Pop Perfection: BEAST (HIGHLIGHT) - "Fiction"

Join us for a captivating discussion on BEAST's (aka B2ST, aka HIGHLIGHT) iconic track, "Fiction"! Delve into the emotional depth and captivating storytelling of this K-pop masterpiece as we explore its poignant lyrics, powerful melodies, and exceptional vocal performances. We'll dive into the dramatic music video, the infamous penguin dance, and uncover why "Fiction" remains a beloved classic, cementing BEAST as one of the leading boy bands in the K-pop industry, with their legacy still resonating to this day. Viewer discretion is advised, your fave will be criticized...

References:

• BEAST - “Bad Girl” MV https://youtu.be/fA_rXpyF67s
• BEAST - “Shock” MV https://youtu.be/JXxGo1MvNls
• BEAST - “Breath” MV https://youtu.be/HTbC1UsBtek
• BEAST - “Fiction” MV https://youtu.be/ZAzWT8mRoR0
• BEAST - “Fiction” Live at Music Core https://youtu.be/1S-q9bZJPeo
• HIGHLIGHT - “Fiction” Live in Concert 2022 (Fancam) https://youtu.be/3XCecyo3_Yw
• Ryu Jin, Minnie, Lee Chaeyeon, Isa - “Fiction” Cover at 2021 SBS Gayo Daejeon https://youtu.be/jQNEiHzIcX4

Transcript (from YouTube):

[Music] viewer discretion is advised your fave will be criticized that's Chris that's Jan and welcome to CCTV the non-stop pop show and today we're discussing the K-pop classic fiction [Music] we'll give her an awesome little pop music podcast I have the inside school with extensive experience performing on stage and working at record labels we review and deep dive into your favorite artists songs and careers and interview music industry professionals including artists producers choreographers and everything in between so you can come join us here or on patreon.com CCTV pops and become a part of our amazing crew including Lisette Lily Emily Kevin and Juliet where our producers get to decide our episode topics so subscribe now and let's explore the world of thought music together yes and we're here with another episode of Pop Perfection which is where we break down the biggest hits in pop music analyze their impact and give our unfiltered opinion on the songs and the respective artists So today we're focusing on the track fiction by the boy band beasts who are now known as highlights but this is known as one of the best K-pop songs of all time yeah ballad breakup song like this is one of those was like Jimmy kind of Jimmy it really is and it's weird because it's not covered a lot which pisses me off um but you know personal afflictions side um let's hop right into it yes so let's start with a brief history of Beast they were a six-member South Korean boy group formed in 2009 under Cube entertainments but in 2017 after departing Cube Entertainment they changed their name to highlight not by choice they were forced to because they did not own the rights to the main beast but luckily they still get to perform the songs uh yeah okay the currently the group that sits uh Yoon Yang yosob

with former members being Zhang hyonsung and young before founding their own company and rebranding Beast was one of the most popular boy groups and was known for its diverse music Styles incorporating elements of hip-hop r b and electronic dance music therefore a single bad girl released in 2009 game popularity for his cat humility and Powerful choreography

