상상더하기

This is a five year old song by a Korean girl group called Laboum. I am not sure of the English title. I see “Journey to Atlantis” a lot, but the official music video says “Fresh Adventure.” Regardless, this was one of my favorite K-Pop songs when it came out. Laboum has a decent discography with lots of great songs, but they were hugely underrated and never super popular.

The K-Pop industry is very competitive, with new artists debuting all the time. Song promotion cycles are really short, usually just weeks or months, and public attention will jump to the next new song. That is why when an older song becomes popular again, it is a big deal. The best example is probably 위아래 (Up & Down) by EXID, and more recently, 롤린 (Rollin’) by Brave Girls. Both songs did just okay when they first came out, but years later became super popular and hit #1 song in sales and music shows.

For EXID, if was a fancam of a performance that went viral. It was fortunate this happened as it help EXID gain lots of popularity. They went on to release several more great songs. Likewise, Brave Girls were on the verge of disbanding when a video of their performance at a military base went viral and Rollin’ shot up to #1. EXID has since disbanded, but Brave Girls are still riding the popularity wave, and just released a mini-album.

For Laboum, I think their sudden popularity was that their song was featured on a popular variety program called Hangout with Yoo. The show revolves around Yoo Jae-suk, probably the most popular MC in Korea. The show started with just filming random stuff he did on his “day off” but became super popular, and have done several music projects. The latest project is forming a boy band, and they sang 상상더하기 on the show (see below). I just started watching past episodes of the show, so I have not watched the most recent project/episodes yet.

I am really happy that these groups get another chance at success. Laboum is back on music shows performing their old song. All three groups mentioned should have had more success initially, but a lot of talented artists never make it as K-Pop idols. I am actually a big fan of Laboum overall, not just the song 상상더하기. I even bought a signed copy of another album from South Korea a few years ago.

Here is a recent performance from about two weeks ago on MBC. The girl in the preview picture is Solbin; her signature is in the upper right on the above album cover. I believe she has been doing more acting than singing but that may change for a little while.