The VICE Guide to Right Now

Korean Air’s In-Flight Safety Video Ingeniously Features K-Pop

“Safety does not have to be serious or boring.”
November 8, 2019, 6:46am
korean air k-pop safety video
Screenshots from Korean Air YouTube.

Many of us know the feeling. You get on a plane, get comfy in your seat and prepare to watch a movie until it happens: the boring safety video comes on. And there’s no chance of getting rid of it until it’s over.

But different airlines across the globe have tried different antics to make that moment a bit more fun - and actually get people to listen to safety instructions. In a most recent case, Korean Air unveiled a new K-Pop safety video in collaboration with SM Entertainment, Korea’s biggest entertainment company, the Bangkok Post reports.

The video premiered on all Korean Air flights on November 4, and features K-pop group SuperM.

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In the video, members of the boy group are seen walking through a futuristic airport, and onto a flight. A flight attendant, played by influential K-Pop singer BoA, is projected onto aircraft walls. She walks passengers through the safety requirement of the flight, including where to store luggage and how to fasten seatbelts.

The video is broken up with segments of the boy-band singing and dancing.

The first flight to feature the video was KE621 from Incheon to Manila, which departed at 7:45 am on November 4.

A Korean Air spokesperson who led the safety-video project said that “safety does not have to be serious or boring.”

“We hope to deliver clear safety messages to our passengers with the new safety video.”

The song featured in the safety video is called “Let’s go everywhere” and will be released as a single on November 18. Korean Air said profits from the sales will be donated to the Global Poverty Project's Global Citizen campaign, which addresses poverty, climate change and inequality.

With the new video, the airline said it wants to “contribute to the spread of K-pop and Korean pop culture around the world.”

This is not the first time airlines have spiced things up with their pre-flight safety procedure. In 2010, videos from Filipino airline Cebu Pacific went viral after flight attendants choreographed their safety demonstration to Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance.

Air New Zealand also garnered praise for its Lord of the Rings inspired safety video featuring the Hobbit.

Find Edoardo on Twitter and Instagram.

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The Boy Band Singing About Ghosting in Seven Filipino Languages

P-pop group ALAMAT’s debut single “kbye” captures the universality of heartbreak with hip-hop and sounds inspired by traditional Filipino music.
March 2, 2021, 9:54am
alamat p-pop boy band singing kbye
Photo: Courtesy of Viva Entertainment

We are in living in a new era of boy bands. Following the international success of K-pop, groups are debuting all over Southeast Asia with hopes of becoming the next big thing. The newest from the Philippines is ALAMAT, whose nine members sing about the utterly relatable heartbreak of being ghosted — in seven regional languages.

“Why did you just leave? You could have informed me. I could have prepared,” the debut single “kbye” goes in the language Tagalog, followed by verses in Ilocano, Kapampangan, Bicolano, Waray-Waray, Hiligaynon, and Visayan. The song instantly went viral when it dropped on Valentine’s Day for seamlessly integrating Filipino culture in a hip-hop track. 

“Kbye” also incorporates sounds from the ancient instrument kulintang and ones inspired by tinikling, a traditional folk dance that involves the tapping and sliding of bamboo poles on the ground and against each other. 

ALAMAT’s Creative Director Jason Paul Laxamana said this is all part of their goal to represent the Philippines in the group’s music. The Philippines is a multicultural and multilingual country — with over 100 languages and dialects — but this is rarely reflected in national media, which is dominated by the Tagalog language spoken in Manila and other parts of Luzon island. The band’s members, Taneo, Mo, Jao, Kin, Tomas, R-Ji, Valfer, Gami, and Alas, come from different parts of the country, and many of them have been longing for better representation of their mother tongues. 

“For many years, especially in [the island of] Luzon, Visayan or the Visayan accent, has often been used as a device for comedy. In our own little way, through the music of ALAMAT, we seek to contribute in reversing this…portrayal of not just Visayans but ‘probinsyanos’ (people from the countryside) in general,” Alas, the lead rapper of the group, who has roots in the islands of Visayas and Mindanao, told VICE. “Seeing ‘kbye’ reach a large number of people gives me the feeling that we are on the right track.”

p-pop boy band Alamat holding up traditional Jeepney signs of their different provinces

ALAMAT holding up traditional Jeepney signs of their different provinces. Photo: Courtesy of VIVA Entertainment

The song’s music video also includes homages to Filipino culture, like native prints in their streetwear. It starts with the band sitting and leaning on a jeepney, and includes scenes of the members dancing in front of a neon baybayin (pre-Hispanic Philippine script) sign and a backdrop made to look like the Capiz shell windows common in traditional Filipino architecture.

