Home GRASP GRASP/Korea K-pop legend Beast ‘debuts’ as Highlight

K-pop legend Beast ‘debuts’ as Highlight

198
0
SHARE

Korean pop (K-pop) has seen boy and girl groups earning global recognition for the greater part of the last decade, but which have disbanded or gone into the doldrums recently. One
Korean pop (K-pop) has seen boy and girl groups earning global recognition for the greater part of the last decade, but which have disbanded or gone into the doldrums recently.
One band that has shown longevity despite the changing trends and amid controversy after controversy is Beast, now named Highlight.
Beast debuted in 2009 as a sextet. Last April, as its seven-year contract with Cube Entertainment was to end, lead singer Jang Hyunseung left to go solo.
Before Beast, Jang had been the last member to be booted out from the group that would become Big Bang, under YG, one of the biggest entertainment agencies in Korea.
In fact, Beast was cobbled up out of rejects from bigger agencies. Disparaged at first as a band of recycled rejects, Beast went on to silence their detractors by dominating the charts.
It won Song of the Year for “Fiction” in 2011, and was declared by Melon as Artist of the Year twice—in 2011 and 2012. In 2014, Billboard named “Good Luck” as K-pop Song of the Year.
Despite Jang’s departure, Beast continued as a five-member group last year and released the album “Highlight,” a foreshadowing of what was to come.
Legal problem
Last October, when their contract expired with Cube, Beast didn’t renew and formed their own company, Around Us Entertainment
But   Cube had registered “Beast” as its trademark. The five members, led by vocalist-actor Yoon Doojoon, found out that they couldn’t continue using the name that tens of thousands of fans in Korea and around the world had known them by.

Continue reading...