TVXQ! aka HoMin’s Rising Sun performance

MAKES ME SO SAD. To cope, I’ve been retreating to the deeper vaults of the Youtube TVXQ archive to watch the original MV.

Thoughts:

1) why is it that the two of them perform it so much better than the five of them?
2) oh, right, because Yoochun always looked like he was dying every performance (see: “T Live concert“)
3) but I went back to the lives that they did when they were in Korea before Japan, they all really sucked.  All of them.
4) it’s really strange, though, how their time in Japan has managed to elevate their status from pretty-boy-no-talents to pretty-boys-of-better-talents-than-other-idols-even-in-other-countries (aka the “Star of Asia”, as news reports call them).  See – I definitely remember back in 2006 when SM got a lot of crap for not sending their artists on stage with the cabailities to perform live, and people definitely marginalized SM artists as essentially what they were – pretty faces, good dance skills, low vocal abilities – and marginalized their fans for being shallow (which, I mean, come on. We were, guys. We were.)  But this Rising Sun Performance?  Please!  It’s atrocious, even now.  So I can’t suppose that this assessment of the new Rising Sun is based on fallen standards of K-Pop; these guys have just genuinely gotten better, along with the rest of the idol pool.

But!  God. I miss the 5 of them. If JYJ hadn’t flipped off SM and gotten cock-blocked from every broadcast station in Korea, what would their broadcast presence be like?  Would they be the awkward dae-sunbae that you just kind of have to play along with and humor because they’re TVXQ THE STAR OF ASIA, BOW TO TEH GROUND BEFORE THEM OR DIIEEE; would they be the awkward dae-sunbae trying to be hip and in with the constantly evolving variety broadcast climate a la Tony and Moon HeeJun from H.O.T?; … could they be anything else?  For some reason, I feel like “older” acts like TVXQ, who’re slowly beginning to join the ranks of Shinhwa, g.o.d in terms of their comebacks that are really only built to solidify/check up on their fanbase, will never again reach a point of novel popularity like their junior hoobaes because their music, their voices, etc., are all old game.  So whenever they do make a comeback, or an appearance of some sort, they’re only ever going to truly be hailed for the achievements of their past that allowed them to be in the position of power that they are in now because, well, how much further up the success ladder can they go when they’ve been #1 all this time?