ALAMAT means “myth” or “legend” in English. It could also refer to a person who has become a master of their craft. The band chose the name “Magiliw” for their official fandom, which means “to be friendly, affectionate or full of kindness and love.” Their mascot, Aki Alamid, is based on the Asian palm civet cat found in Southeast Asia.

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“From a young age, Filipinos are bombarded with entertainment that mostly celebrates the superiority of foreign cultures (such as American, European, Korean, Japanese), over the local. As a result, Filipinos are conditioned to equate the local and indigenous with inferiority,” Laxamana told VICE.

“We’d like to bring along bits and pieces of our heritage in our fashion, choreography, and music videos. The idea is that when the Filipino people, especially the youth, see our culture being used in modern entertainment, they’d feel a sense of prestige towards their own culture.”

The “kbye” music video now has over 400,000 views on YouTube and P-pop, the Philippines’ answer to K-pop, continues to grow. 

p-pop boy band Alamat striking a pose in front of their official logo

Photo: Courtesy of VIVA Entertainment

“I’m proud and honored at the same time because we are accomplishing what we’ve intended to accomplish through our music,” Kin, ALAMAT’s lead vocalist, told VICE. “While we feel good that some foreigners are taking notice of our work, it’s really our countrymen whom we wish to form a connection with, because one of our wishes is for Filipinos from all walks of life to sing and dance to our music and, by doing so, learn to love their identity and heritage more.”

Apart from ALAMAT, several other P-pop acts have debuted recently, like boy band BGYO and girl group BINI. Then there’s SB19, a five-member Filipino idol group trained by a Korean entertainment company, and the first Southeast Asian act to rank in the Top 10 of Billboard’s Social 50 year-end list

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'Bing Bang Bong' – The Songwriters Behind 'U K Hun' On Their Viral Hit

We spoke to Leland and Freddy Scott about writing the song that refuses to leave your head.
February 19, 2021, 9:53am
Rupaul's Drag Race UK United Kingdolls
Tayce, Bimini Bon Boulash, A'Whora, Lawrence Chaney performing "U K Hun" as part of United Kingdolls. Photo: BBC / World of Wonder / Guy Levy

Thirteen seasons, six international spin-offs and an uncountable number of wigs later, RuPaul’s Drag Race has well and truly conquered the world. But while musical numbers are an everlasting presence on the show, it’s the rare Drag Race song that breaks out from the confines of the maxi challenge and goes completely, utterly viral. 

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I am speaking, of course, about “U K Hun”, the stupidly catchy song from the second BBC Three series of Drag Race UK, which has delighted and tormented fans across the UK and beyond in equal measure. To give you some idea of the popularity of “U K Hun”, as sung by the winning group United Kingdolls, there are clubs in Australia now playing it. It’s spawned endless memes. It hit number one on the iTunes UK chart and number four on the official UK Top 40 charts, eclipsing the number 35 placing from last season, Frock Destroyers’ “Break Up (Bye Bye)”. All this, with a chorus that goes “Bing bang bong / Sing sang song / Bing bang bong / U K, hun?” 

It’s all so magnificently silly and perfectly Eurovision that, for two minutes and 50 seconds, you are instantly transported to another world where coronavirus doesn’t exist, Bimini Bon Boulash is prime minister and the only question that exists is whether you will clap for the bing bang bong, or, if you so wish, the sing sang song (Maybe even the ding dang dong?).

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I got on a Zoom call with LA-based Drag Race composers and writers Leland and Freddy Scott to find out more about the making of the track.

VICE: First off, congrats on the song. It’s debuted on the charts ahead of people like Dua Lipa, which is wild. How long have you guys worked with Ru on songs for Drag Race?
Leland:
Us working together has been about five years. In Drag Race time, that's like 11 seasons of the show, because of the regular US season, All Stars, UK, now Australia. It's been a minute.
Freddy Scott: I remember being at the gym and getting a text from Leland saying, “Hey, are you around? Would you like to work on something for Drag Race?” And I was like, "Yeah, that sounds really fun." That was for the Kardashian musical.

