Has an American Pop Group Been Modeled on K-Pop?

Boy bands? I know them well. In the 90’s we had NSYNC, the Backstreet Boys, Take That, and many others, but it seems like boy bands had their time and slowly disappeared. K-Pop, however, has kept the concept alive and modernized it, it’s not so cheesy anymore (well…..not all the time), but whenever someone tries to revive it in America, it doesn’t seem to go so well. 

It looks like someone is desperately trying to change that as there is a new boy band in America that might be something “new,” the quotations mean it’s new outside of Korea. What I mean is this new group, Heart2Heart (yes, that’s the name), could have been based around the K-Pop group format. Let’s break it down for you.

If you look at the teaser (below) it looks like something you’d expect to see in K-Pop – the visual, the sound, basically the whole concept is similar, even the fact they released “teasers” this way just reminds me of K-Pop.

Next, we have the fact that the members all have nicknames, and if that’s not enough, there is a sub vocalist, a lead vocalist, a rapper, and wait for it, a LEADER. 

Now we have the album itself – no, not a full album, but the very popular K-Pop idea of a mini-album. If all that isn’t enough to convince you there is some K-Pop influence here, the mini-album will be mastered by Tom Coyne. Does the name ring a bell? It’s no big deal, just someone who works on Big Bang and 2NE1.

Well, I should probably leave it up to you to decide if there is enough here to be called an influence and not a coincidence, but regardless of how good or bad they are, the fact K-pop could be influence groups in America is nothing but good news for the K-Pop industry.

Check out the aforementioned teaser below.