Several months ago I gushed about K-pop girl groups' autumn comebacks. At that time, there were still several comebacks pending. At that time, I also wondered whether I'd be around to gush about them. Needless to say, I'm still around and not only did T-ara's comeback come and go, but they've launched into a second round of promotions starting at the beginning of this year.

T-ara is a 7-piece girl group (originally 6), and along with Secret, I have a particular fondness for them. They're alternately considered hugely popular or strangely maligned. They are one of Korea's top girl groups, but they can easily not be mentioned when talking about Korea's top girl groups.

Whereas Secret may fairly be considered underdogs of the top girl groups, I don't think that's a fair description for T-ara. They are queen-bees despite other girl groups indisputably being more popular.

And T-ara's autumn comeback may exemplify their status, because on one hand they're totally on their game. It's a good song with distinct choreography and they're hot as ever. On the other hand, it's only a good song, not a great, stand-out song and I'm not the only person who heard the Britney influence on K-pop in this song (and it's not the first time there have been overt Britney influences in T-ara's songs).

Also there always has been a lot of fan talk arguing about the statuses of the various members, and this song doesn't help with the lion's share of the main vocals being shared by the members who are acknowledged as the main vocalists for the group: Soyeon, Jiyeon and Hyomin.

I also worried that the minor role of the other members was a slight against them, even though as a cult of personality, T-ara is a 7-member group and each of them has die-hard fans.



And then right after they ended the "Cry Cry" promotions, they launched into promotions for "Lovey Dovey" which has more vocal participation of the other members and is a fun romp featuring T-ara's brand of the insipid shuffle dance. The shuffle dance craze annoys me, and maybe I'm slightly biased, but T-ara's take on it is fun.



Wonder Girls also had their comeback. I previously wondered whether they could maintain their top girl group status after a year and a half away from the Korean scene. I think they definitely suffered due to their absence and SNSD clearly got the advantage over them in Korea.

Their agency took a gamble to try to promote them in the U.S. and the results were mixed at best and the group underwent hardships and indignities that other Korean girl groups can't imagine, so I have to give Wonder Girls credit for enduring that.

Considering all that, along with a line-up change, I think Wonder Girls' comeback was very strong with a catchy song and choreography. If they had stayed in the Korean scene, I don't think they would necessarily be considered second to SNSD at this point.



I also like the line-up change. The member who dropped out was replaced by Hyelim, who takes the bridge verses in this song following Sohee singing the two main verses, and even though she had doubts about joining Wonder Girls (she had hoped to debut with Miss A), she's been completely embraced by fans and is really talented. Aside from her distinct looks, she's a wicked rapper (Yubin remains the main rapper, but on other songs on their album, Hyelim gives her a run for the money) and having been raised in Hong Kong, also speaks fluent English and Cantonese.

A final comeback this past autumn that surprisingly impressed me wasn't by a girl group but a solo singer, IU. She's a bit of a prodigy with an impressive vocal range, but she's really, really young, a senior in high school, so her voice still has a bit of maturation to go through(!).

She also impresses me because I think she aspires to be considered a real musician rather than just an idol singer. She contributes to some of the songwriting on her album and I know she also plays guitar pretty well.

I also like her because she's humble and doesn't like drawing attention to her own achievements. During an interview, when she was asked about the expected acclaim to her album, she responded, "I feel lucky because they gave me such good songs". She acknowledges that any of her success should be credited to others, the songwriters.

Another endearing thing about IU is that she's not a dancer, and she acknowledges that she's an awkward dancer. I think she goes through the same dance training as any other idol celebrity, it's just that ... she can't do it.

As a result, her choreographers keep her movements very simple, and it's clear that her back-up dancers are far superior to her. Still, I think the dance movements she's given fit her image.

I found her comeback song, You and I, strangely addictive after a few listens. It's an upbeat song with beautiful melodies, but with also a sadness I couldn't explain. This is success on the part of the songwriters, because that sadness comes through in the song, and as it turns out the lyrics are about yearning and hope for an unrequited love ... and time travel.

I'm not sure, but I think the gist of the song and the full video is of a younger girl who falls in love with an older guy, and builds a time machine to go into the future where they are closer in age and can have a relationship, but that jump into the future also renders her a different, more mature person, and that ideal she had as a younger person isn't the same anymore.



IU is also reputed to never lip-synch her performances. That's another common argument among fans of all girl groups about whether they are lip-synching various performances or not. T-ara claims to have only lip-synched once in their career out of necessity and fans got on their cases for it, but I don't believe it. I've seen more than one performance where the vocals are clearly the same as the recorded version.

I do believe that idol groups would rather not lip-synch and hate it when they have to. I think IU insists on performing her vocals live. The only time she lip-synchs is during the recording of videos, or when she's forced to perform in a rabbit costume (it's a Korean variety/reality show on which IU was voted to receive a "punishment" by her team through the logic that IU receiving punishment would boost viewer ratings (NB: "kiyeon" in Korean, I'm pretty confident, means "cute")).