The Year We Were “Jopping”: The Wild Story of SuperM

SuperM was hailed as “The Avengers of K-Pop” but their debut single “Jopping” suggested a group far from the mainstream.

Who were we before we were jopping? 

In October 2019, SM Entertainment unleashed perhaps their most ambitious, insane concept yet: A supergroup of seven members across three generations of K-Pop called SuperM. For one year, EXO’s Baekhyun and Kai, SHINee’s Taemin, NCT’s Taeyong and Mark, and WayV’s Lucas and Ten came together to create a group that I, at least, am still processing. 

Beginning in 2019, the supergroup released self-titled one mini-album and later, a full album titled “Super One”. But their first single “Jopping” will always be remembered as their most daring - and absurd - release. SM had high hopes for the group: By combining seven of the company’s most popular members, SM believed they had blockbuster potential.

This supergroup represented a new era of business and branding for the company: Within a year the company would introduce a multiverse called KWANGYA. This multiverse would be accompanied by the arrival of a new kind of girl group, named aespa, that represented a knowingness of K-Pop’s superficiality. SuperM tested the boundaries for these concepts. 

Fans had several ideas of what they could expect when four boy groups fused together as one, but few of us knew that we would never be the same when we heard Mark Lee spit with no hesitation, “You think u a big boi, throwing three stacks/ I'ma show you how to ball, you a mismatch”.

This is the incredibly wild story of SuperM. Proceed with caution. 

By all accounts, SM had prepared for SuperM since 2005 when the company debuted Super Junior. The group was originally named “Super Junior 05” with a concept to feature a rotating group of members that would change every year. The boy group was massive, with thirteen members, including Hangeng from Mainland China. The name represented SM Chairman Soo-man Lee’s vision that the group would contain a wide variety of boys who were good at everything from dance to vocals to acting. The large number meant that at any time a boy could be added or subtracted from the group without losing any of the essence. 

But fans revolted against this idea. They loved the group as they were. So, Super Junior stayed intact and SM shelved the rotating boyband concept for thirteen years.

Hindsight is 20/20 though, and a closer look reveals how Super Junior predated the moves SM would make to meticulously grow their company, both inside of Korea and in Asia. The inclusion of Hangeng, for example, was a conscious bid on the company’s part to begin to attract a Chinese fanbase. This strategy expanded with the addition of four Chinese members to EXO and, finally, the creation of WayV in 2019. 

The revolving group concept did come back around – and stuck – with NCT in 2018. The group’s name means Neo Culture Technology and the concept was massive. NCT represented three subunits, DREAM (the juniors), WayV (the Chinese idols), and finally, 127 (which initially was the most popular and prominent subunit).

SM’s goal with NCT was to create mobility with idols. They could be shifted into different groups, move into solo projects, ensuring that fans would not be disturbed by a military service or hiatus.

I see NCT as the final prelude to SuperM. If fans could support a group of revolving idols, then they would surely support a group that collects idols across four groups. 

SUperM, courtesy of SM Entertainment.

SuperM was officially announced at the Capital Congress on August 7, 2019. The group formed as a partnership between Capitol Records and SM. This partnership with an American company was strategic: SuperM’s purpose was to conquer North America.

“SuperM is uniquely positioned to become the highest-profile U.S. debut of a K-pop group in the history of this phenomenon,” Capitol Music Group chairman Steve Barneet said at the event. The group’s announcement concluded with a video that stated, “We are the future.” 

SM A&R executive and director Chris Lee spoke highly of the group. “We keep describing them as ‘Avengers’ because I think that’s the best conceptual analogy that will immediately be understood by others. Each Avenger has their own group and Iron Man has his own movie and Thor has his own but together they have an even greater synergy, so like that the members will pursue their own careers and own groups but also join together with synergy, a positive one.”

In the interview there was another line that caught my eye, one that would have huge repercussions only a year later: “The distinctive part of SuperM is that it has its own conceptual world in it — K-pop — just like how all the stories in The Avengers are linked we’re trying to make K-pop storytelling go out to a bigger audience.”

