IOI – Whatta Man

So this is why we need K-pop in our lives. Great songs, done in brilliantly fresh ways. And it never hurts to have a familiar hook in English. Someone tell the X Factor team to rip this off, pronto, and get ready for the judges to say, “I really love how you made this your own!”

Subtitles available in the video.

So who are I.O.I?

The 101 contenders

The 11 graduates

All ready to be a pop band now

Maybe try this look instead?

“Ideal Of Idol” is a kind of K-pop supergroup formed in 2016 from a reality TV show, “Produce 101” on Mnet, South Korea. Entertainment agencies put forward 101 trainee pop stars who lived and rehearsed together while the public did the job of watching and whittling down the numbers. 11 girls made the final group. Not all of them were on “Whatta Man”.

Unusually, the group wasn’t built to last. They expected to disband after four singles and an album, then go their separate ways into new groups with their agencies. To a western audience, that’s the exact opposite of what people expect a pop group to do (all be mates who just get along and do stuff forever), but that’s the brutal reality of the industry pop machine. They’re a 2016 thing, and 2017 is going to bring something new.

There have been rumours of more get-togethers for I.O.I, which would be great as they’re popular and pretty good together, but as of November 2016 it looks like music biz politics have forced the group to disband. Boo.