ADA MOORE - MICHIGAN DAILY

 

HYBE’s obsession with techno is ruining K-pop

by Ada Moore October 21, 2026

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Maheen Rashid/DAILY

Devoted K-pop fans and KATSEYE listeners alike have no doubt noticed the recent shifts in visuals, sound and lyricism within their beloved groups that are managed under South Korean music industry giant HYBE. Following the global success of KATSEYE’s “Gnarly” and “Internet Girl,” a noticeable redirection has emerged across the rest of HYBE’s girl groups. Although these groups belong to separate sub-labels within the company’s enormous entertainment ecosystem, they have converged on a fresh, fast-tempo and beat-driven electronic sound, marked by highly saturated production, repetitive hooks and unconventional lyrics. 

HYBE was the first South Korean entertainment company to be designated as a conglomerate by the Korea Fair Trade Commission after its total assets surpassed the 5 trillion won threshold in 2024. Its subsidiary labels include BigHit Music (BTS, TXT, CORTIS), ADOR (NewJeans), SOURCE MUSIC (LE SSERAFIM), BELIFT LAB (ENHYPEN, ILLIT) and HYBE X Geffen Records (KATSEYE). Many of HYBE’s most successful groups rose to fame through distinct concepts, such as NewJeans’ refreshing Y2K-inspired sound, ENHYPEN’s vampiric lore and ILLIT’s blend of dreamy innocence and eerie undertones. 

However, in April 2026, “sister” groups KATSEYE, LE SSERAFIM and ILLIT released back-to-back comebacks, all within the techno or hardstyle genres. Each song featured a similar anti-drop structure, a chant-heavy chorus and electro-pop production. While the tracks were successful, fans started expressing concern online that HYBE’s groups were gradually losing their individual identities, with some theorizing that this trend began with the release of KATSEYE’s “Gnarly” in April 2025. 

“Gnarly” initiated the dramatic departure from KATSEYE’s original aesthetic of softer, sweeter pop (e.g., “Touch”) into a chaotic, maximalist electronic sound. While fans were originally startled by the group’s drastic change in concept, it kept listeners hooked, with the track accumulating more than 638 million streams on Spotify. 

This particular single embodies the abrasive hyperpop production and ridiculous lyrics that define the viral formula that HYBE is now increasingly interested in reproducing for its other artists. But when the same sonic tricks are pushed onto groups with completely different aesthetics, the experimentation starts to feel like an intentional corporate formula that undermines one of K-pop’s biggest strengths: the ability for every group to develop their own niche. 

Known as the leaders of fifth-generation K-pop, ILLIT has one of the most unique concepts in the genre, juxtaposing the innocence of girlhood with unsettling horror elements known as “dreamcore.” The girl group’s music videos take place in liminal spaces, such as abandoned hospitals, to evoke an eerie feeling of being trapped in an endless dream or alternate reality. These uncanny videos contrast sharply with ILLIT’s bubbly, lighthearted sound that includes layered harmonies, youthful vocals and dreamy electronic pop beats. Since the group’s debut in March 2024, their music has retained this aesthetic, with particular examples being their debut single “Magnetic,” “Billyeoon Goyangi (Do the Dance)” and viral single “Not Cute Anymore.”

However, everything shifted in April 2026 when the group released their album MAMIHLAPINATAPAI, with an electronic, hard-house track “It’s Me.” The song features a driving, heart-pounding beat, sparkling synths, rave-style beat drops and recurring spoken lyrics like, “I’m your bias” and “It’s me.” In an interview with Teen Vogue, member Wonhee said, “For this album, especially with the new genre we are trying, it was very new to us.” Member Minju shared the same sentiment: “When I first heard it, I was very surprised because it gave us a feel that we have never tried before.” Many listeners were unsatisfied after their first listen of “It’s Me,” commenting that it pivoted too sharply away from the whimsical, magical girl concept that fans know and love. 

Fourth-generation girl group LE SSERAFIM was also affected by HYBE’s hyperpop wave. Their core concept revolves around fearlessness and personal ambition, with their group name being an anagram of “I’m Fearless.” The group’s visuals are also inspired by the multi-winged celestial beings known as seraphim. While their branding has always been more flexible than KATSEYE or ILLIT — usually evolving with current cultural or musical trends — their sound often anchors itself within the house genre, as with tracks “Crazy” and “Made My Night.” They broke this tradition with their release of “Celebration” on April 24, 2026. This headbanging, high-energy song meshes hypertechno and neo-rave and is known for its excessively repetitive chorus and hair-whipping choreography routine. Fans remain divided online over the sudden change from carefree dance pop to overproduced hardstyle. 