Without realizing it, we were already headed to Kwangya.

Baekhyun once teased that the title track “Jopping” is “an entire dance break.” He was not wrong. It’s a song so big and so overwhelming that it threatens to overtake itself. 

“Jopping” is a curious song for a North American single. For one, the word is itself a fusion of “popping” and “jumping”. This group is so spectacular, the concept seemed to say, that they needed their own vocabulary. The song is full of flexes from the boys: “I don’t even care/ We’ll burn up the stage,” they declare in the chorus. And I would not do this song service if I did not mention perhaps one of the greatest rap verses in K-Pop history courtesy of Mark Lee, either:

“Uh, you think ya big boi, throwing three stacks

I'ma show you how to ball, you a mismatch

Opinionated but I'm always spitting straight facts

Throwback, I might throw this on an eight track”

The video for “Jopping” is just as futuristic as the song. In the opening shots, Kai skydives from a helicopter and Taemin dances alone in a desert. SuperM exists in their own universe that I believe is our first introduction to KWANGYA. The song was as bombastic as you’d expect from a super group that compared themselves to the Avengers.

Reviews for “Jopping” were critical.  “Fans have seen these idols shine in nearly every type of release in their respective groups,” a critic for SeoulBeats wrote. “From Taemin in the plot-driven “View” or the sensual nuances in “Move”, to Ten and Taeyong’s “Baby Don’t Stop”, and even Lucas and Ten in WayV’s “Dream Launch”. Every member is more than capable of standing out in their own way, which is why “Jopping” feels like it is battling against their star power rather than complimenting it. 

As a product for North American listeners “Jopping” is a disaster. It’s unruly, chaotic and never once follows a song’s typical layout. To many listeners, it was  headscaratcher. But for a song that was so outrageous that it can only be pulled off in K-Pop? “Jopping” is aces all around.

“Jopping” indicated that SuperM was not made for mainstream audiences. Bad reviews be damned: This is a song that I immediately loved on first listen. It is batshit. The video’s high gloss design makes me feel like at any moment we could take off in a rocket ship or be teleported to Mars. The first time I watched it I immediately replayed it three times. My jaw was on the floor. My scalp burned. I could not believe what I witnessed.

In some ways, I still can’t. 

“I don’t know what KWANGYA is, but of course I will go if we have to,” Yeri of Red Velvet said recently. “It’s in our contracts.” 

This year, SM continued to advance the lore of KWANGYA. At the company’s New Year’s Eve party, Lee Soo Man appeared as a train conductor who resembled Willy Wonka. WIth a cheery tone and impeccable acting timing, the chairman positioned himself as the guide to the new universe he had spent the last decade creating. 

“Next stop, KWANGYA,” he said with the same tone he might offer you ice cream. 

SuperM might have felt especially outrageous three years ago, but the group revolutionized the future of SM. While SuperM received a mixed reaction online, their sales tell a different story: Their North American tour sold out and they were the first Asian group to debut at number 1 on Billboard with their first album. 

I have to admire the SM’s determination to never soften their image for Western adoration. Maybe the executives had no idea what American pop music sounds or looks like, but it seems even after years of K-Pop groups blowing up in the West, SM is continuing to push absurdism. “My naevis, we love you!” aespa shout on their album’s lead single “Savage”, in reference to the deity who controls KWANGYA. They performed this song in full on “The Kelly Clarkson Show”. Kelly was lost for words. Like SuperM, this has cost aespa mainstream success. aespa, too, has yet to connect in America.

SuperM didn’t break the mold so much as they turned the tables on us. This was one of the first times a label truly invested in the other-worldliness of K-Pop. SM was eager to portray SuperM not as relatable boyfriends, but superheroes. They were larger than life because, well, isn’t that how the best idols feel?

Perhaps we were too stunned at how ridiculous all of this was to appreciate SuperM. I have no idea if I missed my chance to jop in person with the boys at a concert. If I’m honest I deeply regret not seeing them in 2019. As second chances go, that moment will likely never come around again.

So sometimes I wonder, Did we ever deserve SuperM?