YG actress Yoo In Na cast as IU’s sister for new drama

It has been confirmed that actress Yoo In Na has been cast in the upcoming KBS weekend drama series You’re the Best, Lee Soon Shin (최고다 이순신).

The upcoming drama, which is scheduled to air its first episode on March 9, will be led by director Yoon Sung Sik, who made the top viewed KBS drama Bridal Mask, and author Jung Yoo Kyung, who worked on the Marry Me script. Not only that, the current weekend series, My Daughter, Seo Young, has hit the 40% mark of viewership in Korea. The drama You’re the Best, Lee Soon Shin will be the follow up drama for My Daughter, Seo Young, and is expected to continue on the hot popularity of KBS’ weekend drama series.

In the story, Yoo In Na will be acting as Lee Yoo-shin, the second older sister of Lee Soon-shin, who is the show’s protagonist and also IU‘s character. Lee Yoo Shin is a freelance author with many talents and a very smart and set personality. In real life, the two celebrities IU and Yoo In Na are well known for their close friendship, close enough to be called IU-InNa (아이유인나).

Yoo In Na’s new act will show what it means to find real happiness and tell the story of being the second child in a family using her own charms to unfold the character.

After leaving a great impression during High Kick season 2, Yoo In Na continued to appear in bigger drama pieces, such as Secret Garden, The Greatest Love, which enjoyed top ratings in Korea.

Her last piece was with tvN‘s time-slip romance drama Queen Inhyun’s Man, in which she played the main female character for the first time. She put forth a very lovable emotional character, received lots of love from viewers and showed her growing potential as an actress.

Yoo In Na stated, “The character Lee Yoo Shin is very different from any other character I’ve received before, so I’m very excited and looking forward to being this character. I will try my best to show a new charm that I have. I’m very honored to be part of a drama with such veteran actors.”

Source: news and photo- YG Family

Happy Tears: And the first Perfect All-Kill of 2013 goes to…

And the first artists to achieve a Perfect All-Kill this year is…

LeeSSang has done it. The popular hip-hop duo achieved the very first Perfect All-Kill of 2013 for their song “Tears” featuring CCM’s rookie group The Seeya‘s Eugene.

The incredible performance marks a return to form for LeeSSang. Only a handful of artists achieve Perfect All-Kill’s each year where a number one song is achieved on all daily and weekly real-time music charts in Korea. IU, Big Bang, PSY and Busker Busker were the only artists to achieve an all-kill in 2012.

Powerhouse vocalist Huh Gak and Yoo Seung Woo’s Monodrama is holding at number two on the real-time charts while hip-hop duo Baechigi’s Two Guys and CNBLUE’s I’m Sorry is holding onto number three and four respectively. Girls’ Generation’s I GOT A BOY is at number five after almost three weeks on the charts.

Congratulation to Leessang and Eugene for accomplishing such an incredible feature despite the heavy competition from Huh Gak, CNBlue and Girls’ Generation.

Girls Generation & BIGBANG top YesAsia’s 2012 Bestsellers

YesAsia has released its lists of bestsellers of Korean music for the year 2012.

The e-store unveiled the top ten artists of four separate categories through its editorial column YumCha!. The categories include best selling albums, best selling K-Pop DVD, best selling female artist albums, and best selling male artist albums.

YumCha! revealed that the results for 2012 were quite similar to 2011′s list as idol group BIGBANG and SM Entertainment artists occupied most of the places. For the overall best selling albums, BIGBANG ranked first with its albums Alive and Still Alive. Second place went to Super Junior with its albums Sexy, Free, & Single and Spy. Following Super Junior is a consecutive line of SM label mates. Third place went to the group’s label mates EXO-K with its debut album MAMA. Next was SHINee with Sherlock, Taetiseo with Twinkle, and Girls’ Generation with The Boys. Seventh place went to G-Dragon with his solo album One of a Kind and eighth place went to TVXQ for its albums Catch Me and Humanoids. INFINITE took the ninth spot which broke the YG-SM alternation and Super Junior appeared on the list again at tenth place for its albums Mr. Simple and A-Cha.

