I’ll be honest, I only got interested in K-Pop in the middle of this year, until then I only liked J-Pop. What called my attention in korean music was, how can I say, the fact that it’s more… poppy? I don’t, I just really enjoy it and even though I don’t know a lot, I think I know enough to point the highlitghts of this year. See what those were after the jump!

• Wonder Girls: First of all, I have to say this: I love the Wonder Girls. I love LOVE them. I know they’re an  idol group with stupidly addicting songs and that SoHee can’t sing live, but I can’t help it, it’s stronger than me. I just love them more everyday (except for SoHee). Having said that, 2008 was undeniably their year. Starting with their last year’s hit “Tell me”, their popularity just increased as this year they had two other hits “So Hot” and “Nobody”, both making them become more and more known outside Korea (they even appeared on Perez Hilton’s site) and making them win several awards recently, including MKMF and Golden Disk Awards. Since September they’ve done a incredible high number of “Nobody” peroformances, in every single version and style you can imagine. Now they are loved by many netizens who keep waiting to see what their next addicting-coreographed-conceptual song will be like, and I’m one of them Not only that, they already have their own cooking TV show, and JYP doesn’t seem interested in slowing them down anytime soon

• Big Bang: Big Bang, oh I love them too, I can’t possibly describe how much I love “Haru Haru”, it’s probably one of the songs I loved the most this year (together with “Nobody” ). The song has an almost perfect combination of classical instruments, rap (which I don’t usually like) and a cool beat.  Oh, and DaeSung’s voice in one of the verses gives me goosebumps. Even though it sounds like a dance song, it’s still really touching. I love it to death. The video was great as well. Just for that they deserve to be this year’s top group, which they were, together with Wonder Girls. They were the only group to have 3 hits this year and, in my opinion, they’re one of the best korean groups. They do their own music (at least G-Dragon and T.O.P do) and, diferently from the Wonder Girls, I really like all the members. And it’s not just me, since they won several awards as well.

So, I love the Wonder Girls and I love Big Bang, so I must be a WonderBang fan, right? Yes, you’re right, I’ll talk about this later.

• Other important comebacks: Apart from my two favourite groups, other huge artists made their comebacks this year: DBSK, pop diva Hyori Lee and Korea’s star Rain. I’ll be honest again, I only downloaded DBSK’s album, the other two didn’t grab my attention at all, even though I like some of Hyori’s songs. But I watched many of their perfomances and I know how well-loved they are. DBSK came with a new album, “Mirotic”, after achieving a level of sucsess in Japan that only BoA has done until now among Korea’s popstars. The title track os the album is GREAT, and, yes, it is another of my favourite songs this year, and so it was with Korean public (I think my taste is kinda mainstream, huh?). The album was a big success and they won awards in MKMF and Golden Disk Awards as well. Hyori came back with her new album “Its Hyorish” and I don’t have much to say because I don’t feel like researching anything about it  at all. Oh, she did an amazing performance with Big Bang on MKMF, THAT was great. Rain came back with his “Rainism” album and an interesting concept, something related to magic sticks or so. Whatever~

So, that’s it. I don’t know much about K-Pop (yet). Hopfully next year I’ll give a much more detailed summary, like the one I’ll do about J-Pop in the next post. For now, I’m REALLY excited for all the year-end’s korean Gayo Daejuns, there’s going to be a DBSK x Big Bang Special Stage, a mini-drama with Big Bang and SNSD, a special stage with Hyori and Rain (hottest duet ever?) and, of course, Wonder Girls How awesome is that? I can’t wait!

Merry Christmas, I’ll probably come here again before the new year. Don’t eat too much and enjoy your gifts!