KPopped: the weird musical duel the place South Korea’s hottest stars make the Spice Girls seem like useless weight | Tv

I wish to perceive Ok-pop higher, as I consider it is vitally common with the children. That sentence is a hard-working one: it introduces the knowledge that I’ve spent this week watching the brand new Apple TV+ present KPopped (from Friday 29 August), whereas suggesting I’m too previous to have any hope of success. But it’s nowhere close to as hard-working as a Korean pop star.

This battle of the bands-style present goals to boost consciousness of Ok-pop within the west prefer it’s lymphatic filariasis or one thing. The format jogs my memory of PE classes. You know the way fitness center lecturers cut up teams of pals up, in order that they focus? Here, Korean boy and lady teams resembling JO1 and Blackswan are cut up in half. Each half works with a well-known western pop artist, re-tooling their best-known tune in Ok-pop mode. The ensuing performances are voted for by the studio viewers, and the winner will get – effectively, nothing. An injection of relevance.

The present is produced and hosted by rapper Megan Thee Stallion – with Gangnam Style’s Psy as co-host. I’ve spent 5 years making an attempt to grasp why Megan Thee Stallion is known as that. Whenever I ask the web, it assumes I’m questioning the horse bit. (She is statuesque, like a stallion, which appears self-explanatory.) It’s really the Elizabethan English within the center I’m intrigued by. Thee? An archaic type of tackle used instead of “you”? I suppose nobody desires to get pronouns unsuitable, in order that they go away it alone.

The format is complicated, too. Each episode has two well-known western artists competing towards one another, supported by one mega-famous Ok-pop band, who’re battling themselves. So, Megan Thee Stallion v R&B veteran Patti LaBelle, every with half of Billie. Or 80s stars Taylor Dayne v Vanilla Ice, every teamed with half of lady group Kep1er. But after I leap straight to the Spice Girls ep, it seems to simply be Mel B and Emma Bunton. Rather than splitting up – too triggering? – Scary and Baby each carry out with each teams, working towards the present’s aggressive logic. Also, watching a studio vote after the actual fact simply isn’t that thrilling.

What I’m gripped by is the stability of energy within the rehearsal rooms. The globally common Ok-poppers have the grace and uncanny communication of synchronised swimmers. Perfect options, pores and skin like peach blossom. Drilled inside a hyper-exacting star system, they dance like a murmuration of swallows, or a handful of diamonds thrown within the air. The westerners, by comparability, seem like useless weight. They dance like Rocky Balboa. They transfer much less typically than a 90-year-old in rent-controlled property. You can see their aura draining.

“Finally, we’re having a laugh!” Mel B exclaims, pulling out an deliberately hapless cartwheel in rehearsals, to well mannered titters. Some of that is to do with age, however not all of it. I like Emma Bunton, however can’t see her popping or locking. Even Thee Stallion, no slouch, seems to be nearly static. I’ve by no means seen anybody look much less impressed than Colombian singer J Balvin being proven round a South Korean market. He’s nervous, is the factor. He seems to be much more dejected as soon as he will get into rehearsals with boyband Ateez. “Shall we show him an easy one?” certainly one of them says, in Korean.

The downside is that our pop stars are, above all, salespeople of their very own charisma, which they can not subsume. It’s an existential nightmare for them to share the stage. Korea, like most Asian international locations, values group concord, cooperation, respect for elders and social hierarchy. You’ve by no means seen such well mannered celebs. “I think we will win” is the sassiest they get. Our performers are like badly behaved schoolkids, appearing out as a result of they’re falling behind in historical past.

I perceive Ok-pop now. Impeccable choreography, maximalist manufacturing and hundreds of thousands of concepts. But it’s nonetheless our guys I’m tuning in for, to see who handles the stress least effectively. Will Boy George say one thing reducing? Will TLC trigger a global incident? Will Vanilla Ice get detention for smoking? Who will these legends show themselves to be, after they’re not the preferred individual within the room? KPopped isn’t thee greatest expertise present ever created, however it might be thee most revealing.