Member of K-pop group TST dies at age 28

K-pop artist Yohan, a member of the boy group TST, has died. He was 28. 

KJ Music Entertainment, Yohan's talent agency, confirmed the news this Tuesday, according to several Korean news outlets. 

A cause of death was not mentioned.

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여행가고 싶다✈

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Yohan, whose real name is Kim Jeong-hwan, was a member of the group TST (formerly Top Secret), which had just released a single album called "Countdown" last January. 

His death came as a shock to many of TST's fans, as he had been active on social media these past few weeks. 

Last May 31, he posted photos of himself and wrote, as translated in the reports on his death: "I want to travel." 

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S. Korea's boyband BTS suspends world tour over coronavirus

SEOUL --South Korea's K-pop boyband BTS will suspend their world tour over worries about the spread of the novel coronavirus and restrictions aimed at stopping it, their management said on Tuesday.

The seven-member band had already postponed the North American leg of the tour, that was scheduled to start on April 25, and cancelled a Seoul concert because of the coronavirus outbreak.

"Due to the nature of BTS concerts involving travel by thousands of international fans no matter where the performances are held, it is also difficult to resume the tour with the current strict restrictions on cross-border movement still in place," Big Hit Entertainment said in a statement.

"Therefore, we have made the difficult decision to suspend the previously announced tour schedule and develop a new schedule."

The suspension of the tour, which was due to include concerts in Europe and Japan, comes as the coronavirus pandemic has infected more than 3 million people globally, with countries imposing travel restriction and lockdowns.

Big Hit Entertainment said it would give details of a new tour schedule as soon as they were clear.

-reuters-

K-pop legends BIGBANG to perform in Coachella 2020

MANILA - Korean pop legends BIGBANG will be performing in this year's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California, their agency confirmed Friday.

YG Entertainment posted a photo of the lineup for this year's music festival, with BIGBANG performing on April 10 and 17.


Korean hip-hop group Epik High will also perform in Coachella on April 12 and 19.

The group's upcoming performance in Coachella marks the end of their four-year hiatus as the members have fulfilled their military service.

Member T.O.P was discharged in July 2019, followed by G-Dragon in October, and Daesung and Taeyang in November.

BIGBANG was originally a 5-man group but member Seungri left the band and retired from the music industry in March after he was accused of sex bribery.

BIGBANG, which debuted in 2006, often topped the South Korean music charts and gained a huge following before members began to enter mandatory military service in 2017.

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K-pop fans unhappy as Swift, Grande lead VMA nominations

LOS ANGELES -- Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande dominated nominations on Tuesday for the MTV Video Music Awards (VMA) with 10 apiece, but some K-pop fans cried foul when best-selling Korean bands were placed in a separate category.

Grande's breakup anthem "thank u, next" and Swift's "You Need to Calm Down," in which she criticizes social media trolls and those who attack LGBTQ people, will contend for the top prizes of song of the year, best pop and video of the year.

Grande also got a nod for artist of the year along with rapper Cardi B, 17-year-old newcomer Billie Eilish, Halsey, the Jonas Brothers and Shawn Mendes.

Korean boy band BTS, which has led a K-pop music wave in the United States and scored three No.1 albums on the Billboard chart in the past year, got just 4 nods, including 3 in the newly created K-pop category.

"bts outsold,,,, EVERY SINGLE,,, artist in the artist of the year category but the vmas didn’t wanna see that so they made a whole new category just to not acknowledge the power and influence bts has had over the whole industry," tweeted a BTS fan called Chioma.

"I am getting so sick of the westerners not giving BTS the due respect. They ignore stats, facts, achievements, charts and the people as well," a user called Shivani Shintre posted on Twitter.

MTV did not return a call for comment.

Fans vote on the winners of the VMA awards, which will be announced at a show in Newark, New Jersey, on August 26, but they do not vote on the nominations.

"Boy With Luv," a collaboration between BTS and American singer Halsey, received nods for best collaboration, art direction and choreography.

Other nominees in the K-pop field include girl band BlackPink, Monsta X, NCT 127, EXO and Tomorrow X Together.

The new Video for Good field features songs deemed to have raised awareness. It includes Swift's "You Need to Calm Down," Halsey's female-empowering "Nightmare," Lil Dicky's environmentally themed "Earth" and John Legend's "Preach" about social injustices.

Other nominees in the category include The Killers' "Land Of The Free," a protest against US President Donald Trump's planned wall on the US-Mexican border, and "Runaway Train" about missing children.

