I came into K-pop relatively late, and i’m not about to hide that. As such, i missed the Wonder Girls’ initial huge, Korean girl group-defining run in the years 2007-2009. It took me a while to even become aware they existed, let alone the capacity to which they existed, leading me to ask who were these Wonder Girls people speak so much of, and where were they now? It’s a sad thing, that they went to America, had their momentum sucked from them, and were written out of K-pop as it took off in this most recent explosion.
There’s an irony in them reaching out for the Western market, only to have this market look above them back to a South Korea that no longer had them and find K-pop on their own. A loss on both ends. With the American experiment over (i think), the Wonder Girls have since last year been trying to regain their standing, and i hope they do. They deserve it. They are, now as they were then, one of the best. Then, unquestionably THE best. Judge what the rest of K-pop was doing when Tell Me was released. Judge that most of what is happening now did not even exist.
