Flavor Profile: SISTAR
Since it is summer, and I’ve been lacking on Flavor Profile posts, it seemed only fitting to dedicate this month’s to the queens of summer bops: SISTAR.
While SISTAR may not be one of my ult girl groups, they are pretty far up there. I have listened to their entire discography more than once, and spent some time watching their various variety appearances and have generally kept up with all of their careers since they disbanded in 2017. I love their style of music (have you realized by now that R&B with power vocals is a Jessie combo?), and they are always a lot of fun. They more than deserve a whole post dedicated to them, and fitting for this month as their debut was June 3, 2010 with ‘Push Push’.
The members of SISTAR consist of:
Hyolyn: Leader, main vocalist
Bora: Main rapper, main dancer
Soyou: Lead vocalist
Dasom: Vocalist, visual
As I said, SISTAR debuted in June of 2010 under Starship entertainment and was the company’s first group to debut, as well as one of their first artists. Hyolyn originally was to debut in a group under JYP (which included Hani from EXID), but when that group fell through she auditioned for Starship. Soyou was originally at Cube and almost debuted as part of 4Minute, but wasn’t added to the group’s final lineup. The group has one sub-unit, SISTAR19, with Hyolyn and Bora (they released one mini-album as the unit). Their first big break was winning Music Bank for their song, ‘How Dare You’. They continued to be a successful group until they decided to disband in 2017, after releasing ‘Lonely’.
Here’s their music videos, in order, as well as their SISTAR9 sub-unit videos:
I made a Spotify playlist of my top songs from the group, I also included my favorite solos. SISTAR has 2 full albums, and 6 mini albums as well as a handful of solos (as well as the above mentioned SISTAR19 mini album), so they do have a good amount of music to sort through if you are just picking up their music for the first time. I tend to skew more to their later work, as it is more heavily focused on their vocals and while they started out more in the dance-pop genre, they changed to focus more heavily on R&B while keeping up that pop-influence in their title tracks. If you liked 2NE1, I think you’d like a lot of SISTAR’s early works, and if you liked Miss A or MAMAMOO you’ll like their later stuff.
Some of my personal favorite songs are ‘Crying’, ‘The Way You Make Me Melt’, ‘Bad Boy’, and pretty much the entirety of their title tracks. ‘I Like That’ is my favorite of their title tracks though:
I think one of the things that I’ve always liked most about the group, aside from their vocals, is their personalities. They’ve always been a lot of fun on variety shows, and that’s due to the fact that they just don’t care to be there to please the MCs. They are also highly aware of who they are and don’t tend to let anyone take them down just because they happen to be who they are. They are quick and witty and not here to please the males unless that’s what they want to. They have a variety show that’s just follows them, SISTAR’s Showtime. Soyou also has a vlog channel that she is actively keeping up.
I won’t list all of their variety work, but here are some of my favorites that you should check out if you have the time:
SISTAR on Running Man episode 439 (Shownu from MONSTA X is also on this one)
Star Show 360 episode 6. Can be found on Viki.
Knowing Brothers episode 32
Home Alone episodes 55 (Soyou) and 245 (Dasom)
A Style for You (Bora is one of the hosts). KSB World has episodes subbed.
Fantastic Duo episode 14
Since the group’s split, Hyolyn and Soyou have been focusing on their solo music careers and Bora and Dasom have been focusing on their acting (for a list of Bora’s filmography go here and for Dasom’s go here. They both are active and in dramas currently.). It really is the perfect outcome to the group, as they had always had a pact from the beginning that when one member wanted to go off and work solo, the group should end. All have been able to continue on in the solo work they wanted to do.
Along with showing up in a variety of shows as MCs and hosts, Bora was in the fifth season of God’s Quiz (the reboot). While her character is minor, she is in it a fair bit and I liked her role.
While I didn’t watch it, Dasom’s character in He Is Psychometric was well loved. It’s on my list, I just was spoiled and haven’t made a point to pick it up. She’ll also be in the upcoming drama with Song Jihyo, Was It Love.
Hyolyn and Soyou both have a vast list of solos under their belt, both since they went solo and while they were part of the group. I’ve put together all of their solo work that has a music video into a playlist:
Soyou is one of my favorite vocalists, so I’m a tad bit biased (not a tad bit, she is my bias), and has done a ton of OST work. I admittedly follow her work the most closely than the others, and have for a while. I first took real notice to her on the OST of Goblin with ‘I Miss You’. Her collab with OVAN, ‘Rain Drop’, was one of my favorite songs of last year. She is currently the only member of the group left at Starship.
But this doesn’t mean that I don’t also love Hyolyn. Since she left Starship she’s started her own company, Brid3, and has also continued on with OST work. While she does stray a little bit out of my normal musical taste, BAE was an exception. I loved that song, it was one of my top ten of 2018. It’s a lot of fun. Last year she came out with ‘You Know Better’ and I fell hard. You should also watch this live performance of ‘Rockabye’ because she’s just so good:
There’s a lot more I could say about SISTAR and I’m far from an expert on the group, but I hope this helps aid in not only understanding how the group is in personality, but in talent and hope that you find some music you connect with.
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