Concepts are arguably one of the most significant aspects of K-pop. Defined as the overarching visual, musical and thematic identity a group adopts for their debut or a specific “comeback,” concepts are what allow K-pop groups to stand out in a crowded musical market. They also allow for greater fan engagement, especially if the group has a fictional backstory or lore that is maintained throughout their future releases. These consistent aesthetics also greatly affect marketing and merchandising; a well-defined identity will dictate everything from album packaging and promotional materials to light sticks and stage design. If HYBE groups lose their own personal identities and merge into one corporate sound, fans will quickly become fatigued, and a crucial part of K-pop will be lost. 

Ultimately, the issue is not that HYBE’s artists are experimenting with similar techno production and eccentric lyricism — “Gnarly” proved that taking a creative risk can pay off with its shock factor. However, the more that HYBE attempts to replicate this reaction across its roster, the less startling and less distinctive it becomes. K-pop has thrived for decades on its ability to build one-of-a-kind worlds around each group. When melodic styles become increasingly interchangeable, a group’s individuality that once drew in millions of fans starts to disappear. Rather than chasing the next viral sound and compressing idols into the same overused concepts and formulas, HYBE should return to what made its groups successful in the first place: authentic and engaging music that showcases the pure talent of its artists.

Daily Arts Contributor Ada Moore can be reached at adamoore@umich.edu.

FREE FOR THIEVES

 

Howard Tullman Joins Lisa Dent on WGN Radio to Discuss His Latest INC. Magazine column

 Listen to the Show Here

Listen to the Show Here

NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN FROM HOWARD TULLMAN

 

Want a Better Job? The Smartest Place to Start Looking Isn’t Where You Think

The world doesn’t wait for you, and it pays to have your current employer at least a little concerned about the importance of keeping you.

EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @TULLMAN

Oct 20, 2026

If you’re happy and fully satisfied with your current employment, go read something else. But also drop me a line and let me know what it is that you must be eating or drinking to be so content, because you’re one in a million. On the other hand, if you’re eager, ambitious, and smart enough to always keep one eye open for the next opportunity, then read on because I’ve got a few tips for you.

I’d start the conversation with my time-tested caution: you never know who’s going to bring you your future. Be open, be observant, don’t be a snob, and understand how quickly things are changing around you and how new doors and career paths are opening every day. If you’re not paying attention and at least passively in the hunt, the best bets will pass you by. As Ferris Bueller noted: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” And also, be ready to bail or bolt. The world doesn’t wait for you. And it pays to have your current employer at least a little concerned about the importance of keeping you.

Step one in any job search is to remember that your prospects are 1,000 percent better if you’re presently employed while you’re looking for the next step rather than if you’re out on the street or sitting at home. Don’t jump ship before you’ve got a safe and secure place to land even if every day at work is getting tougher and tougher to take. And even if you’re the world’s most conscientious employee and hate slackers who quit without leaving. It’s still OK to spend a little of that long day looking out for yourself. You may have loved the company, but these days the company will never love you back, so you’ve got to be the one looking out for yourself and your family.

Step two is, before you spend any time looking elsewhere, take a look around and see what opportunities may be available—vertically or laterally—within your own shop. These are the folks who know you best—strengths and weaknesses as well—and there may be slots opening up within the company in other areas or divisions or even locations that may offer greater challenges, better compensation, and a chance to keep growing in a new work environment with some new team members as well. AI is changing the game entirely and different sets of skills will be required in various areas of the business that are being radically restructured. Your talents and liberal arts background may be far more portable and valuable in a world where prompt engineering is just as critical as mechanical engineering and creativity may trump the whole lot.

The best leaders always know who the key performers are within their organizations and also know that an employee’s great attitude, grit and a solid work ethic are much more important to their company’s long-term success than the pain involved in switching someone’s roles or positions—not to mention the costs of finding a suitable replacement if they leave. So, shop around inside and check out the internal prospects. If there’s nothing there, you’ve spent a little time and probably gotten a better handle of what you’re really looking for in your next job.

Step three is to try to get a short meeting with an executive at one of the major headhunting firms. Find a connection, something in common, some excuse to ask him or her to spend 30 minutes with you and give you a little advice. In the best case possible, they’re in the process of looking for someone just like you and it’s Kismet, fate or simply good fortune. But it’s not very likely. On the other hand, getting your story and your resume on the radar and in the hands of the right people is very important and it’s a great way of networking as well. Finally, these people are trained sharks and sitting with them and pitching yourself is unbelievably great practice even if nothing else comes from it.

Step four is a don’t. Don’t put your resume online or list it with even the biggest of these volume operations. It turns out that there’s just about nothing more damaging to your reputation and perceived value than joining the desperate crowd even if your credentials are great. You can be the biggest fish in the pond, but if the pond’s a cesspool, you’re not doing yourself any favor. Honestly, much like dating sites, the success stories are few and far between at the higher salary levels, the horror stories are voluminous, and the black mark on your resume is largely indelible. Word of mouth from peers, friends and relatives is a far better channel.

