Crayon Pop is coming to America! Lady Gaga announced last Thursday that quirky K-Poppers Crayon Pop would be the opening act for her upcoming ARTRave Tour for select dates in North America and Canada in June and July. This comes a week after Gaga performed at SXSW where she also acted as the keynote speaker. The singer was also spotted watching the K-Pop Night Out event, where popular acts such as HyunA of girl group 4Minute and rapper Jay Park showcased their talents.
As you may or may not know, Crayon Pop is best known for their hit “Bar Bar Bar”, which introduced the straight five engine dance, a point dance in which each member of the group moves up and down in the form of engine pistons, to native and international back last summer. The song and dance inspired a number of parody videos, was highlighted on CNN and gave the girls the chance to perform a collaboration stage with Swedish comedy-pop band Yvis at last year’s Mnet Asian Music Awards. Not to mention that the song was one of the biggest successes on the Gaon Chart, peaking at #3, impressive for a rookie group whose previous singles couldn't break into the top 100.
The announcement has fans of other K-Pop groups in an uproar, who feel that their biases should be touring the US with the “Applause” singer rather than a nugu group. 2NE1 and Girls Generation were mentioned, as were EXO and Big Bang, who are better known in Korea and have a larger fan base than Crayon Pop, who debuted May 2012 with their single “Bing Bing”. Fans have been consatntly sending links to the artist in order for her to change her mind about them opening, which is fruiless because Gaga's not here for already established acts. Maybe Katy Perry, but she probably wouldn't risk her popularity by introducing her fans to a "niche genre" (I write this in the most sarcastic way possible). It has also caused numerous racial slurs to be thrown at the fivesome, with people on social media referring to them as Chinese or ching-chong and other derogatory terms.
Again with the slurs! If the first thing you have to refer to is their ethnic background, you're sad and need to have a seat in the corner.
Check the music, if you don't like it, ok. Most of the people commenting aren't even in the areas where she will hold the concerts and some of them who are won't even attend. Rejoice in the fact that a K-Pop act is coming here to spread the joys and wonders of K-Pop, since some people are still singing "Open Condom Style" and bouncing around like culturally insensitive idiots. The fact that Lady Gaga, arguably one of the biggest pop stars in the world, has secured a K-Pop group to open for one of her long running, high grossing tours, says something about how this so-called “niche” genre will soon become the hottest new thing since dance music crossed over into the mainstream. Yes, PSY’s “Gangnam Style” and “Gentleman” were funny and people considered him a novelty act rather than a legit musician, but maybe when people attended these concert dates that they will come to understand that K-Pop isn’t a side show act, but a musical force to be reckoned with, and with Crayon Pop, one of the few factory produced idols out now. Crayon Pop hwaiting and congrats!!!
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