How To Make a Comeback (The Right Way!)

Lisa Kudrow should have done these tried and tested true tips in order to have a glimmer of success again.

So you’re married, been banned by Tablo, and currently own a major entertainment business in Korea. Now you’re bored. What should you do now? Torturing trainees, making them do Mister Miyagi-esque work around your conglomerate will eventually get boring.  Your current groups are in one scandal or more. You’re going bankrupt because your diamond studded Hummers aren’t as cheap anymore. Your wife’s attention is shifting away towards the new manly girl idol, named Amber, but that doesn’t matter anymore. You’re bored. What are you to do?

Comeback to the spotlight, of course!

10. Create a Twitter/YouTube Account

The easiest way to get an idea of what you’re up against is to create a Twitter account or a YouTube account. The Twitter would be used for, obviously keeping track of your fans’ interests and to see if anyone is still touching themselves to your pictures back when you were a ripe fifteen years old trainee. Though the best way to get more followers on Twitter is to just ignore your fans and talk to other KPOP idols. The more you acknowledge your fans – the less likely they’re going to care about your comeback.

However, if you got a bunch of antis like Jessica from Girls Generation, be careful – they may just report you for spam and manage to get your account deleted.

“Gee, gee, gee! I should have asked my genie about my future on Twitter! Hoot~!” – Jessica of Girls’ Generation

Although there are those KPOP idols on Twitter who try to gain more followers by pretending to care about their fans’ problems. It’s a wise tactic though. Kevin of UKISS recently asked his fans to send him sob stories so he could respond to say he was going to pray for them. After maybe about five hundred replies, he stopped and basically said, “Oh, I’ll pray for everyone!”

On the same coin, if you get a YouTube account, be sure to slowly upload things to it. If you upload things every other day or form some sort of pattern, people will be spoiled into thinking you care about their thoughts and they will not care if you upload something of actual substance. Keep your fans on edge. It works every time. Even if your music video is made in your cousin’s garage with someone’s used iPhone and music is about raping children – complete in autotune, it’ll be a success because fans would have been keyboard-smashing, waiting, for your comeback.

And they will fight amongst themselves in case there’s someone with a different opinion than theirs and says, “lol I’m like 2NE1 by not caring.”

09. Let Your Agency Announce Your Comeback (Unless You’re a Rapper).

It’s pretty much obvious in the American entertainment business where if you’re going to have a comeback album, single, or digital single, you’re going to have to announce it every other sentence. Since Korea is not like America, the agencies themselves tend to post on the internet – either as a pretend anonymous or just a pretend fan – or even have press conferences announcing the group’s comeback.

However, most Korean rappers think that they’re from the cold hard streets of Seoul to have someone as important as a CEO announce when they’re coming back is just plain asinine ; so instead, they look to the American rappers and also say it every other sentence. While most normal people would be annoyed by hearing about HaeYu’s comeback single, “Baby Back Ribs (POPPIN’ FRESH REMIX)” all the time, it’s not going to stop Choi HaeYu from announcing it constantly.

It’s because he knows that his fans’ attention spans are similar to a goldfish – it lasts less than three seconds. They have to constantly be reminded that Choi HaeYu is going to be releasing a song, much less comeback, really soon. Although if you’re just a plain idol, reminding people of your comeback during interviews (even if it’s about your favorite shampoo) is always a good idea.

“Starpowder, Choi HaeYu’s been promising for months now! He hasn’t came back yet!” You may whine.

Well, just because he’s saying he’s going to comeback, doesn’t mean he’s going to give a date when.

08. Do NOT Be Specific About When You’re Releasing Anything.

This is a mistake most groups and rappers tend to make. They say they’re going to come back in the end of October, but it’s the middle of January.  Do NOT set a specific date for yourself or your group because not only are fans going to be disappointed but they will stop being your fans because you dared to lie about it.

As evidenced with Big Bang, Master YG had promised they were going to come back in October; well, unless he means October of 2011, I believe he’s a little too late on that. It’s nearing November and Big Bang still haven’t released so much as a Bo Peep even from G.Dragon’s plagerizing self. He had also did fans wrong by announcing 2NE1′s comeback all the way back in April. Once April passed, he aimed for August. They finally released their “long-awaited” mini album in October. Not only did the actual comeback suck major balls, the fact of the matter was fans got impatient and moved on to other shitty girl groups out there. A lot of fans were disappointed in the 2NE1 come back and it appears that Big Bang’s fate may be the same if Master YG doesn’t take this tip to heart.

