BACK TO K-POP’S FIRST GENERATION: S#arp – Tell Me, Tell Me

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.

Co-ed K-pop groups were much more common in the first generation. In fact, in the late 90’s they were almost the norm. S#arp stood at the tip-top of this hierarchy, releasing a series of popular singles and albums. This was all brought down by a bullying scandal for the ages, but I don’t want to focus too much on that because other outlets have already covered the scandal in detail and this feature is all about the music.

2001’s Sweety is the group’s most enduring classic, but I have a big soft spot for 1999’s Tell Me, Tell Me. This song succeeds not on its bombast (it’s actually kind of laidback), but on the nuance and phrasing of its hooks. Like so many great pop tracks, it just scratches certain pleasure centers in the brain. The song opens with an instantly memorable “rub a dub” sample that I’ve heard in several other tracks of the era (I’d love to know where it came from originally!) before segueing into the chirpy chorus. In my opinion, the repeated “aniya (아니야)” hook is Tell Me’s most effective moment. I just love how that vocal sounds. But really, the song is a grab bag of catchy vocal approaches.

While the female lines in S#arp songs often came across as sweet or quirky, the male raps offered an aggressive (at times comically so) counterpoint. The contrast is jarring, but in a way that can often be charming in a dated, silly way. As far as musical legacy, I hear so much of early Wonder Girls in this track. JYP girl groups in general seemed to have latched onto this sound.

Grade: A-