Candy (H.O.T. song)

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"Candy"
Single by H.O.T.
from the album We Hate All Kinds of Violence
LanguageKorean
ReleasedSeptember 7, 1996
Recorded1996
Genre
Length3:37
LabelSM
Songwriter(s)Jang Yong-jin
Producer(s)Jang Yong-jin
H.O.T. singles chronology
"Warrior's Descendant"
(1996) 		"Candy"
(1996) 		"Wolf and Sheep"
(1997)
Audio video
"Candy" on YouTube

"Candy" is a song recorded by South Korean boy group H.O.T.; it was released as part of the group's debut studio album We Hate All Kinds of Violence on September 7, 1996 via SM Entertainment. Along with "Warrior's Descendant", it serves as one of the two singles from the record. A cheerful K-pop bubblegum pop dance track, the song was both written and produced by Jang Yong-jin. Upon the album's release, "Candy" was met with widespread recognition in South Korea and has been credited with sparking a new wave of mainstream music in the country's youth.

H.O.T. promoted "Candy" with televised live performances on weekly South Korean music programs in late 1996 and January 1997, and topped the chart rankings for several weeks. At the 11th Golden Disc Awards, the group received the Best New Artist award for "Candy".[1] In a 2005 survey conducted by MTV Korea, it was voted the most popular song of 1996 in South Korea by netizens.[2]

Background[]

In early 1996, SM Entertainment founder and record producer Lee Soo-man surveyed high school students in the area to find out what their ideal pop music group would be like. Lee then used this information to form and create the concept of the agency's upcoming boy group, H.O.T.[3] The five group members were recruited by the company and soon became trainees under the agency, a model that took inspiration from the Japanese idol system founded by Johnny Kitagawa.[4] H.O.T. made its debut on September 7, 1996, with the commercially successful release of the album We Hate All Kinds of Violence, which sold over 1.5 million copies.[5]

Two singles were spawned from the album: the first single "Warrior's Descendant" is a critique of schoolyard bullying, while the second single, "Candy," is a cheerful bubblegum pop song that established the group's popularity in South Korea.[5][6] The trainee system laid by SM with H.O.T. has led them to become recognized as the first idol group in K-pop,[7][8][9] with the fashion, rap skills and dance moves shown through "Candy" sparking a new wave of mainstream music in the country.[10]

Live performances[]

Following promotions for the first single "Descent of Warriors", H.O.T. began promoting the album's second single, "Candy", on televised weekly music programs in November 1996. The stages for "Candy" exemplifies the level of coordination regarding idol costumes, with each member wearing a designated color and accessorized with face paint, fuzzy oversized mittens, visors, bucket hats, and earmuffs, and used stuffed animals, backpacks, and messenger bags as props. On October 13 and 14, 2018, H.O.T. performed "Candy" at their reunion concert "Forever [Highfive Of Teenagers]" at the Seoul Olympic Stadium, which attracted a total of 100,000 attendees.[11]

Accolades[]

"Candy" won the Best New Artist award at the 11th Golden Disc Awards.[12] It achieved the top position on SBS's TV Gayo 20 (former version of Inkigayo), MBC's Popular Songs Best 50 (former version of Show! Music Core), and KBS's Top 10 Songs (former version of Music Bank).

Music program awards
Program Date
SBS's TV Gayo 20 December 15, 1996[13]
December 22, 1996
December 29, 1996
January 5, 1997
January 12, 1997
January 19, 1997
MBC's Popular Songs Best 50 December 28, 1996
January 4, 1997
January 11, 1997
KBS's Top 10 Songs January 8, 1997
January 15, 1997

Impact and legacy[]

