2016 in Review

Even with 2016 being the year of celebrity deaths, thankfully virtually no tragedies struck the K-pop industry this year. The only one I can think of was this 10 or 12-year-old kid named Jun Min Woo who was known as "little Psy" and had a brain tumour. The fact that he was just a kid made it even sadder. Thankfully, it was nowhere near as bad as 2014 with the Ladies Code accident, Shin Hae Chul's death due to medical negligence, and the Sewol Ferry tragedy that put everything on hold for a month or so. 2008 and 2009 were bad as well as there was a whole string of celebrity suicides in those two years.

What 2016 will be remembered for in K-pop, however, was the sheer number of disbandments of beloved groups. The four most notable ones are KARA, 4Minute, Rainbow, and 2NE1. With KARA there's still some hope as member Gyuri opened up the possibility of them collaborating again in the future even with all of them in different companies. Rainbow also ended on a good note with the seven members taking a farewell trip after disbanding.

 I was only really bummed by 4Minute and 2NE1. 4Minute was actually one of my favourite girl groups, and initially it seemed as though the members had left on bad terms with each other, which made the situation even worse. As for 2NE1, they actually hadn't released anything since 2014 and after Minzy left YG there were all these rumours of the remaining three members coming back. Sadly, that never happened. We were all left hanging with their unreleased tracks forever unheard. But CL and Dara are still at the same company, so if they ever collaborate in the future that's already half the group...?

Running Man isn't a K-pop group but it was recently announced that they're ending their run... in 2017. So in that sense, the cast is "disbanding" as well. I'm actually happy they're giving us two-ish months to say goodbye instead of just cancelling the show right there and then after the Jihyo and Jongkook scandal.

But thinking about it, we are simply witnessing the coming and going of groups. Even with all the disbandments, there were many new amazing groups debuting, including Cosmic Girls/WJSN, IOI, NCT, and Blackpink. We also saw the rise of groups like BTS, Seventeen, Twice and G-Friend, as well as the reformation of disbanded groups such as Sechkies and SES (so that gives us hope for some of the more recently disbanded groups). And we can't forget the groups like Girl's Generation, Big Bang, Super Junior, TVXQ (albeit 40% of their former selves), and Shinhwa that have lasted so long. Disbandment actually doesn't do that much harm if the members do well on their own afterward, it's just that we don't get to witness the chemistry between group members as often or see the group as a whole rather than as individual parts.

 And as for the celebrity death epidemic back in Hollywood and the music industry in general, sure, more legends are leaving us but there are even more new talents being discovered waiting to become legends in their own right. In that sense, the net number of household names is staying the same or even increasing.

So if we look at "2016, the worst year ever" through that lens, suddenly it doesn't seem like such a horrible year after all.

Except for Donald Trump winning the election. The States is gonna go through a rough time during these next four years...