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Kpop giant BTS 'worth $3.6 billion a year' to South Korea

SEOUL - South Korean boyband BTS are worth more than $3.6 billion to the country's economy every year -- equivalent to the contribution of 26 mid-sized companies -- a research institute said Tuesday.

The floppy-haired songsters were also the reason that one in every 13 foreign tourists visited South Korea in 2017, the Hyundai Research Institute said.

Known for their boyish good looks and meticulously choreographed dance moves, BTS -- short for Bangtan Sonyeondan, which translates as Bulletproof Boy Scouts -- have become one of South Korea's best-known and most valuable musical exports.

Earlier this year the septet became the first K-pop band to top the US album charts, a sign of the genre's growing global appeal.

That appeal has helped boost the brand image of South Korean products abroad, the institute said, making BTS a valuable economic asset. 

Researchers estimated the group's so-called annual production inducement effect -- the total economic value generated by related industries -- at 4.1 trillion won ($3.63 billion) annually, the same as 26 mid-sized South Korean companies.

Some 800,000 tourists were believed to have chosen South Korea as their destination last year because of BTS -- more than seven percent of the total visitors to the country.

More than $1 billion in consumer exports, such as clothes, cosmetics, and foodstuffs, were associated with them, it said.

If BTS maintain their popularity they can be expected to generate an economic value of 41.8 trillion won over the next 10 years, the institute added.

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SHINee star's suicide highlights dark side of the K-pop dream

SEOUL -- Known for its ultra-competitive, pressure-cooker society, South Korea has one of the world's highest suicide rates. And this week the even higher stresses in the country's lucrative showbiz industry took their toll on a K-pop superstar.

Kim Jong-Hyun, a 27-year-old lead singer of the hugely popular boy band SHINee, took his own life in a Seoul hotel room on Monday, with his death sending shockwaves through fans around the world.

Five-member SHINee were at the forefront of the "Korean Wave" that has seen South Korean pop culture sweep Asia by storm in the past decade and lap at shores even further afield.

The band has found fame and fortune with multiple chart-topping albums and sold-out concerts at home and abroad since their debut in 2008.

But a grittier reality lies beneath the glitz and glamour of the K-pop scene -- cutthroat competition, a lack of privacy, online bullying and relentless public pressure to maintain a wholesome image at all times and at any cost.

Many stars like Kim are picked up by agencies at a young age, usually in their early or mid teens, their lives then taken over by gruelling singing and dancing training, with the ever-present risk of falling foul of a cut-throat screening process.

Holidays are rare and privacy an unaffordable luxury as many live with other band mates in dorm-like apartments provided by their agents, who dictate everything from music styles and diet regimen to mobile phone use -- and normally impose dating bans.

Many struggle with a constant lack of sleep and privacy.

Kim Se-Jeong, a popular K-pop singer, confessed of once sleeping a total of one hour for four days. "I had to perform on stage, appear in TV shows and shoot ad commercials all at the same time," she told a television interviewer earlier this year.

Kang Daniel, of the popular boy band Wanna One, admitted that his biggest wish was "having just one day of rest."

"For months ahead of my debut, I usually woke up four or five in the morning... practised until two or three in the morning the following day," Kang said in a television interview aired in August.

He was "grateful" to get a chance at fame, he added, but the gruelling schedule eventually affected his health and the 21-year-old cancelled all public appearances earlier this month.

Smiley happy face
Many K-pop stars face tremendous pressure to look and behave perfectly in an industry powered by so-called "fandoms" -- groups of well-organized admirers who spend enormous amounts of time and money to help their favored stars climb up the charts and attack their perceived rivals.

In return, the stars are expected to tread carefully in an industry where today's most-fervent fans can be tomorrow's most vicious critics if their idols fail to meet their expectations -- or "betray" them.

Drug use or drunken driving are seen as career-breakers, while behavior that causes a "stir" -- anything from a social media gaffe to a failure to smile ceaselessly at public appearances -- could be criticized for years.

Many are constantly chased by paparazzi and camera-touting fans who share or sell every single detail and images of the stars' daily lives online for public scrutiny.

"These 'idols' virtually live in a fishbowl and are pressed to put on a smiley, happy face while behaving nicely 24/7," said cultural commentator Kim Seong-Soo, adding the strain could "cripple them emotionally."

Such challenges are common among celebrities around the world, he told AFP, but are amplified in the hyper-wired South Korea, which has some of the world's fastest internet speeds and highest smartphone usage, and a society where pressure to conform is high.

