Everyone knows about the “dance challenge” shorts that have become a thing as part of release promotion in K-Pop, but K-Pop adjacent bands doing their own version of it that’s more of a “vocal/instrumentation challenge” is something I’ve been enjoying a lot lately.
Since Dreamcatcher member Siyeon, who serves as vocals/co-producer for band project ChRocktikal released their “REQUIEM” title track, there’ve been a ton of challenge shorts released, with individuals or groups putting their own vocal/instrument spin on the chorus, including 2NE1 Sandara Park, DAY6’s Wonpil, fellow Dreamcatcher member Yoohyeon, and more.
I do still like the by-now traditional “dance challenge” videos too because short-term learning of choreography and trading it back and forth is always neat, but I feel vocal challenges hit a bit different since you can hear different vocal color and tone from each participant on a song – and it seems the barrier to entry appears to be a bit lower, since I see many more variance in participants, leading to sometimes-pleasantly-unexpected vids, like having long-time Dreamcatcher producer Ollounder take part.
Part of the appeal is seeing interesting collaborations but also maybe finding out about an artist or act you might like to follow. I didn’t know much about HYNN or OMEGA X (outside of the news they made) or Angel Noise and hearing them cover “REQUIEM” made me decide to see what else they’ve sung in their own work. For me, vocals have a bit higher of a chance for me to get curious about another artist given the differences you can hear when someone sings.
Obviously, ChRocktikal is by far not the only or first K-Pop adjacent band to do this (recently, ONEWE’s “Scenario” and DAY6 YoungK “Shut The Door” come to mind) but I hope this becomes more of a thing in K-Pop in general to accompany the dance challenge trend.
(The disclaimer I’d like to add, seeing as vocals are a fierce topic of discussion in K-Pop spaces, is that I’m not trying to turn this into a vocal vs. choreo debate or a talk about who would or wouldn’t participate in a vocal challenge – both have their place in a K-Pop act and my opinion is that the “sliders” for stats in this regard can vary, but everyone is at minimum a worthy enough performer with the whole package to debut and have a K-Pop career.)
EDIT: If you all have examples of vocal challenges, send them into this thread, I’d love to see/hear more of them!
submitted by /u/dresdenologist
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