The release of "Candy" presented a softer and gentler form of pop music with upbeat and cheerful melodies accompanied by energetic dance moves—a formula adopted by many subsequent Korean idol groups. Ranking it as the best K-pop song of all time in 2012, David Bevan of Spin magazine wrote "Seo Taiji may have laid K-pop’s foundation a few years earlier, but it was H.O.T., a boy band engineered in part by SM kingpin Lee Soo-Man, that ushered in the 'idol' cult that's propelled Korean pop cultural product as far and wide as it's come in the past ten years."[14] In 2014, Mnet included "Candy" in their countdown list of Legend 100 Songs, a list of 100 influential songs in Korean popular music history since the 1960s.[15] That same year, music webzine Music Taste Y ranked it at number 25 in their list of 120 greatest dance songs of all time, where critic Kim Yun-ha noted the multi use marketing that commercializes not only music, but also fashion and characters, and said that the song acts as sort of the ancestor of all those combined elements that the K-pop industry has become accustomed to in the present.[16] 35 music and pop culture critics organized by Seoul Shinmun and Melon ranked "Candy" at number 17 in a 2021 list of the 100 best K-pop songs of all time; critic Jeong Byeong-wook echoed that its beats, "dances, related fashions, various derivatives, and the fandom culture that surrounds it have all become pioneering models of the K-pop business today."[17]

References[]

  1. ^ "올해의 골든디스크 대상에 김건모의 [스피드]". Yonhap News (in Korean). December 8, 1996. Archived from the original on June 3, 2021. Retrieved June 3, 2021 – via Naver.
  2. ^ "'1996년 최고 인기가요는 H.O.T '캔디''" ["The most popular song of 1996 was H.O.T's 'Candy'"]. Yonhap News (in Korean). January 7, 2005. Retrieved February 17, 2022 – via Naver.
  3. ^ Kallen, Stuart A. (2014). K-Pop: Korea's Musical Explosion. Twenty-First Century Books. pp. 18–23. ISBN 9781467725491. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
  4. ^ Michel, Patrick St (July 10, 2019). "Johnny Kitagawa: The mogul who defined and controlled Japan's entertainment industry". The Japan Times. Archived from the original on July 10, 2019.
  5. ^ a b Fuhr, Michael (2015). Globalization and Popular Music in South Korea: Sounding Out K-Pop. Routledge. pp. 74–76. ISBN 978-1317556916. Archived from the original on August 3, 2020. Retrieved February 1, 2018.
  6. ^ Jackson, Julie (August 13, 2013). "Then & Now: A look back at the changing tides of K-pop". The Korea Herald. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved February 1, 2018.
  7. ^ Sherman, Maria (July 13, 2020). "Start Here: Your Guide To Getting Into K-Pop". NPR. Retrieved January 2, 2022.
  8. ^ Herman, Tamar (August 14, 2018). "Pioneering K-Pop Group H.O.T. Announces First Concert in 17 Years". Billboard. Retrieved January 2, 2022.
  9. ^ Macintyre, Donald (July 29, 2002). "Korean Pop - Flying Too High?". Time. Archived from the original on August 14, 2003.
  10. ^ "Then & Now: A look back at the changing tides of K-pop". The Korea Herald. August 13, 2013. Archived from the original on August 13, 2013. Retrieved January 2, 2022.
  11. ^ Kim, Ji-ha (October 14, 2018). "H.O.T.를 H.O.T.라 못 불러도…그때 그 열정 그대로 [콘서트 리뷰]". TV Daily (in Korean). Retrieved February 17, 2022.
  12. ^ "올해의 골든디스크 대상에 김건모의 [스피드]". Yonhap News (in Korean). December 8, 1996. Archived from the original on June 3, 2021. Retrieved June 3, 2021 – via Naver.
  13. ^ "H.O.T. - Candy (Encore) - Dec/15/1996 (Wins first place on music chart for the first time)". May 23, 2020. Archived from the original (Online video) on January 2, 2022 – via YouTube.
  14. ^ Bevan, David; Eddy, Chuck (June 1, 2012). "The 21 Greatest K-Pop Songs of All Time". Spin. Archived from the original on February 7, 2020. Retrieved February 17, 2022.
  15. ^ Kim, Soo-jung (February 3, 2014). "'동백아가씨'부터 '강남스타일'까지, 대중 사로잡은 명곡은?" [From 'Camellia Lady' to 'Gangnam Style', which famous songs have captured the public?]. MediaUS. Archived from the original on October 2, 2021. Retrieved January 3, 2022.
  16. ^ "Dance Track 120 25위 – 에이치오티 (H.O.T.)『Candy』". Music Taste Y (in Korean). July 25, 2014. Retrieved February 17, 2022.
  17. ^ "K-pop 명곡 100: 17위 Candy – H.O.T." [K-pop Top 100: #17 Candy – H.O.T.] (in Korean). Melon. August 2021. Retrieved January 2, 2022.
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