“Now we’ll never see [the] Big Bang!” – Sum DumHo, the leader of ViPS

07. Get On As Many Television Shows as You Can

One of the best ways to get word about your comeback is to appear on as many television shows as you can. The more tv shows, the more exposed you’re going to be. Variety shows (that totally aren’t scripted), Idol Army, Hello Baby, hell, even little kids’ programs – anything to get the word out about your comeback. In fact, when G. Dragon was about to release his Heartbreaker album last year, he was literally everywhere to the point where everyone knew exactly he was coming back.

Another example is Jay Park. When a close friend of mine went to Korea this past summer, she noted that Jay Park was coming back with a digital single – due to the posters that were littered all over the place. Everywhere she turned, she saw Jay Park’s ugly mug on poles, subways, billboards, even on trash cans. I think she got the message that he was releasing a single soon. But either way, the Korean population hasn’t quite gotten yet so Jay – take these tips to heart and apply them to his comeback.

06. Involve Yourself in a Scandal Within the First/Last Few Weeks Before Your Comeback.

Pictured: Business Ingenuity.

Ever since Lee Hyori left FIN.K.L. (youtube them) back in 2002-2003, she’s been in one scandal after another. Coincidentally, it was usually right before or right after a major release. She’s been accused of multiple things: being a foreigner (because Asians never have dark skin, sometimes), sleeping around like a HYOR (get it?), encouraging plagiarism, and just being too damn successful for being a woman.

However, because of her many scandals, all of her sales are extremely high ever since her solo debut. Even “Toc, Toc, Toc”, one of the first digital singles and pretty bad song with the annoying long ass introductions, made bank with it (it sold an astounding 27,845 copies). Even though her single was successful, she was shortly involved in a scandal. She apparently made that single for  her drama at the time, “If In Love… Like Them” but the plug was soon pulled because there were allegedly advertising violations. Yeah, because Hyori Lee has made a successful theme song for a crappy drama.

And even before “Toc, Toc, Toc”, she was slapped with a plagiarism claim because a song of hers from her Dark Angel album resembled a Britney Spears’ song.

However, despite the many lawsuits, being told she’s too dark to be Asian,  and amongst other claims, she has somehow managed to come out on top. Why? Because she admitted to being in a scandal instead of lying or outright denying about the claims and she also has the actual talent to back her up and to pay for those laundry fees after doing God knows how many hand and blow jobs.

Not Pictured: Business Ingenuity

G.Dragon, however, only managed to make sales because of the two scandals he was involved in — the first one is the ever epic direct rip from Flo Rida’s song and of course teens buying non-teenage rated things. The only reason why people even looked in his direction is because he hyped it up to be this super original, and really awesome album. Granted, it is listenable and I even own a copy (everybody makes mistakes) however whether or not G.Dragon ripped Flo Rida and others off is still in the dark. Why? Because G.Dragon has not officially confirmed or denied about it as of now. Generally, when you’re trying to avoid a claim of plagiarism, it’s just a good idea to outright come out and say, “No, I did not rip bars 2 and 6. I did not steal the B flat either!!” Or just admit it.

Not, you know, invite the original artist and have them “featured” in your alleged stolen song. That seems like an admission of guilt, to me. But whatever – the point is that G.Dragon not only got involved in a scandal that nearly cost him his poor bum if he got the jailed sentence, but he also made bank. So I suppose it was almost a win-win for him.

05. Start Releasing Radio Teasers On The Internet. Even If They Make No Sense.

Most people would go right into this without following the previous tips because they’re like Master YG and think that people will remember the band well after they were supposed to release, well, their comeback. However, successful companies (like DSP Media, SM Entertainment, and JYP Entertainment) followed these ancient guidelines and they are usually guaranteed success.

Release a thirty second tidbit from the upcoming and hot single that’s surely going to top the charts. But not on the radio. Don’t let the name “radio-rip” fool you. It’s only called that because back when the Internet didn’t exist past nerds, geeks, and future Starcraft developers, we used to get our music by this ancient machinery called the radio. Of course, being a pair of North American writers, we weren’t exposed to the enka songs of Korea’s past. Instead we got shitty pop, rock, rap, etc of our childhoods. And since we didn’t have immediate access to the Internet like we do now, whenever a new boyband (yes, at one point, North America had them too) were to release something or if Britney Spears was going to release something, they would tease us by releasing a very short clip of what’s to come. They would play these clips during the day because they knew fangirls were bored and needed something to fill their time.

Hence the name radio rip. These days, we have the Internet for producers and the like to upload the teaser clip on the Internet so fans could tweet their impatience (it’ll help especially if you have a YouTube account).

