The curious case of Lee MinYoung
This is a post about Lee MinYoung, a.k.a. JYP's Min, a.k.a. the trainee/artist whose continued existence in JYP seems to be questionable. (Among the "Former" artists listed on JYP's wiki page, there's a "Min": Lee MinYoung?) I think anyone who's seen the Little Winners performance would be as curious to know where Min is today as they would be about Hyo. And for good reason. Min's got moves:
Dance routines/practices:
→ Lee Min Young ※ Popping Freestyle
→ MIN (JYP Trainee) - Dancing to "Radar"
→ MIN (JYP Trainee) - Dancing to Kanye West
→ MIN (JYP Trainee) - Dancing to M.I.A
→ MIN (JYP Trainee) - Dancing to "My Goodies"
→ MIN; Fantasia "Not the Way that I Do" (Lil Jon's Protege)
→ MIN; Mary J Blige's "Enough Cryin" (Lil Jon's Protege)
→ MIN; Teairra Mari "Make Her Feel Good" (Lil Jon's Protege)
Original Work:
→ MIN (JYP Trainee) - Dancing to "Boyfriend (Min's own song. She seems to have performed it publicly at least once? Make that twice.)
→ MIN 민 2008 Go Ahead Chuseok Festival 추석 New York (Her English sounds good! I don't find it a particularly exciting song, though. And from a different angle.)
→ Min Go Ahead & Boyfriend (Different performance. And a different angle.)
→ LIL JON PRUDECED MIN - So "Boyfriend" was released 2007? Wow. . . . A very underground non-underground sort of debut in the US.
Goddamn. So talented. Is it any surprise that I so badly want Min and Hyo to hook up as dancers again? If there was a dance battle between Hyo and Min right now, I'd probably bet on Min. Truthfully, I've always been torn between trying to decide who was the better dancer in the Little Winners duo. At the age when they danced together, I always got the impression that Min was at least the better locker of the two.
It's a shame that JYP was pushing Min for the American market because I think she would have made a splash in the Korean market if they had made her come out with the hard dancing she's obviously capable of. I wonder, though, if they'd have felt that she had the same potential to be a solo artist in Korea as they felt she would have in America (I personally find this confusing as I don't see where JYP's vision of a big Asian pop star in the US was coming from). I'm not sure having tasted the possibility of a solo career if being in a girl group is something that would have appealed to Min or if the goal of simply "debuting" for real would overcome such ambitions. Imagine Min in 4Minute. (4Minute is under Cube Entertainment, a subsidiary of JYP.)
It is interesting, to me, that JYP was prepared to push Min as a solo artist. That probably marks the difference in how Hyo and Min have since developed as dancers. Carrying a solo stage, being able to stand at the center of attention and arresting and keeping that attention, is no small feat and it's clear that the X-factor on top of the music Min was going to bring to the stage was dynamic dancing. That being the case, they needed Min to be as on top of and even in front of the dance game.
Hyo in SNSD, not so much. Currently SNSD isn't the type of group musically or stylistically to need that type of stage that Hyo, whose dance background is more in line with what Min brings to the stage, could do.
Yet. YET. Look at how differently their career paths have thus far ended up. HyoYeon debuted two years ago, at the same age Min currently is. (Hyo is two years older.) Apparently, Min was supposed to have debuted two years ago as well. (Perhaps she even did, but to a minimum of fuss?) So what's better (or worse)? To have trained and worked so hard overseas in a foreign country under the belief that you'll be able to develop a career over there only to run into a wall and see the group that started in Korea, Wonder Girls, being brought over, being better promoted, and being successful to a degree that has encouraged JYP to keep trying with WG in the US or being the least popular, least promoted, least utilized member of a highly popular and successful girl group?
Mind you, no one's story on Min is straight. Some say she's left JYP and if that's the case, perhaps Hyo got the better deal with SM and her chances in SNSD after all. But if Min is still with JYP and is still intent on breaking into the business, who knows what could happen in the future? (Interestingly, Min's roommate in New York, Gina Choi, has gotten other work in JYP: as I've said before, she was the girl in 2PM's "10 Out of 10" MV.) Likewise with Hyo's prospects within SNSD itself: all of us want to hope, don't we?