Talk me through the creation of “U K Hun”. Who came up with what?
Leland:
The Drag Race UK team sent us the title of "U K Hun" and explained the double meaning, the influences and what the challenge was going to be. Then it was on us to pull from those and create something that felt like it could compete on the Eurovision stage. I spent a lot of time watching past Eurovision entries and knowing I wanted a nonsensical lyric that just felt right. That applies to songwriting across the board – sometimes the lyrics might not always make sense, but does it feel right?

We were in my studio here, and I knew I wanted to say – I didn’t know in what order – "bing bang bong / sing sang song / ding dang dong". It took us a few minutes just sitting at the table being like, "Okay, what order feels right?" And we pretty quickly landed on that order. And then the track came together beautifully. Honestly, I mean, we really spent a couple days on it. Because we have, thankfully, such a big laundry list of projects with Drag Race, it’s really, ‘Okay, we have to do this and on to the next.’ So there wasn't a lot of time reflecting on the song. It was: did we meet the requirements? Are we setting everyone up to give a wonderful performance? Usually, what we find is the queens initially hate the song and then grow to love it.
Freddy: I was on Instagram Live with A’Whora yesterday, just watching, and I saw her literally say, “When we got the song, we thought the chorus was a placeholder, like it was a joke, like bing bang bong – those aren't the final lyrics, right? And the producers were like, ‘No, that's the song.’” That made me laugh so hard. Its simplicity is the key to why it's, I think, a hit. That being said, when I did leave the session, I could not stop playing it in my car. I was like, ‘This is the craziest but most infectious thing I think we've done so far.’

What kind of influences did the Drag Race UK team sent over?
Leland:
It was past Eurovision entries and from [2018 winner] Netta, whom I'm a big fan of. I knew I wanted to pull from songs like "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", where even the lyrical context surrounding the chorus is: “But what does it do? I don't have a clue, sing it loud.” These lyrics are simply a feeling; they have no meaning. When you don’t know what to say, just say "bing bang bong".

Did you at any point think: ‘This song is so silly. Will people get it?’
Leland:
When we do stuff like this, no matter how much we think we do a great job, we don’t know truly until it's out how it's going to be received. I don't think, when you write a chorus that says “bing bang bong / sing sang song / ding dang dong”, you're like, yeah, this is gonna captivate the globe. You just kind of hope for the best.

Do you take a different approach writing for the UK versus the US? The US songs don’t seem to have that same sense of British humour.
Leland:
I think the UK just has a different sense of humour, where we can maybe get away with more and also be a little more ridiculous. But I really have to commend the UK team in guiding us in the right direction – one of the best compliments we've received throughout the success of “U K Hun” is that the song feels authentically British. Also, when US audiences watch a song on Drag Race, I don’t know if their next thought is, ‘I love this song. Let me go buy it on iTunes.’ I think it’s more encapsulated in the episode, as opposed to transcending and becoming a part of pop culture.

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I mean, the UK is the country that sent “Crazy Frog” to number one.
Scott:
When I started my career, I was working in radio in Washington DC for Sirius XM. I was working on a radio station called New Pop 29 – this is dating me a second – but “Crazy Frog” had been number one in the UK for a long time. So to even be in the same room as “Crazy Frog” is quite the honour.

Ahora and MNEK on "RuPaul's Drag Race UK"

A'Whora and MNEK on "RuPaul's Drag Race UK". Photo: BBC/World of Wonder/Guy Levy

What happens after you write a song like “U K Hun”? Do you just pass it over to the production team and hope for the best?
Scott:
We do get feedback, but once it’s given to the queens it’s part of the competition of Drag Race. The queens do their thing, it comes back to us, we do some edits, we do some mixing and some more additional production to make it sound like a pop song it is.
Leland: Bringing someone on like MNEK was very important. We go on camera for the US version and we'll record the queens, but it was important to everyone to have someone English represent that. It was wonderful to have him back, not only as the person who records the queens but as a guest – his fashion was amazing. He also helped a lot by giving us the performances that we needed in order for this song to do what it’s doing.

So you guys must turn it around in 24 hours after the queens record their vocal track?
Scott:
Shorter [laughs]. When we're shooting, the amount of demos and versions and things flying around in emails – it's a ton. It’s very quick. To get to the final versions is also very quick. We're on, like, kind of like SNL deadlines, but times five – we really turn these around quickly, which means we have to trust our instincts. It's amazing, fun, rewarding, awesome work.

