In the K-pop industry, there are usually two times when K-pop acts make their return for a K-pop comeback: the summer and winter seasons. Summer season comebacks are usually straight-forward given it is a time when students are given about a month off for summer vacation. The winter season however is unique. Prior to the New Year’s holidy, most K-pop acts do a Christmas Special as their comeback. For example, after Taeyeon finished promotions for her solo debut, she rejoined Tiffany and Seohyun for Girls’ Generation-TTS around the first week of December for their comeback, releasing their song “Dear Santa.”
After the New Year’s holiday, winter season K-pop comebacks usually follow the mantra of new music for the new year often showing off a new style or direction. Such includes 4Minute coming back with music co-produced by Skrillex and Dal Shabet coming back as a four-member group now that Jiyul and Kaeun have left. However, there seems to be one K-pop group during this season so far sticking to what they know. That K-pop group is GFriend and they’ve recently released promotions for their upcoming third mini-album titled Snowflake .
The promotions Source Music and/or KT Music released for GFriend were teaser images through the K-pop idol girl group’s official Instagram. According to AllKpop , GFriend look as if they are returning with a uniform theme , reminiscent of all-girl private schools or high-class education institutes. The way Sowon, Yerin, Eunha, Yuju, SinB, and Umji are posing simply together shows off more of their “close friends” theme GFriend has used since their debut with “Glass Bead” about one year ago.
The theme for Snowflake is technically a continuation of what Source Music calls GFriend’s “ High School Student Concept ,” as reported by Kpop Fighting . Reportedly, Snowflake is the final chapter in said concept used for a triology. With that fact in mind, the upcoming comeback being a conclusion foreshadows GFriend might now be working on an official studio album. So far, Snowflake , along with Season of Glass (which featured “Glass Bead) and Flower Bud (which featured “Me Gustas Tu”), have all been extended plays (EPs) which are known as “mini-albums” in Korea. Ergo, what better way for GFriend to present their first studio album than with a brand, new concept right?
GFriend did very well in their debut year. The K-pop idol girl group’s label, Source Music, is relatively minor even compared to small labels like DSP Media and Big Hit Entertainment. Ergo, it is amazing they were able to hold their own against the likes of other newer K-pop acts like SM Entertainment’s Red Velvet and JYP Entertainment’s TWICE. Needless to say, but it took a lot of hard work and sacrifice for them to keep up with rookie groups backed by powerhouse labels. They performed singles for OSTs (especially Yuju who performed “Spring Is Gone By Chance” with LOCO for Girl Who Sees Smells ), had many variety television appearances, and even saved money by living in a two-room dorm.
Yet the one event that made them international stars in the K-pop community as well as Korea’s “sweethearts” was one of their live performances. Apparently, said performance took place outside and the weather conditions were unsavory. Over the course of performing “Me Gustas Tu,” Yuju fell eight times will SinB had one hard fall. Despite the falls, GFriend still finished their performance in which many praised them for their performance and professionalism.
Presently, promotions for Snowflake have all been pictures per se. However, GFriend will began their promotional tour following the release of the mini-album on January 25, 2016. It is determined their featured song will be “Rough.”
[Image via Wikipedia Commons/ http://sjcontents.tistory.com/356 ]