and during this time the group actually garnered a lot of attention with their EP which included the second single mystery mystery and this is sold over 10 000 copies in his first week of release an unusual accomplishment at the time for a new K-pop act however they face a lot of adversity in the beginning stage of their careers because many of the members had previously trained in other bigger companies so they were seen as industry rejects or the Recycled Group which I hate I don't hate hating yeah I mean this is a lot more common now for people to have trained at other companies and then not debuting in those respective groups so then moving on to other companies but back then there were still kind of just the three major companies and everyone else has kind of seen just as you know the other you know yeah bottom companies anyway so yeah I remember that original viewpoints but yeah so what did you think of beast at the time were you a fan from the start yes yes I love them so much I forgot how I got to you know I probably keep going on a on a no that's a lie that's a lie that's a lie I think four minute had debut before them right yes so for a minute I was into and then um hyana was in a music video for geekwong and he was called name was AJ at first so AJ was a solo act Ace Junior and dancing shoes didn't go anywhere but I was like he's cute so I followed him and he was in this group so yeah he was my bias um I think as a group they were pretty solid because they all were really talented and you could see that on the choreography in the beginning was pretty generic like boy group stuff but what made them different was that they actually didn't focus on having like a rapper in the group like the rap that was in it was featured but they only had one rapper everyone else were vocalists like and they could actually sing like I don't think yeah yeah like I don't think anyone was actually a sub vocalist in the sense where they're like yeah girl oh yeah I don't think anyone is like maybe dung Woon was treated that at first but yeah he got really good yeah because we're a husky so he's like they're like what can we do with this kid's voice right and he was the youngest one um but yeah I was definitely a beauty for sure um I think my highlight from their era when they first came out was when King Kong was lip syncing Kung Sung's part of bad girl talk about Milli Vanilli I was sent okay I was like wait the cute one that's not his voice the weird part is that geekwon can totally sing that part fine yikon can actually sing very well so that whole yeah I agree is bizarre okay but yeah so I actually was not aware of them at the beginning I was not a K-pop fan back in 2009 it could be another year I think and then I was there but uh it's fun just retroactively looking back because those first songs are good like that first CP is good I love bad girl I love mystery they're just fun pop songs they're a little generic you know um so it definitely did take them some time to find a unique sound for themselves but even from the beginning they're great on camera uh like they stood out from the other boy groups at the time like you mentioned the vocals were there like the live vocals and their debut bad girl performance are actually yeah decent yes um and I cannot say the same for most other debut performances so yeah the talent was there um and it makes me sad that they were referred to as the Recycled group but I feel like they maybe took that as motivation in a way also to be like we're good we're better than that they're upcycled exactly yes so as Beast continued to establish themselves as one of the top boy groups in K-pop their music and image evolved over time so while their earlier releases had a brighter and more upbeat sound the group's later releases like shock and zoom which means breathe which were released in 2010 they took on a more emotional and mature Direction which would eventually become their signature Style

[Music] and they became known for their powerful vocals intricate choreography and poignant performances you oh my gosh I remember when Shaw came out I was like what is this because it was um it was like it's Electro pop at its finest I think around the time that shot could come out FX was kind of around too because the song the whole the whole episode that we're focusing on I think danger had been released when fiction came out we're not there yet but yeah FX was coming out so a lot of Electro pop was like the thing and this was so good because like that that Rift I was like what's that um and I think the choreography was really really intricate now their competition was mostly 2 p.m and in Black yes supio came from the big group and then and black was founded by jyp's Golden Child rain right so then you have you have they have reputations behind them focus on r b mostly this group they didn't really focus on Army they could sing it but they had moves for days like they danced there at 2PM and in Black so I think that's what made them stand out because there's there's beats in this song I'm like why are you guys hitting them right but that's where it was at the time it was still very dramatic and they throw their whole bodies into it like what people like now I thought was um the angsty dancing that gets done with love songs are like lyrical now it was happening with them before but it was like Street kind of like I guess Urban hip-hop at the time if you will um because because they were working with pre-picks at the time I believe so a lot of choreography was actually like dance crew