What did you make of the different interpretations of the song, from United Kingdolls to Bananadrama?
Leland:
I'm a fan of the cast as a whole. I think they just give off pure joy and innocence and camaraderie, so I loved both versions. I didn’t know which [version] was going to resonate with the judges and with the UK, but I am partial to Bimini’s verse because of the lyrical content – and what she's saying is being played on Radio 1. I think that's really powerful.
Scott: I do remember repeating in my head, “Glenn Close, but no cigar” for a few months. That just made me laugh so hard. Every verse on this song from both versions is huge and important and makes me either laugh or think. But yeah, Bimini’s verse – specifically “cis-tem offender” – to me, is just one of the greatest double entendres in modern pop.

Did you get a final sneak-peek at the performance, or do you watch along with everyone else?
Scott: We didn't watch it live, but we don't get to see it first either. We get to experience it like anyone else. Leland was visiting his parents and I had just come back to LA from visiting mine, and he was like, “Hey, it's airing.” Then I went on Twitter and refreshed and waited for reactions, because we had these big, big shoes to fill with "Break Up (Bye Bye)". Within like 30 minutes or so, I saw a lot of people writing "bing bang bong" and “this is a bop", and I texted Leland and was like, “It's happening again.”

You know there's a campaign to get this to Eurovision, for real. Would you guys support it?
Leland:
If the United Kingdolls or Frock Destroyers ever get the call, we will not only be ready, but we will make sure they are able to compete at the highest level, show up and give one of the most iconic Eurovision performances of all time.
Scott: Absolutely. If the call happens, we’re there.

@misszing

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What Happened to the A*Teens?

From ABBA covers to "Upside Down" and touring with Britney Spears, four Swedish teenagers helped define Y2K pop. But then, they disappeared. Here's why.
February 24, 2021, 5:20pm
The A*Teens
Image via Getty
WHAT_EVER_HAPPENED_TO_LOGO
What Happened to...? is an investigation into the whereabouts of former icons.

Many moons ago, before Meryl Streep danced around a Greek island in overalls or Colin Firth traded his dignity for a spandex jumpsuit, a group of Swedish teenagers single handedly resurrected ABBA's biggest hits.

Mamma Mia! wasn't yet a movie franchise or even a Broadway show, and Cher hadn't released an album of ABBA covers. The original Swedish foursome remained a boomer relic, a group beloved by Swedes and remembered fondly by the world but far from the forefront of pop-culture relevance for a new generation.

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Such was the stage for the dawn of the A*Teens. 

While Britney Spears, NSYNC, and the Backstreet Boys dominated pop music of the Y2K era, slightly down the ladder (though first in the hearts of many), acts like O-Town, S Club 7, Dream, and Dreamstreet found their own niche. But none of them could claim origins so fantastically specific as the A*Teens—composed of Dhani Lennevald, Sara Lumholdt, Marie Serneholt, and Amit Paul—who began as an ABBA cover band and transcended into contemporary bubblegum pop legends.

"We were just kids who loved singing and dancing," Lennevald (aka the blonde, spikey-haired one) told VICE via Zoom from a Stockholm recording studio. "We would sometimes stop and just be like, 'I can't believe that this is happening for us.' It was such a beautiful and proud moment of my life."

Theirs is not a story of scandal and sordid rock 'n' roll mayhem, but it is a tale of wholesome Scandanavian success and friendship. Lennevald opened up to VICE about the A*Teens' rise to global fame and why they’re still "on a break” decades later.

The ABBA-Teens

The A*Teens were never supposed to leave Sweden. When Universal Music decided to put together a teen pop group ahead of the 25th anniversary of ABBA's 1974 Eurovision win, the grand plan was to see them perform old ABBA hits at local amusement parks and outdoor venues around Sweden over the summer of 1999. Like ABBA, the group would be made up of two boys and two girls, and they'd target the lucrative teen market.

"ABBA agreed to it because the way the label sold it to them, I think, was that they wanted to show young kids the magic of their music in a new way," Lennevald said. "Like, let's take all those young and confused kids and shove this music in their faces."

