revealed that they get scolded badly and are asked to redo hundreds of thousands of times. They also proceed to joke about how buying him food helps with the process but that's a joke for another day.

A lot of idols self produce their own songs so I will go by generation. The oldest self producing idols I am familiar with is BEAST/Highlight. In BEAST showtime, there is a cut of Yong Jun Hyung, recording a guide for a song. Reminder, a guide is not even the real thing and it may not get approved and he might have to redo it. It shows him recording and rerecording the guide over and over again until he achieved perfection, hurting his voice slightly in the process.

Let me list a few things producers look for when recording, do not be fooled by evil editing on TV, I will get to it later. Firstly, tone, pitch and beat. Producers are very sharp, anything that does not perfectly match the original key or guide beat will be rejected but that's pretty basic for any kind of song recording.

But here's something that will concern the foreign idols, accent is one thing they look for. This is one of the reasons why trainees have to get rid of their accents from satoori (dialect) and foreigners that can't simply don't get enough lines. Accents can ruin the song, in a producers eyes because that song is being produced with standard Korean, and I repeat, it must meet the producers expectations and match the guide perfectly. There are only that many words in the Korean language and many of it sound the same but have totally different meanings so pronunciation is important but for foreigners, that is often hindered by their accent.

Let me give you an example from BTS's most recent song, MIC Drop. Jimin has a line in the pre-chorus which goes like : " 이미 황금빛 황금빛 나의 성공" (imi huang-guem-bic huang-guem-bic naui seong-gong) [My already gold-like success] Which is shortly followed by Jin's line : "너는 황급히 황급히 도망 숑숑" (na-neun huang-geub-hi huang-gueb-hi do-mang syong syong) [All of you rushing to get away]

Now if you aren't Korean or can speak basic Korean but NOT THAT fluent, I'm willing to bet you can't tell the difference between 황금빛 (huang-geum-bic) and 황급히 (huang-geub-hi) just by listening to the song. But if you are Korean or fluent in it, you'd be able to tell even though the difference is EXTREMELY minor. Don't believe go listen to that part in the song again and continue to read this post after. This is why foreign K-pop fans often overlook accent and pronunciation. 

Now to give you guys a proper example using a group with foreign members. I chose the uprising rookie group, Seventeen because their line distribution causes a lot of fuss online. Seventeen has three foreign members: Joshua from America, Jun and The8 from China. Now Joshua doesn't have a big problem with the accent but Jun and The8 do because of the Chinese language. Now I learnt Chinese AND English since I was a kid and this combination led me to easily pick up the Korean language but Jun and The8 are native Chinese speakers (I do know the proper term is Mandarin but we call it Chinese where I live so) which means they have very strong accents. And I am not joking when I say a Chinese accent is damn hard to get rid of. 

I tried to go by Seventeen's title songs but they have way to little lines in those for me to scrutinize so I have to use My I. I'm sorry my boys. Now basics to the Chinese language, we have 4 tones. The flat tone, The upwards tone, the up down tone and the downwards tone. (第一到四) 

It probably looks ridiculous but you can search up "Four tones Chinese" on YouTube for a better explanation. This often makes Chinese people that speak Korean sound like they're using dialect. Seventeen has teased The8 for his dialect sounding Korean on One Fine Day Season 1 while they were climbing the hill to find their house.

Now My I was cleverly made with up and down tones to hide this but some points were just not able to be concealed. The bpm rises from the lowest tone and goes up one and then another before coming back down. Kind of like a re-arranged version of the Chinese four tones going in this order: 1st tone, Second tone and the Third and Fourth Tone at once. And let me just say this song sounds like a tribal Chinese song. This conveniently conceals their tone issue but does not conceal pronunciation. 달라 달라 달라 (dal-la dal-la -dal-la) was pronounced weird and this stood out most to me but many other words were pronounced weirdly as well. But it was a nice song I won't lie.

Next up, the famous senior group EXO. Their last foreign member left is Lay so I'm only using his lines as an example. Yixing, or Lay is from Changsha, China. They use a strong dialect there so that's even worse. Something that stood out to me recently was "Lotto", it seems like no matter how hard they tried, Lay's accent could not be concealed. "널 향해 소리 질러 louder (la la la la)" (neol hyang-hae so-ri jilleo louder (la la la la)" Now the ㄹ in Korean is an in between of r/l and is pronounced as both mixed together but Lay seems to have had problems with it here. Now let's say the producer meant him to do that, his tone goes down at "so" and comes back up at "ri" like the third tone in Chinese.  View this pronunciation video for more information here. Lay's voice is still beautiful and unique since I knew it was him as soon as I heard this line without watching the video but it doesn't mean his accent isn't there. 

Now I think I've given enough examples but one more for anyone who wants ANY MORE excuses. I went to Korea last year after picking up Korean through dramas and songs and many native speakers have said I speak like them and were all surprised to know I learnt it myself. Why? Because of my pronunciation, watching dramas helped me pick up perfect pronunciation but I'm still lacking in sentence structure. My sentences are broken but they still say I speak well due to my pronunciation, this shows how much weight they put on pronunciation. 

Now many fans are fooled by evil editing to think recording is EASY. No, it's not. Recording is hell. The most recent recording that has been edited to look easy was IDOT's recording on KBS for Deep Blue Eyes which was produced by Jinyoung from B1A4. Now it was edited to look like they finished fast but hell no. No way. 

All the members were given a cut at the start of the recording, and it was a one try thing where they all received immense praises. This usually makes viewers assume they finished quickly. Please note that near the end when they used self camera after official filming was done that 1. they were recording again 2. Somi and Sohee had to go buy snacks. Out of random calculations and assumptions it can take up to more than 7 hours for a 7 member group to record a song even with good vocalists.

So what's the point of me telling you all this? I just think maybe it's time to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Is it really better to have more lines in harsh recording environments? Is it really worth fighting for your idols lines because that would mean they have to practice to the point of hurting their vocal cords and recording over and over again. It's your choice and mine is to just leave it alone.

I hope you'll consider everything written here and share this blog if you care about your idols. It's 2:10 am and I started writing this at 1 a.m. while being on meds and cramming for exams so excuse rubbish grammar. Goodnight / morning everyone !! See you in my next post ! :)