choreography um so yeah it was fun to see these hear these angsty songs with this actually like really dope crackers that we that we would see here on the West with like ABDC and it was like oh shoot they're they're hitting this like crazy arm isolation so I like that um shock was my favorite but the hand suck yeah yeah and then film was oh my God Zoom is so good again another pre-picks choreographed song and the video was like really dramatic of course but the vocals were there you heard soon they switched to pre-chorus and whoever's sang that part was singing their face up whoever's singing the verse was singing their face off and they get to the bridge and you get this long extended note that Yang Yo sub can still hit to this day yeah so there's a lot going on so I like I liked it was very theatrical we enjoyed the theatrics yeah yeah uh I remember when soon came out not so much shock I actually don't love shock um but Zoom I love I think it makes me miss how dramatic these songs were back in second gen like if these songs were sad or dark they would really go there yeah while at the same time though they try and make it sexy too right so like assume it has the breaths yeah yeah like it's just so not subtle at all not at all which makes it fun this makes it fun um yeah so yeah I remember Zoom really really well uh and that's when I was like okay like this group stands out for sure but it would be the next song that really solidified my fandom and so we're gonna talk about when they popped and that happened with BEAST's first full-length Korean album fiction and fact and it was released on May 17 2011 and it quickly became a commercial success it features the singles on rainy days and fiction and the album peaked at number one on the Kion album chart which is now known in circle chart and by the end of the year it had sold over 142 000 copies and became the fifth best-selling album of a 2011 in South Korea foreign [Music] and it would be the success of fiction that marked a pivotal moment in the group's career because it won multiple Awards including song of the year at the KBS Music Festival solidifying your status as one of the top acts in Korea and K-pop excuse me fiction is a poignant track featuring a piano led a dramatic Melody that evokes the feeling of a ballad and a song seamlessly Blends electronic elements with a solemn production creating a powerful and emotionally charged track the lyrics explore the theme of a man struggling to let go of a former lover and imagining their love as an unending story even if it's just a fictitious scenario sheesh that that synopsis sound just as dramatic as the song but it's true um the whole that this song had on me I don't even remember where the heck I was when I heard it I just saw um what's his name Jin young with his hair over his face I'm like what the heck is this what's going on so I press it and you see the desert oh my gosh the song is interesting I remember trying to write like an English version to this song I played every single Kpop fan that doesn't do dance covers and has interested in learning how to sing or write has tried to make an English coverage to any any generation I've tried whatever language you speak you've probably tried um the melody is really addictive and I think the piano made it sound like a ballad for sure um and K-pop and that came up Korea ballads are king I didn't realize how cool like how important it was until Busker Busker won when XO and B.A.P were like a real mama Awards so I think ballad having a sound like a ballad but then taking it and making it beastified highlightified was really cool um I really do hate how easily swayed I was with the song um the vocalist emoted well like I mentioned earlier um and uh I think Jun young was an asset in this group for sure because he was the soul rapper but every single time he delivered his verse you know he wrote it first of all but also he rode the beat so well and would actually rap in a way that didn't feel like a karaoke style that you would get with like 2 p.m or like with um and black I don't know if they had a rapper really they did they did mirror they had mirror and Dara's brother brother but that was it um so yeah I think they really did well and I was looking at the the performances that were happening around the time the song came out no one was touching them there was Focus F because Focus that was the only group that could have possibly made would be kind of now no one was touching them at the time when this song came out too so there's a lot of like elements that went into like how easily went up the charts but also because it's good I've said it on this show before fiction is one of my favorite pop songs ever honestly I think it's perfect in pretty much every way I love the dramatic start and end with the writing sounds um the intro that Loops back as a bridge uh the production is so beautiful yeah the way they did kind of the ballad feel while it's actually a dance track essentially um it done so well and the way they did the echoing keyboards and everything it you can feel kind of the desperation even just in the production um and and the sun yeah the solemnness of it all is is really well done and yeah the melody of every single part of the song it's perfect super beautiful I love the extended long notes with the you know fiction yeah it's so beautiful and the vocals are amazing from every single member like yeah even the little moments dong wounds falsetto in the background of the rap verse um do June's bridge where he sounds like he's gonna cry