For the best selling K-Pop DVD list, Girls’ Generation achieved first place with its 2011 Girls’ Generation Tour DVD. Super Junior came in at second with its Super Show 3 DVD. Third place went to SMTOWN for its compilation documentary I AM: SMTOWN. INFINITE came in at fourth with its Second Invasion Live in Seoul DVD; Girls’ Generation made an appearance on the list again taking the fifth place for Into The New World; and YG Entertainment followed suit with its 2011 YG Family Concert in Seoul DVD. Seventh place went to BEAST with Welcome to Beast Airline; the eighth place went to CNBLUE with Blue Storm; and  ninth place went to 2NE1 for its Nolza! Live in Seoul DVD. Last but not least, Shinhwa took the 10th spot with its commemorative 14th Anniversary Special – The Return DVD. Below are the lists for the best selling general female and male artists of 2012. Female:

1. Girls’ Generation
2. T-ara
3. 2NE1
4. Taetiseo
5. IU
6. f(x)
7. KARA 
8. BoA
9. Miss A
10. 4Minute

Male:

1. BIGBANG
2. Super Junior
3. SHINee
4. INFINITE
5. TVXQ
6. B.A.P
7. BEAST
8. CNBLUE
9. MBLAQ
10. G-Dragon

Sources: (News & Photo) – YesAsia

2012 In Review: Part 9 – Best Collaborative Work

[2012 In Review Series]

0. Prelude – Best Album Art
1. Introduction
2. Best R&B/Soul
3. Best Rock/Alternative
4. Best Rap/Hip-hop
5. Best Dance/Electronica
6. Best Pop/Ballad
7. Best Crossover/Miscellaneous
8. Best Original Soundtrack
9. Best Collaborative Work
10. Label of the Year
11. Rookie of the Year
12. Song of the Year
13. Artist of the Year
14. Album of the Year
15. Concluding Remarks

Welcome back to our 2012 In Review series! Today we go above the distinction of genres to recognize the best works of a collaborative nature. My rule of thumb for this category goes like this: not only must a selected album or song sound good, but it also needs to display a kind of synergy effect that makes the work equal more than the sum of its parts. It doesn’t always have to mean that the synergy was unexpected, but the act of collaboration has to bring more to the table than simply another voice or instrument to change things up. This tends to be a category dominated by hip-hop musicians, but this year’s picks are relatively well-distributed across genres.

I tend to discount producer-singer collaborations for this category - Sweetune worked with Kara and Infinite on some good tracks, for example, but that’s not really in the spirit of this. (Otherwise we’d be counting everything.) I will count these types of collaborations under two circumstances: either the composer is normally not a producer by trade, or he/she is actually the primary artist.

Many of the works below have been featured already in the genre categories, so we’re skipping the one-liner descriptions for honorable mentions today. And as always, honorable mention picks are sorted by alphabetical order of artist names.

Albums

Best Collaborative Album 2012

Poetree – 사랑해, 희망없이 (Love, Hopelessly)

Collaborators: Rooftop Moonlight, ALi, Hwayobi, Jung-yup, Park Ji-hye, Jooey, Chiyu

If I didn’t know any of the collaborating artists and you told me that they were all just different vocalists for one big group, I may have believed you. The Poetree duo has a well-defined style – mellow pop-ballad with traces of R&B and soul sprinkled in – and as such, the texture of their compositions is pretty consistent. The hard part is finding vocalists that can maximize the impact of each track. Credit them for that: selecting Hwayobi and her husky tone for the old-school groove of Sunday of My Life was brilliant, as was taking Park Ji-hye’s slightly burnt-out but amiable voice for 근.자.감 (Baseless Confidence). One good decision becomes eight, and the transitions between them are seamless. It’s a tall task to make a ballad collaboration this cohesive, and Love, Hopelessly was one of the very few that worked out.

Runner-up Collaborative Album 2012

Clazzi – Infant (also selected Honorable Mention Dance/Electronica Album) (read our review)

Collaborators: Whale of W&Whale, Yi Sung-yol, MYK, Jinsil of Mad Soul Child, Hyun-song & Su-ryun of The Koxx, Christina, Im Seulong of 2AM, Kim Wan-sun, Jang Woo-hyuk, Jo Hyuna of Urban Zakapa, Kota & Jubi of Sunny Hill

Even in my original review (the rating to which I’d add another star, now), I noted the strength of the collaborations. Most striking is the unexpectedness of some of these appearances; I would never have expected Yi Sung-yol to appear in a bubbly house track, let alone handle it that well. His reassuring voice is the anchor that holds the track down. And while Jinsil wouldn’t have been as much of a leap of imagination, the way in which her vocals are used – essentially lithe, washed-out chorus backing – took me by surprise. Further, DJ Clazzi isn’t afraid to adapt his style to fit his guests’. 40 Nights absorbs The Koxx’s electro-garage, while Can Only Feel appears to be written with Kim’s voice in mind. While the tracks don’t quite come together nearly as cohesively in this one, the depth and breadth of Clazzi’s experimentation gets this album high marks.