To make the group's purpose excessively clear, they'd be called the "ABBA-Teens." If the experiment worked, Universal would find other teenagers in neighboring Scandanavian countries and launch local versions of the ABBA-Teens there. A Finnish group, a Norweigen group, and maybe, eventually, they'd journey overseas and create an American one. But first, they'd need to find the talent. 

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In 1998, Lennevald, Lumholdt, Serneholt, and Paul were all after-school students at Lasse Kuhlers, a Stockholm dance school where, for years, they'd diligently rehearsed ballet, jazz, and hip-hop moves, with a side of singing and acting, alongside dozens of other pupils. The then-14 and 15-year-olds took it seriously but didn't have any specific path to achieving stardom. (This was no elite K-Pop training center.) So, when Universal held auditions for the ABBA-Teens at Lasse Kuhler, the foursome jumped at the chance and were quickly matched as the ideal group during rounds of tryouts.

"I had known all of them since I was 12, so we stuck together," Lennevald said. "I think Universal saw that natural connection." 

The news was kept under wraps while the teens recorded their album of covers called The ABBA Generation, until the spring of 1999, when the label made the big announcement in the most unflattering way. 

"They had taken our passport pictures and put them on the front of the daily newspaper with a headline about how we were going to resurrect ABBA's music," Lennevald said. "I was in eighth grade, and when I came down to lunch, every table had a copy. It was very embarrassing. People were like, 'Oh, we can't hang out with him. Dhani is not cool.' But that's the thing about Sweden, and maybe it's like that worldwide, if you're doing something that isn't really cool, you're a dork—until you become very successful."


From the instant they dropped their first single, listeners couldn't get enough. In April 1999, their version of "Mamma Mia" went straight to No. 1 on the Swedish charts (and eventually quadruple platinum), and a documentary crew jumped at the chance to follow their local tour. Suddenly, they had clout, and the label began reassessing its expectations for the future of the group. 

They changed their name to simply "A*Teens," banking on the idea that they could release original songs and wouldn't need to be tied exclusively to the ABBA catalog for long. And though The ABBA Generation album was widely panned when it dropped in August 1999, it didn't matter. The kids were on a roll.

Beyond ABBA

After charting with ABBA songs like "Super Trooper" and "Dancing Queen" across Europe, the A*Teens focused on recording original pop music that could have wider appeal. 

"The ABBA stuff was something that we signed up for and it felt like, 'Okay, thank you for trusting us to deliver this to the people,'" Lennevald said. "But when we did our own stuff, it felt like we became our own. It just felt so good." 

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Over the next four years, the A*Teens dropped three albums of original songs: 2001's Teen Spirit, 2002's Pop 'til You Drop, and 2003's New Arrival. The albums (all streaming now) are full of certifiable bops worthy of today's playlists. There are the big hits, like "Upside Down" and "Floorfiller," and endless deep cuts brimming with optimism and pep, like "Halfway Around the World" and "A Perfect Match." There's also a track called "Slam" that feels like a direct inspiration for The Office's "The Scarn." 

Along the way, they recorded covers of Elvis' "I Can't Help Falling In Love" for the Lilo and Stitch soundtrack and a random collaboration with Alice Cooper on a remake of "School's Out," for which the rocker journeyed to Sweden and spent four days in the studio with the teens.

"I still can't get my head around it. He's a legend, and he was telling us stories about when he was supposed to fake put a sword through his leg, but he actually did it and cut himself," Lennevald said. "We were like, 'Oh my god.'"

Despite their manufactured origins and polished veneer, however, Lennevald stressed that the A*Teens had more creative autonomy than many realize.

"We came together through casting with numbers on our chests. So, sure, we were truly a product," he said. "But what it turned into and the whole dialogue we had with the label and the producers and the writers, I think that was incredible. We had so much freedom and creative input on everything from the music to the visuals and the way we wanted to work."

Global Fame

Clearly, the A*Teens' cherubic faces and unbridled enthusiasm could not be confined to Nordic tundras. They were destined for international fame. By 2000, they were opening for Britney Spears on a slew of shows during her "Oops... I Did It Again" tour across the U.S. and Canada, and went on to co-headline a U.S. tour with Aaron Carter. While they didn't get to spend much time with Spears on the road, two years later they did run into her while shopping at the Beverly Center in LA.

"We were in a store and we heard, 'Aren't you guys the A*Teens?' We turned around and it was Britney," Lennevald said. "We were like, 'Britney Spears fucking recognizes us.' It was cool that we'd left a little bit of an impression on her that she remembered us."

