Tasting Notes: Boyfriend

There are some groups that I know in passing, and always say to myself that I’m going to deep dive more into them whenever I have the time. There are also some groups that I’ve known for a while, and then one day I become obsessed with. Boyfriend is currently that group. So I need to talk about them.

I’m not going to go into detail about the group, because this is not what this post is about. This post is about the reasons why I’ve randomly fallen in love with this group, and sort of tell you my background with them. As well as give you some things so that maybe we can fall in love with them together? Cause it’s always fun to have a friend in all this. Basic summary of the group is that they were a six member boy group under Starship Entertainment from 2011-2019. Yes, we are getting into a group that disbanded last year. Fun times ahead!

I’ve known about Boyfriend for a while. My first ult group was SS501. I got into them quite a while ago (like end of 2010ish? It’s hazy. I’m not good with these date things) and since I was obsessed with them through YouTube, YouTube had a little hint as to what I might like. And for a while, it was always Boyfriend.

It still happens all the time.

I get it. I mean I do now, but during that time I didn’t really do anything with it. Mainly cause in those days I wasn’t full on into kpop so there wasn’t an urge to press play. I also was into other things and just out of college, so I didn’t really have the time to care. But I did know of some of their songs, and after a while I grew to like ‘Witch’. I think this is also around the time I was allowing myself to get interested in kpop more than just it being just always suggested.

And that was all for a while. I knew some of their other videos, but really maybe spent a couple of times on each. Flash forward to this year when I became absolutely in love with ‘Janus’.

Really, really obsessed. That’s when I thought that I should stop just passing them by and actually listen to their music. When I deep dive a new group, I usually spend the time to make a playlist either on Spotify or YouTube with their music. With the YouTube playlists I find it’s interesting to see their progression from what they sounded like and how they evolved. It’s also good for those groups that do the ongoing concept. So I did that with Boyfriend and quickly realized that was a mistake.

Boyfriend has a lot more content than I had expected. I really was only being pushed a handful of their music videos, and was shocked when I actually sat down to come up with the list. Not only did they produce a lot of title tracks in Korean, they also did just as many Japanese ones. These aren’t Japanese versions of their Korean, these are brand new singles. So since I spent some time on that, here’s the list:

I also spent some time trying to find some extra videos about them. Some of the group started a YouTube channel when they disbanded and have kept it up, but it was actually hard to find a lot of content. Which is kind of amazing to me. Their fans are crazy in all the music stages I watched. They were at least somewhat bigger than a lot of groups, I mean not super popular, but I would put them just out of underrated-underrated with those screams. You can barely hear the guys during this MCountdown stage:

Also, side note, this Music Bank stage is my favorite of the stages for Janus because of the vocals, it’s just not as flashy as the one above. You can clearly hear one of the guys in the chorus and he’s become my bias because of that voice. I want to hear it more but I can only guess that it’s Hyunseong by his “oh yeah” part and knowing that it’s not one of the twins or the leader...maybe? So please, if you are a fan of them and know who’s the loudest in the chorus and can confirm who my bias is, that would be really great. I tried so hard to figure it out. I really did.

I usually try to find guides or fan accounts for groups these days to get a sense of what I’m getting into from the people that love them, but with Boyfriend they are in a grey area. Much like with a lot of the older groups I got into a while ago, the “unauthorized guides” were not a thing and so I kind of had to do what I used to and just keep randomly searching for random unsubbed content. I did find this one that’s pretty good:

Some of Boyfriend’s older songs lean more into the cute concepts and Japanese pop (which might have been their angle, since they also debuted in Japan in 2012). They are catchy, and while I don’t love everything that they’ve put out, I do have an appreciation for them. They do kind of morph into the regular pop boy group, and towards the end they started to go a bit harder. Some of their songs really do have strong similarities to Monsta X. Starship has a sound, and some of what I’ve heard from Cravity kind of sounds like a mix of Boyfriend and MX. So maybe if you are into them, check out Boyfriend.

I made a Spotify list of some of my favorite songs. I’ve only gone through their entire discography a couple of times, so this list may change over time, but it’s what caught my eye right now.

If you are a fan of Boyfriend let me know your favorite appearances/stages! I’m always willing to watch more.

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