Finally, be persistent. Once you’re in the door at a place you’d like to work, don’t take “No” for an answer from someone who can’t say “Yes.” Get yourself in front of the ultimate decision maker and make your pitch there. Great entrepreneurs will tell you two things: they try to hire the best people and worry about positions later; and over their many years of hiring folks, they’ve found some of the very best employees in the strangest and most unlikely places. Find a way to take your best shot. You miss 100 percent of those that you never try.

HOWARD TULLMAN JOINS LISA DENT ON WGN RADIO TO DISCUSS HIS LATEST INC. MAGAZINE ARTICLE

 LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

Thanks you crooked demented traitor

 

HOWARD TULLMAN JOINS LISA DENT ON WGN RADIO TO DISCUSS HIS LATEST INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN

 

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

MORONS AT THE WHITE HOUSE TRY TO HIDE EMPTY SEATS FOR TRUMP WITH FAKE PHOTOS

 

NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN FROM HOWARD TULLMAN

Your Pricing Data Shows What Customers Did. Kapnova Wants to Reveal What Will Make Them Buy Next

You could look backwards for a lifetime without adding materially to your decision-making ability.

EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @TULLMAN

Oct 13, 2

One of the most ironic aspects of the AI revolution, as the latest frontier models race to lead us into an increasingly uncertain future, is that all our knowledge (and every scrap of data used to train these engines) is based on the past, but what we’re looking for guidance on from these tools and new technologies is making all kinds of decisions that are 100 percent about the future.

Personalized pricing, which targets each of us as individuals defined by our past purchasing predilections, is emerging across the board with some modest resistance. It feels more every day like the present is becoming the future faster than it is becoming the past. Every autocatalytic change seems to accelerate the next change coming rapidly down the line.

At the same time, noted scholars, MBA professors and professional investors have all repeatedly cautioned us and advised prospective entrepreneurs and ambitious innovators to largely forget about the past. Why. Because no one has become successful in the past. In addition, it’s abundantly clear that we all have a tendency to remember the past as far more glorious and pleasant than it was. Millions of us long for those imagined days of old when the whole world seemed to move more slowly. There’s the past and there’s the story we tell ourselves about it. In fact, too many business owners, operators and managers today spend their time looking forward to the past and, as a result, continue to fall further behind their competition.

At best, we’re told that we should be concerned about the past only as a prelude to the future. It’s critical to remember your past mistakes and address them so you don’t repeat them, but being a prisoner of the past or letting it guide your future is a bad bet. Virtually every financial investment document written in the last century has contained these prophetic words: “past results are no guarantee of future performance” or something very similar which is boilerplate language actually required in many cases by applicable provisions of the securities laws. And yet, all the major LLMs actually have virtually nothing else to base their operations on.

So, I was intrigued to learn about a new company called Kapnova, which is an AI decision-intelligence business focused on predictive pricing for consumer brands. The Kapnova team has built a series of new tools, agents, simulations, and analytical systems based largely on research coming from MIT that takes an additive approach, which doesn’t ignore all of the past history and behaviors or the extensive correlations that can be drawn from that data, but adds specific emphasis on what they call causal inference—basically not simply recording and reporting on what happened, but focusing on figuring out why certain actions were taken and what the specific drivers and levers were which caused those choices and decisions.

Once you’ve identified the key influences and inputs to specific consumer actions, you can build models and tests to determine how incremental changes in the variables, expenditures, and volumes of pricing, promotions, marketing efforts and inventory allocations can all act to increase revenues and profits. It’s another level of inquiry and differentiation that feels like a sniper scope approach rather than a shotgun. Every LLM engine takes all the past tonnage and grinds it for correlations, but we’ve been taught from Day One that correlation alone never adequately explains causation.

Kapnova’s offerings and solutions combine econometrics, causal science, and human analysis, enhanced by the use of specialized agents. The agents apply the conclusions drawn from testing prior actions and spends in constant reviews of marketplace conditions and changes and then identify and highlight instances where strategic and timely changes in different variables will likely optimize the results. Opportunities are called out and scored for the client teams to make final determinations, but the speed of the operations isn’t belated or after-the-fact. It provides real time suggestions and directions.

How far can prices be raised on a given product before demand falls enough to impact overall revenue? Which ad spends are working to produce incremental sales and which discounts and promotions are actually costing the client money when the customers would have purchased regardless of the price? To be clear, you could be looking backwards for a lifetime without adding materially to your decision-making ability with respect to ongoing current changes.

We can’t go back and change the past, or the actions and decisions that were made that may have led to unfortunate results, no matter how much we may wish to do so, but it’s never too late to change the future. Kapnova offers a look ahead at what the future is very likely to hold for consumer product pricing. We’ll never get better if we keep doing things the same way that we did in the past.