(Aside: I have to add that the American-based Korean artists that the Wonder Girls compared themselves to when they worried that they weren't going to be successful must have felt real great hearing that comparison. D:)
No surprise, though, that many feel like HyoYeon would fit better with JYP's artists. I feel ambivalent myself. On one hand, I do want Hyo to be able to really shape her craft--dancing--but I don't want it to head into the stereotypical booty shaking, chest bumping way it seems to have to be for women hip-hop dancers. Actually, I'd love for Hyo to move in a BoA direction but with more variety--throwing in popping, locking, isolations, and partner work.
I cannot get over how much seeing AfroBorike on ABDC this past season made me want for Hyo to hook up with a serious guy partner, someone she could not only refine her ballroom skills with in order to translate those moves into something more street and hip-hop, but also to learn how to be lifted and all that crazy stuff they were pulling. It gets me sad to think that perhaps Hyo isn't really . . . learning anymore. =/
Miiiiiiiin. Go dance with your unnie (I wonder if she calls Hyo that). Go drag her out to the clubs. With Gina. And invite Nicole. You can take Park KiJun along too so that you can have a guy around.
. . . LOL. That would be so awesome.
Now have some random links:
→ SNSD Into The New World FanMade Mix Debut 07 and Present 09
→ 소녀시대(Girls' Generation) MIX vid. ONE MORE TIME (original song and MV)
→ [MIX] Taeyeon & Hyoyeon - As Time Goes By
→ From the movie Clue: "Flames on the side of my face." - Oh God, I love it so much.
→ Beat Freaks Interview Sampler
→ Beat Freaks at Turn It Loose LA Screening - Teresa is studying parkour? Hardcore!
Some Kristin Chenoweth love! These links never get old for me:
→ Kristin Chenoweth - The Girl in 14G
→ If (You hadn't But you did)
→ Kristin Chenoweth singing "Taylor the Latte Boy"
→ Kristin Chenoweth "Spoonful Of Sugar"- Kennedy Center Honors
→ Kristin - Eternal Flame (Earth Girls Are Easy stage reading)
→ "Eternal Flame" ("Pushing Daisies")
→ Birdhouse In Your Soul - Pushing Daisies OST ("Pushing Daisies" has an OST?!?!?!? OMG!)
→ "A Girl Like Me"-Kristin Chenoweth
→ Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth - For Good rehersal PBS (This song gets me every time. ;_;)
Dance routines/practices:
→ Lee Min Young ※ Popping Freestyle
→ MIN (JYP Trainee) - Dancing to "Radar"
→ MIN (JYP Trainee) - Dancing to Kanye West
→ MIN (JYP Trainee) - Dancing to M.I.A
→ MIN (JYP Trainee) - Dancing to "My Goodies"
→ MIN; Fantasia "Not the Way that I Do" (Lil Jon's Protege)
→ MIN; Mary J Blige's "Enough Cryin" (Lil Jon's Protege)
→ MIN; Teairra Mari "Make Her Feel Good" (Lil Jon's Protege)
Original Work:
→ MIN (JYP Trainee) - Dancing to "Boyfriend (Min's own song. She seems to have performed it publicly at least once? Make that twice.)
→ MIN 민 2008 Go Ahead Chuseok Festival 추석 New York (Her English sounds good! I don't find it a particularly exciting song, though. And from a different angle.)
→ Min Go Ahead & Boyfriend (Different performance. And a different angle.)
→ LIL JON PRUDECED MIN - So "Boyfriend" was released 2007? Wow. . . . A very underground non-underground sort of debut in the US.
Goddamn. So talented. Is it any surprise that I so badly want Min and Hyo to hook up as dancers again? If there was a dance battle between Hyo and Min right now, I'd probably bet on Min. Truthfully, I've always been torn between trying to decide who was the better dancer in the Little Winners duo. At the age when they danced together, I always got the impression that Min was at least the better locker of the two.
It's a shame that JYP was pushing Min for the American market because I think she would have made a splash in the Korean market if they had made her come out with the hard dancing she's obviously capable of. I wonder, though, if they'd have felt that she had the same potential to be a solo artist in Korea as they felt she would have in America (I personally find this confusing as I don't see where JYP's vision of a big Asian pop star in the US was coming from). I'm not sure having tasted the possibility of a solo career if being in a girl group is something that would have appealed to Min or if the goal of simply "debuting" for real would overcome such ambitions. Imagine Min in 4Minute. (4Minute is under Cube Entertainment, a subsidiary of JYP.)
