<겁쟁이>는 결국엔 다시 만나는 관계에 대한 곡이거든요. 이번 프로젝트와 지난 10년을 통해 알게 된 건 저희 팬분들이랑 저희 펜타곤은 그냥 운명적으로 계속 서로 옆에서 공전을 하고 있는 관계라는 거예요. 결국엔 다시 돌아오는 거죠. 떠나간 줄 알고 슬퍼했던 것도, 끝난 줄 알았는데 끝나지 않았던 것들도, 멀게 보였는데 사실은 생각보다 많이 가까웠던 것들도 시간이 지나면 우리는 다시 계속 만나는구나,를 알게 된 것 같습니다.
사랑이죠. 그리움이겠죠.
Lan Sizhui and Wei Wuxian are such a painful parallel because both became embodiments of families they weren’t born into, but Sizhui was actually given the belonging Wei Wuxian spent his life earning without ever being allowed to claim.
WY: Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan ☺️
LZ: Mn ☺️
WY: Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan ☺️
LJY: How annoying that must be for Hanguang-Jun!!
LXC: He went many years without hearing Young Wei say his name. This is something they both need.
the fact that someone who teamed up with Gunil during the show, when he was the leader, is now supporting him through all this scary legal stuff is so heartwarming
thats why you always treat people with kindness and respect, bc it comes back to you when you need it the most
Sung Jaehwan, a lawyer and contestant from The Logic, the show Gunil recently appeared on, has released an official statement regarding Gunil on Instagram.
🔗: https://t.co/mxZqgnjaU8
Vernon’s point here is actually much more nuanced than “old K-pop was better” or “K-pop is becoming American.”
K-pop has always been hybrid. Its history is deeply connected to American and European pop, R&B, hip-hop, dance music, and also to the Japanese music industry. Even the formation of what we recognize as modern K-pop in the 1990s happened through taking foreign musical forms and recontextualizing them within Korea’s own language, industry, performance culture and audience.
That’s why the important part of what Vernon is saying is not that K-pop suddenly started borrowing from American pop. It has ALWAYS done that.
The interesting change is how much the distance between the source material and the Korean reinterpretation has narrowed.
Think about the difference between earlier generations and now. A 2nd-gen song could be heavily influenced by an American genre and still sound unmistakably like a Korean production because the influence was being filtered through a very particular Korean arrangement style, vocal structure, songwriting approach, choreography and idol-production system.
Wonder Girls, BIGBANG, 2NE1, Girls’ Generation, etc. were absolutely not “uninfluenced” by Western music. Quite the opposite. But you could often hear the process of localization more clearly.
And that localization was actually one of K-pop’s strengths.
Korea didn’t simply import American pop and reproduce it. Producers took global trends, adapted them to Korean audiences, combined them with Korean industry practices, and eventually developed a system capable of exporting that localized product back into the global market.
That is basically the fascinating paradox of K-pop’s globalization: something can be heavily influenced by global pop while becoming more distinctly Korean through the way those influences are reorganized.
What Vernon is noticing now is almost the reverse side of that process.
The global music industry has become so interconnected that producers, songwriters, choreographers and labels are working across the same international networks, using the same DAWs, sample libraries, trends, genres and songwriting camps, and responding to increasingly similar global market expectations.
So naturally, the “filter” becomes less audible.
It’s not that K-pop stopped being influenced by American pop. It’s that the global pop vocabulary has become so shared that sometimes there is less sonic distance between “K-pop” and “Pop” to begin with.
And honestly, this is why his comment about the 2000s/early 2010s makes sense to me. He isn’t necessarily saying those songs were more original. He’s talking about a period when the process of taking a global influence and turning it into something recognizably K-pop was easier to hear.
That distinction matters.
And honestly, I could yap about this for much longer if anyone is interested 😭 There are some genuinely fascinating articles and discussions on K-pop’s musical hybridity, localization, globalization, and the changing relationship between K-pop and global pop.
The more you look into the history, the more interesting Vernon’s observation becomes.
[📢] PENTAGON 10th Anniversary Tour <101010> UNIVERSE’s CHOICE STAGE
PENTAGON 10th Anniversary Tour <101010>에서 보고 싶은 무대를 직접 선택해 주세요!
UNIVERSE가 가장 많은 선택을 한 곡은 PENTAGON 2026 TOUR <101010>에서 특별한 무대로 선보일 예정입니다. 🎤
📆 투표 기간 : ~ 2026년 8월 14일 (금) 11:59 PM (KST)
🗳️ 참여 방법 : 구글폼에 접속하여 양식에 맞추어 작성 후 제출 (https://t.co/JM0q9MjeQu)
UNIVERSE 여러분의 많은 관심과 참여 부탁드립니다.
* 투표 리스트에서는 1곡만 투표 가능합니다.
* 투표 리스트에 없는 곡은 주관식 답변란에 공식 제목으로 최대 1곡까지 기재해 주세요.
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