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The A*Teens continued touring abroad to satiate their growing fanbase, which was especially rabid in South America. "When we went there, we had police escorts everywhere," Lennevald said. "There would be people climbing over the hotel walls. They had to close off whole levels at the hotels just for us with armed guards. It was just insane."

But according to Lennevald, the most outrageous thing he did as a teen pop star was order copious amounts of breakfast food from the room service menu at a luxury LA hotel.

"The label said just put breakfast on the room tab and they will take care of it, so that's what I did. But the menu didn't say any prices, so every day I was like, 'Okay, this looks good, that looks good.' Pancakes, scrambled eggs, fruit plate, yogurt, sometimes oatmeal," he said. "It was probably $20 for pancakes! So, I had a $100 breakfast every morning for three weeks. That's the most rockstar thing that happened. Oatmeal and fruit salad, not champagne and cocaine. We were the most boring, innocent people ever."

And unlike ABBA, Lennevald maintains none of A*Teens ever dated each other.

"That would have been the most obvious thing. But because we had known each other for so long, it just turned into a brother-sister type of relationship," he said. "I could be like, 'Oh, I'm so fucking sick of her or him or all of them' at times. The girls would get a bit annoyed at me and Amit because we got to sleep longer while they had their hair and makeup done. And then sometimes the girls would analyze each other, like, 'Her hair looks better than mine today.' But I think it was incredible how freaking well we all got along."

A Permanent Break

By 2004, the tide was changing. As music pirating continued to rise and digital tracks took over, CD sales slumped for most artists, including the A*Teens. Plus, they were exiting their teen years, and while they joked about becoming the "A*Dults," it was the end of the road. After a final greatest hits album release, the A*Teens announced they'd be taking a break in 2006 as they pursued various solo endeavors.

"We all felt like we wanted to try something new. It felt like when you're growing out of a shirt, and it doesn't fit as well anymore," Lennevald said. "We were like, 'Okay, let's take a break.' But I guess we're still on a break."

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Though they never officially disbanded, it's unlikely the group will be getting back together any time soon. "Maybe if it was for some incredible charity thing," Lennevald said. "Otherwise, I don't see the point of it. I wouldn't do it for money."

Still, he stressed that there's no bad blood between the former bandmates: "We didn't fall out. We're just all living different lives."

Lumholdt, Serneholt, and Paul are all parents now. Lumholdt lives in England and is a competitive pole dancer and teacher. Serneholt has a Swedish podcast. And Paul studied at the London School of Economics and joined the family business, working in energy tech. 

For Lennevald, now 36, the end of A*Teens meant the start of a different music career. He had a Justin Timberlake-esque solo release with 2004's "Girl Talk," and eventually moved to LA and focused on writing and producing, working with Red One, Lupe Fiasco, and Avicii. He's now back in Stockholm and dating singer Alice Chater, and this spring he'll release an album of "melodic techno" and house music, or what he dubs "clubbable" tunes under his own name, as well as his Dharc banner with friends. He also plans to provide vocals on "experimental" commercial tracks later this year as part of his Inv0lved producing work.

But his A*Teens roots still run deep.

"'Mamma Mia' and 'The Winner Takes It All' are on one of my feel-good playlists on Spotify. And when I'm in an Uber or something and I hear ABBA, I just get a smile on my face," he said. "Everything about ABBA will always have such a special place in my heart. It was such a humbling and appreciative experience, just doing what you love and doing it with friends."

Follow Ashley Spencer on Twitter.

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This Is Not How This K-Pop Duo Actually Looks. It’s Part of an Elaborate Joke.

Between the blurry smooth skin and big soulful eyes, Mad Monster’s filter-heavy K-pop parody is winning over amused fans. 
May 28, 2021, 8:44am
Mad Monster, consisting of Tan and J-Ho, are a K-pop duo formed by Korean comedians Kwak Beom and Le
Collage: VICE / Images: Mad Entertainment

Sporting large sparkly eyes, runway model bodies, and porcelain skin, you could say this boyish K-pop duo is unreal. And that’s because they are.

K-pop is known for its high beauty standards and dedicated fanbase. With fierce competition in the industry, Mad Monster is subverting K-pop’s perfectionistic expectations by playing into it—excessively. Members Tan and J-Ho brand themselves as “monsters” who are crazy about music, but they are best known for their overexposed beauty filters, exaggerated anime eyes, and auto-tuned vocals. 