It is interesting, to me, that JYP was prepared to push Min as a solo artist. That probably marks the difference in how Hyo and Min have since developed as dancers. Carrying a solo stage, being able to stand at the center of attention and arresting and keeping that attention, is no small feat and it's clear that the X-factor on top of the music Min was going to bring to the stage was dynamic dancing. That being the case, they needed Min to be as on top of and even in front of the dance game.
Hyo in SNSD, not so much. Currently SNSD isn't the type of group musically or stylistically to need that type of stage that Hyo, whose dance background is more in line with what Min brings to the stage, could do.
Yet. YET. Look at how differently their career paths have thus far ended up. HyoYeon debuted two years ago, at the same age Min currently is. (Hyo is two years older.) Apparently, Min was supposed to have debuted two years ago as well. (Perhaps she even did, but to a minimum of fuss?) So what's better (or worse)? To have trained and worked so hard overseas in a foreign country under the belief that you'll be able to develop a career over there only to run into a wall and see the group that started in Korea, Wonder Girls, being brought over, being better promoted, and being successful to a degree that has encouraged JYP to keep trying with WG in the US or being the least popular, least promoted, least utilized member of a highly popular and successful girl group?
Mind you, no one's story on Min is straight. Some say she's left JYP and if that's the case, perhaps Hyo got the better deal with SM and her chances in SNSD after all. But if Min is still with JYP and is still intent on breaking into the business, who knows what could happen in the future? (Interestingly, Min's roommate in New York, Gina Choi, has gotten other work in JYP: as I've said before, she was the girl in 2PM's "10 Out of 10" MV.) Likewise with Hyo's prospects within SNSD itself: all of us want to hope, don't we?
(Aside: I have to add that the American-based Korean artists that the Wonder Girls compared themselves to when they worried that they weren't going to be successful must have felt real great hearing that comparison. D:)
No surprise, though, that many feel like HyoYeon would fit better with JYP's artists. I feel ambivalent myself. On one hand, I do want Hyo to be able to really shape her craft--dancing--but I don't want it to head into the stereotypical booty shaking, chest bumping way it seems to have to be for women hip-hop dancers. Actually, I'd love for Hyo to move in a BoA direction but with more variety--throwing in popping, locking, isolations, and partner work.
I cannot get over how much seeing AfroBorike on ABDC this past season made me want for Hyo to hook up with a serious guy partner, someone she could not only refine her ballroom skills with in order to translate those moves into something more street and hip-hop, but also to learn how to be lifted and all that crazy stuff they were pulling. It gets me sad to think that perhaps Hyo isn't really . . . learning anymore. =/
Miiiiiiiin. Go dance with your unnie (I wonder if she calls Hyo that). Go drag her out to the clubs. With Gina. And invite Nicole. You can take Park KiJun along too so that you can have a guy around.
. . . LOL. That would be so awesome.
Now have some random links:
→ SNSD Into The New World FanMade Mix Debut 07 and Present 09
→ 소녀시대(Girls' Generation) MIX vid. ONE MORE TIME (original song and MV)
→ [MIX] Taeyeon & Hyoyeon - As Time Goes By
→ From the movie Clue: "Flames on the side of my face." - Oh God, I love it so much.
→ Beat Freaks Interview Sampler
→ Beat Freaks at Turn It Loose LA Screening - Teresa is studying parkour? Hardcore!
Some Kristin Chenoweth love! These links never get old for me:
→ Kristin Chenoweth - The Girl in 14G
→ If (You hadn't But you did)
→ Kristin Chenoweth singing "Taylor the Latte Boy"
→ Kristin Chenoweth "Spoonful Of Sugar"- Kennedy Center Honors
→ Kristin - Eternal Flame (Earth Girls Are Easy stage reading)
→ "Eternal Flame" ("Pushing Daisies")
→ Birdhouse In Your Soul - Pushing Daisies OST ("Pushing Daisies" has an OST?!?!?!? OMG!)
→ "A Girl Like Me"-Kristin Chenoweth
→ Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth - For Good rehersal PBS (This song gets me every time. ;_;)