Big Mama Before BLACKPINK and 2NE1, YG Entertainment,
or to be more exact, the subsidiary company of YG, M-Boat, once had another four-member
girl group called Big Mama with the same empowered and “I don’t care about what people say”
vibe.
However, a bit different from their second and third gen juniors, Big Mama chose to not
focus on the visuals and completely engaged in being a pure vocal-centric girl group with
the incredible singing capabilities of four members: Shin Yeon A, Lee Young Hyun, Lee
Ji Young and Park Min Hye.
This also partly explains why instead of going for some pretty, sounding names, they just
went “Big Mama” and proudly used it as a manifest that no one needed to be slim to
be a KPOP idol.
Moreover, the group also signed to a contract where they promised to not undergo plastic
surgeries and would only use their music talents to shine in the hypercompetitive industry.
After debuting, the group had completely shattered the stereotype about KPOP girl groups and
with their dedication to releasing meaningful songs as well as giving out the best live
performances, Big Mama quickly became a sensation in the 2000s.
First, they bagged home the prestigious title Rookie Of The Year and then, the track Resignation
also stood out as the most favorite song in karaoke rooms.
Their album Like The Bible was also embraced with an open arm by the public and considering
the strict visual-standard of South Korea that you’ve already known, these triphumps
were really something that probably most groups would take forever to achieve.
The thing is, since life is always harsh, the group later failed to maintain the heat
in the long run.
Why?
Is that because their outstanding vocals weren't enough?
Sadly, the answer is yes and three other reasons contributing to them going down also came
down to the mismanagement from M-Boat/YG Entertainment, the public's eternal love for visuals and
the quickly changing nature of the KPOP industry.
Just four years after debut, Big Mama left M-Boat Entertainment in 2007 and moved to
Manwalldang for the hope of a brighter future.
Unfortunately, they still had to suffer from a long three-year hiatus at this new agency
before moving to Tailrun Media, announcing another comeback just to officially disband
in 2012.
However, this is yet to be the end of everything and Big Mama’s fans can still enjoy their
idols’ music because on 24 May this year, the group reunited after 9 years since the
official parting way announcement.
So, while it’s hard to tell what will come next, let’s wish them all the best for the
future they’re pursuing.
KARD Similar to Big Mama, KARD is also a group
that started out differently from the rest of the industry but still managed to do everything
pretty smoothly, at least for the first several years.
So, how different are they?
First, KARD is the only co-ed group of gen3 with two male members: J.Seph, B.M, and two
female members: Somin and Jiwoo and altogether, they debuted under DSP Media in 2016.
However, instead of straight up entering the race with the official debut, they chose to
go slowly by releasing the first single project with Oh NaNa.
Another different thing KARD tried out was that, instead of the fixed line-up, one “hidden
member” would be revealed along with each album release before the official debut and
for Project Vol.1, the hidden factor was Heo Young Ji.
However, things didn’t go as planned and for some hidden reasons, the second and third
members just never showed up.
That’s why in Project Vol.2 of KARD, the group released an English version of Don’t
Recall instead of introducing a second member as initially announced.
As I’ve previously mentioned, KARD actually started out on a bright note despite following
a concept not usually seen in KPOP.
In 2017, they bagged home the Rookie Award and Hottest Rookie titles.
Then in 2018, they also received the New Wave Award (Music) at the AAA and had a quite successful
collab with Super Junior through Lo Siento.
Continuing the streak, they honorably got the Asia Rising Star Awards at the Korea-China
Management Awards one year after that and also hosted several tours around the world.
However, as at the end of the day, the concept of co-ed group has never been the cup of tea
for the South Korean public, their domestic fanbase never got to grow big and the hype
they received always came from foreign countries only.
Sadly, that’s also the reason they’ve been struggling in recent years.
Since international fans don’t often buy so many physical albums and little domestic
reputation also means the limited chances of promoting on famous shows in South Korea,
it was super hard for KARD to gain more momentum.
Throughout their career, never once had they won the first place on music shows and though
going to Weekly Idol is kinda like a ritual for a group after a comeback, they have also
never been there since debut.
The most recent signals many fans believed was telling something off about KARD’s future
is that since the group has gone on a hiatus for more than one year now and J.Seph, BM
have also started their solo career, probably it would be very very long before they can
see four member together on stage again.
CLC Debuting under Cube Entertainment, CLC was
once predicted to be as successful as 4Minutes with a pool of talents but unfortunately,
netizens believe the group is forever going down after observing their journey over the
past seven years.
Probably because Cube Entertainment wanted people to stop comparing the group with 4Minutes
and nitpicking them based on the standards used to be imposed on their seniors, CLC was
made to debut with a bubbly concept with Pepe in 2015.
However, as many people noticed after the second and third albums, this image didn’t
suit the group so well considering the strong, sassy aura that the members held.
However, just like the previous two acts, since CLC is also a full package group full
of talented members, they also had the time of peak reputation and this happened after
CLC changed up the concept and had two more members on board.
In 2016, Elkie and Eunbin were added to CLC and with this new line-up, they hopped on
the girl-crush trend and released many badass bops like Hobgoblin and Black Dress.
Then with NO, the group officially rose to a brighter stardom and bagged home the very
first trophy after four years performing on music shows.
Their later promotions Evil and Helicopter in 2019 and 2020 also managed to draw attention
but unfortunately, since this was the era of the new monster rookie (G)-IDLE and the
international girl group BLACKPINK, CLC failed to thrive further in the industry.
Then the worst thing happened to CLC in 2021 when Elkie filed a lawsuit against Cube Entertainment,
announcing that she would leave the group for good and for the fates of the remaining
members, Elkie also revealed there would be nothing much left since the agency had stopped
supporting them.
While this caused a huge backlash against Cube, some fans still held onto the hope that
CLC would come back soon because never once there was any official statement about the
issue.
However, when Yujin recently attended the survival show Girls Planet 999 and confirmed
that CLC had in fact already disbanded, fans started to accept the truth and all that they
could do was to express regret for the talented girl group.
DAY6 Debuting under JYP Entertainment, DAY6 is
probably the only group of this company that doesn’t get to be in the A-rank stars of
KPOP and also slept on by the public despite the impressive talents in the music field.
Similar to Big Mama, DAY6 also debuted as a vocal-centric band.
DAY6 don’t do any choreographies when performing live since in nature, they’re a band and
different from most Kpop groups, they don’t promote songs through attending reality and
variety shows either.
But since DAY6’s music is really good and the vocals are also outstanding, they still
have for themselves several achievements, like: Band Music Award, Band Music Performance,
and most recently, Brand of the Year, and Best Band Performance.
Their concerts are also sold out frequently though compared to other groups from JYP Entertainment,
the scale has never been that big, and their fanbase is also strong and stable.
However, when looking at the big picture, some people believed that DAY6 is still an
underappreciated group considering their massive talents and despite having been active since
2015, the group just had the first win on music show in 2019.
Plus, though the group has released many good songs like You Were Beautiful, Congratulations,
Shoot Me and Zombie, they still struggled to gain more recognition from the public and
as a fan pointed out, the saddest part was that in MAMA 2017, they didn’t even perform
their own song and instead just did a collaboration with GOT7 through Never Ever.
They are also frequently mentioned on social media but instead of being praised for their
music, DAY6 was often seen on the list of “underrated KPOP groups that deserved more
recognition” but even so, netizens still noticed how people didn’t really seem to
care.
So, which group do you think is the most pitiful and what is the main reason these four groups
here struggle to get the attention they deserve?
Comment down below to share your thoughts with us.
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