BACK TO K-POP’S FIRST GENERATION: O-24 – Blind Faith

K-Pop’s first generation is often referenced as the foundation for the industry we enjoy now, but there aren’t enough good English-language sources that give its music the focus it deserves. I’m hoping to change that with a continuing flashback series, spotlighting personal highlights from the era – both iconic and obscure.

The era in question is often considered to run from the debut of Seo Taiji & Boys in 1992 to the emergence of TVXQ in late 2003. The music featured in this series will largely fit within that time frame, give or take a few years on either side.

It was a time of bonkers song structures, wild fashion, slamming techno beats, bad reggae impressions, flagrant use (theft?) of American hip-hop samples, hearty power ballads, foul language, the growliest rapper tones you can imagine and an anything-goes scrappiness that’s impossible to pigeonhole. To borrow the name of a popular second-gen act, these years were the “big bang” of an emerging musical powerhouse, still finding its footing and throwing everything at the wall.

Check out other “Back to K-pop’s First Generation” reviews here.

I love to see where K-pop intersected with the American teen pop millennium boom. Acts like Nsync and Britney Spears were all the rage during those years and you can hear that influence in a number of K-pop singles. But this being K-pop, the music is just a little stranger and more experimental.

Girl group O-24 debuted in 1998 with a hip-hop sound but their second album leaned far more into pop territory. Many of the songs sound like fragments of Britney Spears’ 2000-era pop twisted in different directions. In fact, title track Blind Faith was even criticized at the time for sounding too much like Oops!…I Did It Again. The similarities are obvious when you hear the song, particularly in how the chorus melody ascends. I can easily see why this would feel controversial back in 2000, but twenty three years removed makes it more of an interesting curio. If nothing else, it’s fascinating to hear K-pop try its hand at the Max Martin production style.

Sadly, this album was a commercial flop (I’m sure the controversy didn’t help) and the group dissolved soon after. But to my ears, Blind Faith the album is one of the more enjoyable girl group releases of its year – if only for its spot-the-influence nostalgia. B-side Bye Bye even rips off the beat of Nsync’s It’s Gonna Be Me while simultaneously sampling that group’s track Digital Get Down. It’s very strange to hear Justin Timberlake vocals randomly pop up here and there. I can’t get over the sheer nerve of K-pop during this time!

Grade: B