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January 12, 2011

GD&TOP wants to break the prejudice on idols


Unit, G-Dragon and TOP (GD&TOP) of group, Big Bang is now on the stage, breaking the concept of Korean idols.

Instead of melting the hearts of the public sweetly with tender music in the end of the year, the music they chose is the strong genre, which mixed electronica and hip hop properly.

G-Dragon and TOP who are easing their thirst for music as a unit, didn’t release a mini album, but instead they released the full album which evokes the desire to “dissect” it even from the album cover. Moreover, they are planning to meet the public with 5 songs from it. Starting with “High High”, “Oh Yeah”, and “Knock Out”. They’ll promote “Don’t Go Home” and “Baby Goodnight” from the middle of January.

Music industry usually puts a planning ability before the product itself, but as for Big Bang members, each member gets to plan out what they want or like and choose their own concepts. They are the idols who rock the stage, doing the music they like and pursue to satisfy their curiosity. Performing on many different stages is where their confidence show.

- Was the response as a unit different from being Big Bang?
GD: I’m glad that not only Big Bang fans, but also a lot of people and listeners who have mania taste in music seem to like it and approve it. This unit’s song will affect Big Bang’s next album for the better.

- This unit is very different from general domestic idols in music and concepts.
GD: We are different from the concept of idols that Korea have thought. If you watch today’s idols, you’ll see although they are called as “idols”, they are very good and very professional. I think it’s not just us, but also the other idols are breaking the rules of the concept called idol in the aspects of music. And I’m glad they do. I think the solid concept of Korean idol is disappearing and we are improving. If people were used to watching the idols singing, standing together, or doing group dances, I think they consider this unit more free on the stages compared to that.

- This unit’s music feels more like “doing what they like to do” instead of popularity. I think you are much pleased with it.
TOP: It’s just the two of us doing. So instead of worrying how we can make a lot of people like our music, we did the music we actually like. I think that makes us more confident. There are people who have prejudices on idols and we have the “instinct that want to break” those things. We have our greed.

- Are you satisfied with the response?
GD: We are very pleased till now and we are working hard on every single stage. Above all things, it’s so interesting to have the stages freely and to monitor those. As the development of internet, we check fans’ responses and also learn from them. I feel like I’m improving a lot myself.

- The three major terrestrial broadcasting stations banned “Knock Out”, requesting to MBC for a retrial of “Don’t Go Home”, I think you are a bit depressed.
GD: Not depressed, but it’s just sad that we prepared our best and they are not accepting us. It’s like we have this so much presents to give and we are so willing to perform you exciting stages, but it’s sad that we can’t give you those presents because of those broadcasting bans.

- It’s very a stressing job. How do you ease that?
TOP: Two of us, with music.

- Your job is music and you relieve your stress with music?
TOP: The dream of Big Bang members’ have always been music and as our dream comes true, the music is always with us. It’s a job we need to pour a lot of emotions, so there are some hardships in controlling our feelings in some days. Also we are all kind of sensitive. Emotional ups and downs. Music makes us strong at those kind of moments.

- There were much expectation when people heard two of bigbang members are performing as an unit
TOP: I think there were a lot of people who were curious because the two of us are very characteristic and we both have very different tones and color. We wanted to give you the best interest by listening to our music.

- It seems you worked very hard on your MVs. Especially, “Knock Out” MV which released recently, was very interesting with all those new products of luxuries and fancy styles.
GD: It’s important to have details in music and we feel the importance of them more because they’re more known worldwide, not just in Korea. We think it’s all connected. People talk about our music, which makes others listening to our music, then they buy the album and go to concerts. So we work very hard on every single stage and so as on the MVs. We feel more responsibility because it’s showing to the world. It’s not like the old days.

- Maybe the next Big Bang album is more popular to the public than the unit.
GD: We, ourselves are very curious and looking forward to what 5 of the Big Bang members will be like. The reason why we are doing solo and unit performances, is because we want to express our own taste in music. So when we get back to as Big Bang, I think we have our responsibility to present you more like what people want and what they want to watch. I think it will contain much more feelings even though it’s an exciting music.

- Big Bang’s break was quite long. When you all come back, fans and many other people are expecting a lot.
GD: We’ll prepare many things and make you listen to great songs, as fans have waited for so long. (will Big Bang also do the triple title song strategy?) We, as a unit, had triple titles at first, but we promote 5 songs to perform in front of you with more stages. I think the title song itself doesn’t mean that much now. We’ll make our album full of great songs and that’s what we’ll perform. We’ll show you the various styles of the songs.
TOP: There are a lot of stages that can be shown, but we all say it’s the 3 week music days. (T/N: He means that No.1 music charts keep changing, longest is 3 weeks) We don’t have chances to show fans, no matter how hard we work, after about 3 weeks. But we’ll pass that limit and make ourselves “all-in” to working on Big Bang’s album. We’ll live up to your expectations as we come back in a long time. We’ll perform with pride.

- U.S. famous DJ, Diplo, who worked on “Knock Out” with you, said on his Facebook that he wants to work with you more.
TOP: It was really interesting and awesome to work with him. I think we can show you another surprising collaboration soon. It’s on the progress. We’ll let you hear many fresh and good ones.

- Maybe you can pick the charms from each other?
GD: TOP has very attractive eyes. There are many good looking eyes, but TOP has something deep in that.
TOP: Jiyong is just attractive himself.

- We are also looking forward to your members’ styles with your music. When will you change your hair style?
GD: I like to change my hair style, but I have no idea what perm I did because I kept changing and changing. Maybe I’ll change it again when my hair starts falling out. *laughs* I want to show you a lot of things, but I did everything that I wanted to do in this unit, so there are not many things left to show you. haha.
TOP: Actually my hair is falling out right now because I bleached my hair too many times. I heard this hair color is not an easy one to have, especially for Asians. I kept bleaching and at last my head was bleeding.
GD: Above all, I think the other three members will be very awesome. I myself is looking forward to it.

Source: Osen (via Nate)
Translated by: HuisuYoon @ 21bangs.com

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