Honorable Mentions

Born Kim – Future Color (read our review)

Collaborators: Rang Show of Black Tea, The Solutions, Crucial Star, Jolly V, Dok2, Lee Won-suk of Daybreak, Nuck of Souldive, Pento

Eluphant – Apollo

Collaborators: Kim Phil, Bumkey, Jung-in, Simple J, Jooyoung, Ra.D

J-Tong – 모히칸과 맨발 (Mohawk and Bare Feet) (also selected Runner-up Rap/Hip-hop Album) (read our review)

Collaborators: No Brain, Lowdown 30, Simon Dominic of Supreme Team, Beenzino, Zion.T

Lee Seung-gi – 숲 (Forest) (read our review)

Collaborator: Epitone Project (Cha Se-jung)

Leessang – Unplugged (also selected Honorable Mention Rap/Hip-hop Album)

Collaborators: Yoon Do-hyun of YB, Jung-in, Jo Hyuna of Urban Zakapa, Simon Dominic of Supreme Team, Bobby Kim and Juvie Train of Buga Kingz

Primary – Primary and the Messengers LP (also selected Honorable Mention Rap/Hip-hop Album) (read our review)

Collaborators: Simon Dominic and E-Sens of Supreme Team, Yankie, Mellow, Jinsil of Mad Soul Child, Gary of Leessang, Garion, Zion.T, Beenzino, Bumkey, Paloalto, Gaeko and Choiza of Dynamic Duo, Jinbo, Dok2, Deez, Rhythm Power, Jay Park, Double K, G.O. of MBLAQ, Junggigo, Dead’P

Son Sue-kyung – I Am (also selected Honorable Mention Crossover/Miscellaneous Album) (read our review)

Collaborators: Dynamic Duo, K.ing, Jung Tae-chun, Yoon Do-hyun of YB, Phantom, Jang Hyo-suk, Son Seung-yeon, Yu Sung-eun, Woo Hye-mi, Ji Se-hi

Soriheda – Soriheda 2 (also selected Best Rap/Hip-hop Album) (read our review)

Collaborators: Rhyme-A-, DJ Wegun, R-Est, Kaedemelodii, Dead’P, Kang Sun-ah, B-Free, Marina Zettl, Paloalto, Okasian, Huckleberry P, Satbyeol, Hwaji, Born Kim, Soulman, Minos, Soulfish, Suda, Deepflow, Jolly V

Songs

Best Collaborative Song 2012

J-Tong – 개판 (Clusterf*ck) (also selected Honorable Mention Rap/Hip-hop Song) (actual version here)

Collaborators: No Brain

The above video is not the version I’m talking about. I refer to the shiny new 2012 album edition, which you can listen to from that link, but it’s actually useful to compare the two versions. As you can see, J-Tong’s original had plenty of energy with that electric riff and cadence, and especially with the rapper’s characteristically charismatic flow. And then you listen to the newer version… and “plenty of energy” nothing, this is a veritable explosion of energy. No Brain’s instrumentals put a thick coat of power on the original riff, and add an especially punchy device in the deliberate, cymbal-heavy drum play. No Brain vocalist Lee Sung-woo also brings a hook with him: his higher-tone shouting endows a further taste of punk to complement J-Tong’s growl-infused rapping. This is a zany song, crafted by some of Korea’s most indefatigable musicians and resulting in more kinetic vigor than either team could have achieved alone. It’s the very embodiment of what this category represents.

Runner-up Collaborative Song 2012

Kim Jin-pyo (JP) – 아저씨 (Ahjusshi) (also selected Honorable Mention Rap/Hip-hop Song) (read our related review)

Collaborators: J Rabbit

This is one of those cases where I can just quote myself and have it work out. (Love it when that happens.) “It’s about a girl in her teens or maybe 20s falling in love with a much older guy, who adamantly resists the relationship. The presentation is not only tasteful, but positively irresistible. Entertaining lyricism… and the back-and-forth dynamic between narrators show what JP’s music can be when everything goes right. Additional credit is due to J Rabbit; Jung Hye-sun’s ungarnished, sweet performance is picture-perfect for the song. This is a magnificent piece of pop.” Even in hindsight, JP could hardly have picked better artists to portray the eagerness of a young girl in love. His own depiction of the flustered old guy is humorous but spot-on. They each complement what the other does not have, and Ahjusshi turns out as one of the year’s best love songs (so to say).

