![]() Though iKON had been given much exposure through W.I.N, fans were ever uncertain of their debut status and whether YG would back them as a group despite the outcome of the show. “WELCOME BACK” is the album’s way of poking fun at their long disappearance. I particularly enjoyed the vocals in the bridge and “Rhythm Ta grows on you with every listen. “Rhythm Ta” is iKON’s official song and on first listen it reminded me a bit of Taeyang’s “Good Boy” but much more repetitive in its A and B sections of composition to emphasize the “rhythm” hip-hop aspect of the lyrics. The pre-debut release single was “취향저격 (My Type)” which I personally felt was a great way to introduce a boyish and playful side iKON’s image since the survival shows were emotionally heavy. The first half of the album, “Welcome Back” was released October 1 with six songs (The ones with asterisks at the end have music videos). IKON’s official debut date is September 15, 2015. Not only that, iKON has been given so much exposure and experience to showcase their talent that their stage demeanor, teamwork and group presence is already immensely stronger and more professional than some of the shabbier new boy groups. As such, rather than making a copycat baby boy group of five to mirror the members of Big Bang, I’m impressed YG has pulled off a seven member group and managed to give them a distinct “iKON” sound while retaining that style and sound trademark to the YG label and name. This year, many of the popular and sustained boy groups such as Infinite, BTS, Got7 and Block B all boast seven members. We’ve seen this happen of course with phenomenal groups like Big Bang, SHINee and even DBSK around 20 when they debuted but it’s much safer (logistically speaking) to have seven to fill up a big stage rather than five. ![]() Think about it this way – it takes a lot of stage presence and experience to fill up huge venues with only five members. I say this a lot around my kpop friends, “Seven is the new five” – what I mean is that the current trend with many new boy groups is to have seven members rather than five or nine. The final four members selected by votes from fans, YG artists and Papa YG were Ju-ne (Goo Junhwe), (Song) Yunhyeong, (Kim) Donghyuk and (Jung) Chanwoo. (Kim Hanbin), Bobby (Kim Jiwon) and (Kim) Jinhwan were confirmed as permanent members of the newly named boy group, iKON while the rest of the boys would have to fight for the remaining spots. As such, Papa YG placed Team B on yet another survival show, this one was called Mix and Match and featured three new trainees in addition to the original members of Team B. Though Team B had attracted a fair amount of fans, one of the main rules of W.I.N. After eleven soul-wrenching episodes between the boys, Team A was announced as the winners and officially debuted as “Winner”. They were introduced as Team B on a survival show called W.I.N (Who is Next) against another group of trainees assembled into Team A. However, I have to say that the seven members of iKON have really captured my attention in so many different ways it’s impossible to ignore them on the music scene. To be honest I’ve never been much of a YG Entertainment fan since SM Entertainment groups better align with my usual style and music taste. ![]() Wow!!! iKON has finally finally finally released their full first debut album. IKON (from left to right, Chanwoo, Ju-ne, Bobby, B.I, Jinhwan, Donghyuk, Yunhyeong) ![]()
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