um and of course your sub sounds brilliant on the chorus as well like I there's no fault in this song at all I think every single element is perfect it's it's a really really well written pop track it is and the music video is interesting because it's like it displays the lyrics of jinyan's rap like to the letter um so jinyan is writing this rewriting a love story between him and a loved one as he mentions in this rap and the relationship ended in a way that's unclear to the viewer but the memories live on in his mind and he essentially attempts to craft an ending where the couple ends up together um and there are books full of pages of Duncan's words um where his fantasies will never come true as they all live in fiction and as you have mentioned in the chorus as beautiful as it is with all the The Ballad balladishness of it it is a dance track and there's a dance like much all like all Kpop songs have a dance uh called the penguin dance foreign

[Music] was done by pre-picks I've mentioned them before um they're a great dance group great dance team and it features like this complex choreo throughout the verses that they hit on the little piano keys but also the most iconic section comes in the form of a seemingly simple set of footwork and the highlight of thequario is the penguin dance as we've been calling it but is a variation of Bedrock footwork which is you know Common out here like a commercial hip-hop and just regular hip-hop in general but it's called Bedrock for those who don't know uh but penguin dance is what it became to be known as and uh yeah this video I'm not gonna lie it was a little cheap looking right like the one room the green screen on the on the on the book you know the desert the random dance scene that kind of look like the dancing from the Bad Girl music video like I said it wasn't like well thought out but luckily this song wasn't good enough for you to be like whatever you know yeah and the dance scenes were like really good too the dance scenes were and on like on the the rooftop like Gotham City dancing kind of saved it because the penguin dance was in there you know well that was it yeah the music video isn't great um but I like the lighting of it it all feels very post-apocalyptic you know which makes sense it's a reflection of just like how they feel like their life is over right with this relationship being over um so I appreciate that I do not like the desert scene like what is that weird alien spaceship thing in the background like it just makes no sense at all and doesn't add anything visually um so yeah really it is the penguin dance that makes it stand out uh because even The Styling and stuff it's fine like nothing very memorable what do you mean that was memorable as heck that's it um I love the brown leather on them yeah it says delicious but yeah I think the choreography is you know as good as the song is like you said the choreography did definitely play a big part in the success of the song because I think everyone was probably trying to emulate it you know yeah it's just it's hard to listen to the song and not picture it or be doing it you know so so yeah that's that's a great example of what a point dance is Right which is not what we call that the main focus of the dance yes and it shows that you don't have to be doing all this fiction throwing your body around I'm not gonna identify any dancers or groups right now but it definitely shows that you don't have to do a lot at home with the chorus yes and I don't think I've ever seen them lip sync it ever you know they they will they will sit there and flare their nostrils and breathe like like they're dying and get those notes out fiction as you have said has been credited as what helped shape K-pop in its sound at the time with his emotional lyrics those soaring vocals and memorable Melody inspiring a wave of similar tracks from other K-pop artists and overall fiction is considered a landmark release in the history of K-pop and remains one of the most beloved and iconic songs and Beast discography and yeah I will never ever get sick of fiction like every time it comes up I never skip it every time they perform it and it shows up on my recommended I will watch it like yeah I feel like this is very much one of my favorite songs ever like transcending K-pop transcending boy bands you know like just in general I think it's a really great song and it's interesting I kind of went down the hole when preparing for this and it was watching kind of performances through the years and now of course it's only the four of them and they do skip the raps but now yosem does all these like extra ad-libs over that section where the wrap is so it's kind of nice actually um and their vocals have matured really really well um they kind of emotes very effortlessly now and everything kind of just sounds a little Fuller um so it's it's aged very well uh and I think the song is still super effective and I think even new K-pop fans now if they heard it I find it hard for anyone to not at least appreciate it I think they because they grew up in the second gen overacting that can actually kind of dial it back they do oh God you know it's interesting because look you know being a former dancer the energy was way different than what it is and then like before was like yeah have technique but also have a personality now it's like if you can throw a trick or like do an area or lift your leg up really high and then put your leg behind it getting points like so the the generation of dancing and dancers or even like performer has definitely changed um but that's saying that people are untalented now I'm just saying that the standard is different like it was like you had personality oh those are points you know so with this it was like if you were over acting as a K-Pop group we're killing it uh because I don't know nothing wrong with it back then I was like oh this is great oh my God this is one of those songs where like K-pop is so much better than American music because American Music was not doing it for me at the time um but yeah uh it's a good song and like I mentioned um groups cover their songs like beautiful like the cute ones and this is a song I would love to see done with the footwork and whatnot like they did to uh end of a year show with the girl group members but they had remixed it so much so where they only kept the main Melody of the piano and process the vocal so much where I just lost its Soul essentially um so it was nice to see them kind of harken back to it like they did with the FX performance like yeah um but yeah I really want to see like a boy group do a song like this or even cover it and not just do the cute song because they do because song the covers actually kind of keep these groups alive just kind of going back to what we're talking it keeps groups alive because if you don't hear it like you said it's hard for a K-pop fan now to what K-pop fan really knows it that got into K-pop like what like three years ago you know unfortunately let's start doing their due diligence they won't know um so yeah I mean this is a good song and I'm glad they're still performing like they think they just left a tour in Taipei recently so they're fine they're great they're happy um they got rid of all their nasty members um so at this point like everyone who's meant to be there is there watch their killing boys performance of it from last year great stuff yes I'm so glad they're still together and I love all the new material like we reviewed alone which came out recently and I love that song I I do still list them as one of my favorite K-pop groups for sure I've been lucky I've seen them live a couple times as well I would love for them to do a US tour maybe um I don't know what the demand is there but they always perform with a live band on their concerts so you know I love that always a good time with bees and if you are new to Beast hi slash highlight or if you aren't let us know what you think about the song and the group and what other songs do you think are absolute pop Perfection that we should discuss don't forget you can hang out with us and the crew over on patreon.com and you can also comment below or message us at CCTV pops on social media don't forget to like subscribe and turn on those notifications for our YouTube channel and if you're enjoying the show on a podcast platform please give us a follow rating and a review until next time that's great that's Jan and we are signing off from CCTV the non-stop pop show [Music]