Honorable Mentions

Bae Sun-yong – The Lady of Seba (Featuring Park Ju-won) (also selected Honorable Mention Crossover/Miscellaneous Song)
Bulhandang – 한 길을 걸어가라 (Walk One Path) (Starring Keeproots, P-Type, Rhyme-A-, Wimpy, Minos, Daephal, Sean2Slow, Garion) (also selected Honorable Mention Rap/Hip-hop Song)
Choi Baek-ho – 뛰어 (Run) (Featuring Park Ju-won, Malo) (also selected Honorable Mention Pop/Ballad Song)
Double K & Loco – Home (Featuring Jinsil of Mad Soul Child) (also selected Honorable Mention Rap/Hip-hop Song)
D-Story – 부탁이야 (Please) (Featuring Hyun-joong of M.A.C., Xena)
Ga-in – 시선 (Gaze) (Featuring Yoon Jong-shin) (read our related review)
Goodmorning Heaven – Goodmorning Heaven (Starring Lee Sang-mi of Ex, Jung Yu-jong of Daybreak, Park Soon-chul of Oh Ji-eun and the Wolves, Jo Jun-yong, Lee Myung-joon; featuring Harim)
Grand Mint Band – So Nice (GMF 2012 Version) (Main sessions: Kim Sun-il, Kim Jang-wun, Jung Yu-jong of Daybreak, Yu Jung-kyun, Jang Dong-jin, Jung Su-wan of Serengeti, Lee Su-ryun of The Koxx, Kang Min-suk, Im Young-jo, Kim Dong-hyun, Kim Myung-gi, Jo Jung-hyun, Kim Sung-hwan, Kim Hye-bin, Lee Da-hye; featuring Ko Young-bae of Soran, Kwon Jung-yeol of 10cm, Kim Hyuna of Lalasweet, Oh Ji-eun, Sweet Sorrow, Thomas Cook, Lucia). As an aside, I’m fairly certain that 26 people credited in one song is a 2012 record.
Lena Park (Park Jung-hyun) – You Don’t Know Me (Featuring eAeon) (read our related review)
MC Sniper – 할 수 있어 (I Can Do It) Song Version (Featuring Yiruma, Kim Ji-soo) (read our related review)
Nam Soo-rim – Drive Me To The Moon (Featuring Park Ji-yoon) (read our related review)
Oh Soo-min & Rex.D Project – 어색한 인사 (Hello)
Park Ji-yoon – 소리 (Sound) (Featuring Park Asher)
Park Myung-soo & Jung-yup – 꿈이었을까 (Endless Dream)
Siberian Husky – Real Sound (Featuring Lee Sung-soo of HarryBigButton)
Skull & Haha – 부산 바캉스 (Busan Vacance)
Soran & Kwon Jung-yeol of 10cm – 미쳤나봐 (Maybe Crazy)
Soul Fish – What We Do (Featuring Okasian, GLV, Paloalto, B-Free, EVO) (also selected Honorable Mention Rap/Hip-hop Song)
Sunghoon – Ma Boo (Featuring San E)
Wanted – Like You (Featuring IU)

What do your picks look like for this category? Discuss with us in the comments, and join us tomorrow in Part 10 as we recognize labels that had the biggest years!

Note: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely of the reviewer and not of hellokpop as a whole.

Sources: Photos – Covers from Bugs Music, Daum Music; featured image from Nate

‘IU REAL FANTASY 2012′ special DVD to go on sale

IU‘s first Korean tour concert REAL FANTASY 2012 special DVD will be going on sale.

LOEN Entertainment states, “With the start in June at Seoul stopping by Ulsan, Jeonju, Suwon, Busan, Daegu and an encore concert in Seoul, IU successfully ended her national tour concert. To celebrate her success, we will be releasing IU REAL FANTASY 2012 Special DVD starting December 27th.”

There will also be a 84-page photobook and star card included in the Special DVD package.

On the other hand, IU’s special DVD will reveal a preview video through YouTube and is holding pre-orders on Yes24, Hot Tracks, Interpark and various other music sales websites.

Source: news and photo-The Star, video-LOENENT