I’m not a huge listener of kpop outside of 2nd and 3rd generation, which was why I’m curious as to whether what the opinion/observations being made was correct, from the perspectives of people who listen to a wider range of generations.
Earlier today there was a post about a first generation idol (Fin.K.L’s Ok Joohyun), who on Bubble blasted new generation kpop’s over-reliance on autotune and post-production editing. In it, she openly questioned the ability of idols to sing, if they kept on using autotune in their “live performances”, and that she didn’t want to be associated with those kind of singers.
She was pretty harsh, the post got deleted for whatever reason, but it reminded me of a similar brief comment Ryeowook of Super Junior brought up (which albeit was nowhere near as harsh or as extensive as her perspective), and it made me wonder whether his observations had some truth in it. For context, Ryeowook is a vocalist from the 2nd generation, part of Super Junior’s vocal line KRY, who are considered as one of, if not the best, vocal line in the entire industry; he’s considered to be an excellent vocalist who is only beat out by Kyuhyun and only then very slightly. He prides himself on always singing live and using handmics, and when you hear him sing you can notice how very clear his articulation and diction is when he sings, where every syllable and sound he sings is perfectly clear.
Two weeks ago, Ryeowook was in the middle of his promotions for his most recent 10th anniversary comeback single Runaway; part of those promotions involved going on Heechul’s music show. Heechul straight up asked him what was the biggest difference between the kpop vocalist quality of the past (older generations) and the kpop vocalist quality of the present that Ryeowook had noticed. Ryeowook responds that the older generation was “clear” and “pure”, with a focus on clear diction. But then he says in contrast with the younger artiss these days, he says straight up that they sound like groaning, where you add a lot of “sounds”, and that they lack that diction and articulation now.
He doesn’t outwardly say it but then him and Heechul bring up Express Mode, which was SJ’s last comeback title focused on having a more ‘modern’ kpop sound in alignment with more newgen-sounding music, where they comment on the very autotuned and vocal processed parts of the chorus. It’s meant to fit with the beat and the sound they went for, but considering what he said before there is the implication that the increased focus on autotune and editing bogs down the vocal quality in new generation music.
I don’t think Ryeowook necessarily shares the super harsh perspective Joohyun had (he didn’t even frame this as outwardly negative, but more that it was just a huge change) especially as he’s not really the kind of person to directly criticise and when discussing other people’s vocals he’s always quick to talk about the positives and prioritise the positives first. I just thought it was really interesting when he talked about the change in diction and I was wondering the extent to which his comments were ‘true’ as someone who does not keep up with the newer generation music he was commenting on.
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