In reality, Mad Monster isn’t fronted by two youthful Korean artists with cartoonish good looks; they’re actually the brainchild of comedy duo Kwak Beom (Tan) and Lee Chang-ho (J-Ho), who regularly create humorous content on their YouTube channel Bbang Song Guk

Part of the whole Mad Monster schtick is the duo’s blatant refusal to acknowledge the digitally enhanced elephant in the room. They almost never break character in interviews, touting made-up backstories that sound straight out of K-pop fanfiction.

“Our fan club's name is Pokémon,” J-Ho told VICE over an email interview.

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J-Ho, 21, was academically gifted from a young age, boasting an extraordinary IQ score of 185. He was accepted into both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, but chose to become a K-pop idol instead. Meanwhile, Tan, 21, dropped out of middle school to pursue his dream of becoming a musician. He got his stage name Tan (which means “burnt” in Korean) after his shoes caught fire during an audition where he danced for 12 hours straight.

Of course, being fictional characters, none of that is true. 

Kwak and Lee, who are actually in their mid-30s, were regulars on the long-running South Korean sketch comedy TV show Gag Concert until May 2020, when production announced an indefinite hiatus

Since then, the comedy duo has been collaborating with Y. Joon Chung, the entertainment lead of the media company Sandbox Network, to create comedy content. And that’s how Mad Monster was born. In the Mad Monster alternate universe, Chung plays Daddy, the founder of the fictional Mad Entertainment who first scouted and trained Tan and J-Ho. 

Using popular app Snow to edit their faces and an auto-tune program to change their voices, the two comedians transform into young, dazzling K-pop stars. 

According to Chung, the ham-fisted indulgence in beautifying filters is all part of the comedy.

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“The goal is to provide fun for viewers by overusing filters and auto-tune,” he said, adding that the exaggerated filters are purposely interrupted for viewers to notice. Videos of Mad Monster sometimes feature glitches that momentarily contort their faces and bodies in unexpected ways.

Like many other K-pop idols, the characters Tan and J-Ho diligently provide behind-the-scenes glimpses into their lives, through vlogs uploaded on their YouTube channel. They remain invariably bright-eyed and dreamy-looking in these day-in-a-life videos and dance practice recordings.

“We don't want to be number one. We just want to be the only one,” J-Ho told VICE, fully in character. “We want to be a group that 7.8 billion people around the world love,” Tan added.

Though their image and voices are fake, their popularity is real. 

Mad Monster’s official Instagram account now has 26,000 followers, many of whom dig the duo’s sleek aesthetic. Their music video titled “Mine Rudolph,” which premiered in April, has racked up about 5.8 million views on YouTube.

Besides winning the hearts of fans, the earworm has also caught the attention of an actual K-pop celebrity.

“Why does the song sound so good... so annoying haha,” rapper Jay Park commented, much to the amusement of other YouTube viewers.

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In their most exciting collaboration yet, Tan and J-Ho recently shared the screen with Jay Park and other prominent Korean rappers like Loco, Nucksal, and Don Mills. In a YouTube video posted on May 26, Mad Monster participated in a variety show-style segment where they chatted with the rappers and showed off their dance moves.

“Mine Rudolph” may be Kwak and Lee’s first musical endeavor, but in the Mad Monster alternate universe, it is Tan and J-Ho’s fourth single. 

According to their detailed fictional back story, Mad Monster took the world by storm with their 2017 debut single “Adult” and went on to achieve phenomenal commercial success. In 2018, their single titled “just in” supposedly featured Justin Timberlake, Justin Bieber, and Justin Trudeau. (See what they did there?)

When they catch a break from chasing their K-pop dreams, Tan and J-Ho engage in pretty mellow hobbies, which is perhaps the most relatable detail about them.

“I like to drink a glass of whiskey with spicy jokbal (pig’s feet),” said Tan, while J-Ho shared that he prefers being alone and relaxing in bed.

For now, the world is happy to humor Tan, the boy who danced his shoes into friction fire, and J-Ho, the prodigious K-pop idol. As K-pop experiments with blurring the human and the virtual, who’s to say the made-up Mad Monster can’t become a bona fide sensation?

Follow Koh Ewe on Instagram.

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