Taboos about mental illness dissuade many from seeking medical help, including public figures, he added.

Winner takes all

Kim's death is unusual for a K-pop musician at the height of his popularity, but is the latest in a long list of showbiz suicides.

In 2010, Park Yong-Ha, a top actor who had huge followings at home and in Japan and China, hanged himself, and former actor Kim Sung-Min, whose career was ruined by a jail term for drug abuse, did the same last year.

In the most shocking series of suicides, actress Choi Jin-Sil - a household name - hanged herself in 2008, her actions blamed on online bullying.

Her brother, also an actor, killed himself two years later, and her ex-husband, former baseball star Cho Sung-Min, followed suit in 2013.

Actress Park Jin-Hee interviewed hundreds of actors and actresses for her master's thesis in 2009 and said that 40 percent had considered suicide at least once due to a lack of privacy, online bullying or unstable incomes.

But celebrity suicides are only a microcosm of South Korea's wider social problems, including cutthroat competition in areas from education to workplaces and a lack of safety nets, said commentator Kim, calling depression an "inevitable outcome" of living under such strain.

"Our country has an extreme form of winner-take-all system where those who fail can hardly make a comeback, or even survive."

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Fans mourn death of SHINee's Jonghyun

SEOUL - Hundreds of fans of top South Korean boy band SHINee member Jonghyun visited his altar on Tuesday at Asan Medical Centre in Seoul to mourn the death of the singer.

Tearful fans and his fellow singers offered condolences and expressed their sadness at the loss of the K-pop star.

  
"I feel really sorry that I didn't consider his pain at all, I only thought of him giving me strength," said Jeong Yujin, a 22-year-old South Korean fan.

"I hope Jonghyun is happy wherever he is," said Walatip Kitkan, a 24-year-old Thai fan.

Kim Jong-hyun, 27, was found unconscious next to burning briquettes on a frying pan inside a serviced residence in the South Korean capital Seoul, a police official told Reuters.

"We're always going to miss you. And I'm so sorry this is what you thought and you needed to do, though I'll always love you. And for everyone that couldn't be here, I'm so sorry. But he knows you guys are here with him too," said 26-year-old American fan Natasha Burgard.

Kim spent nearly a decade in his leading role as one of five members of SHINee, one of the most popular boy bands in the country. He also sang as a solo artist.

His death is a blow to the massive worldwide fan base that Korea's K-pop music has attracted in recent years.

Editor's note:

A group in the Philippines is dedicated to addressing those who have suicidal tendencies.

The crisis hotlines of the Natasha Goulbourn Foundation aim to make these individuals feel that someone is ready to listen to them.

These are their hotline numbers:

Information and Crisis Intervention Center

(02) 804-HOPE (4673)
0917-558-HOPE (4673) or (632) 211-4550
0917-852-HOPE (4673) or (632) 964-6876
0917-842-HOPE (4673) or (632) 964-4084

In Touch Crisis Lines:

0917-572-HOPE or (632) 211-1305
(02) 893-7606 (24/7)
(02) 893-7603 (Mon-Fri, 9 am-5 pm)
Globe (63917) 800.1123 or (632) 506.7314
Sun (63922) 893.8944 or (632) 346.8776

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K-pop group BTS makes history at Billboard Music Awards

Here they are making their #BBMAs Magenta Carpet debut... it's @BTS_twt! 👏 pic.twitter.com/rlt8wT2lQR 

— BillboardMusicAwards (@BBMAs) May 21, 2017


Korean group Bangtan Sonyeondan (BTS) made history as the first Korean group to be nominated and win an award at the 2017 Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas.

BTS won the Top Social Artist award edging out other nominees like Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande and Shawn Mendez.

The group's win also ended Bieber's six-year winning streak.

.@BTS_twt  accepts Top Social Artist presented by @ion360, thanks to you guys! 💕 #BBMAs pic.twitter.com/lZWEuYXp6I 

— BillboardMusicAwards (@BBMAs) May 22, 2017

 In their acceptance speech, the group thanked ARMY, their official fan club.

"ARMY, our fandom, thank you very much. We still cannot believe that we're standing here on this stage at the Billboard Music Awards, oh my gosh," BTS leader, Rap Monster (Kim Nam-joon), said as they accepted their award.

BTS is the second Korean artist and first K-pop group to ever be nominated at the Billboard Music Awards

In 2013, Korean singer Psy won the Top Streaming Song (Video) award for "Gangnam Style." He was also nominated for five other categories on the same year.

BTS was recently in Manila for their two-day Wings Tour Concert.

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