When the teaser for “Hoot” came out, people were going “What the fuck? Are they having sex now and just recorded their moaning?” because SM had the brilliant idea of just releasing the 15-second clip of just them going, “Hoot, hoot, hoot~!” No one knew what the song was actually about until the song came out and it was translated.

But because the teaser didn’t make any sense, it sparked a curiosity about the song and made the SONES anticipate the new song so much that they stopped caring so much that the teaser was just weird.

04. Release Teaser Pictures That’s Just As Weird.

When 2PM recently came out with “I’ll Be Back” — an ode to stalker fans, I’m sure — they release pictures that resembled typical players at the Pride parades. And by Pride, we mean the ones who are just fabulous in the ironic way. It also didn’t help that the song itself sounds like it belongs in a gay club somewhere in SoHo or in West Hollywood.

Queer Eye for JYP’s Eye.

Oh sure, the fans questioned 2PM’s sexuality once again (“Chansung, are you sure you’re not eating Jay Park’s banana secretly?”) but they accepted it because, come on. They’re 2PM! They’re going to release a badly choreographed music video anyway and it seems they don’t care that one of the guys drops his freaking bracelet and, with ninja-like abilities, kicks it off to the side. –

SHOWN: JYP’s inability to care whether or not fans get the best choreographed dance version.

AND IT’S OKAY. They’re fabulous. They’re 2PM. They don’t need to change a thing.

03. Leave One (or More) Member(s) Behind.

This seems to be becoming a fad and Super Junior is leading the way. When Kibum didn’t come back for their fourth album, BONAMANA, fans were glad because they don’t appreciate true genius and pure beauty. Then way after Hangeng announced he was going to leave the company because of shitty treatment, there were cries out for blood when it was recently announced that Super Junior-M were making a comeback as well.

f(x) also revealed that they were going to comeback without Amber – the butchy Chinese woman has not been seen since the NU ABO days and it’s theorized that she went back to school. Well, having white and Asian girls “lust” after you because of your “manliness” does get tiring and being of superior intellect like Kibum, Amber was probably bored of fame. All we can say is good for her! Maybe you can go to school on how to improve your looks.

It seems mostly SM bands are doing so because even though the leader of SS501 had left the company, somehow, they are still going to make the five way relationship work.  But they don’t understand why they should have just ditched the leader of SS501 and move on without him.

The members that left? They are dead weight. They don’t have time to wait for the final exams to come up and to pass just so they can spend a month on a silly little thing called “breaks”. That’s a Chinese word and Koreans are not like them dirty Chinamen.

If you learned anything while you were climbing your way up to CEO status, time is of the essence. You don’t have time to wait whether or not your token Kibum-like member decides to grace the group with their presence. Cut your losses (although your fans should have the same mindset as you do so you shouldn’t have to) and move on. You got an epic comeback to make.

02. Comeback in Japan (or Another Country)

Girls’ Generation – this generation’s BoA of rehashing old favorites into other languages.

4Minute, Girls Generation, BoA, Dong Bang Shin Ki, Se7en, and more did the right thing and released some music in Nippon Land. A lot of the groups did one further and actually just rehashed popular songs in Japan – knowing that the Japanese are looking for something better than Morning Musume.’s old tricks and Johnny’s lame attempts at new ones. They know that Japan needs some Korean band or singer to go in and say, “Hey, I may not speak your language and actually outright hate you – but I’m here to sing away your blues! Buy our cds! Look, it even has the Korean version on it!”

Most people were shocked when Girls’ Generation made the jump over the Sea of Japan to, well, Japan because everyone thought they were doing fairly well in Korea. But I suppose they needed another way to defeat their evil nemesis – KARA. They didn’t care if casualties like Morning Musume. or AKB48 got in the way although AKB48 seems to be a formidable opponent these days.

Taiwan is also a good place for (failed) KPOP artists but we don’t talk about that. Taiwan is like the Lord Voldemort of Asia, so to speak.

The only people that I know of that debuted a place outside of Japan is BoA with her random Chinese releases and, of course, Super Junior-M because of their token Chinese members. However, if you feel that Asia in general has just way too much competition, you should just skip this tip and go directly to number one. Why? Because that’s where you belong.

01. Comeback (or Debut) in America

This is most obvious. Debuting in America is where people of their respective class (singing, dancing, and acting) can be shown to American audiences and they will be accepted by all, and I mean all, races, classes, ethnicity, genders, and even sexual orientations.

That are Asians and KPOP fans who happen to be a different shade.

The biggest error that many artists did would be they didn’t put enough effort into advertising their comeback. Instead, they wrongly assumed that KPOP fans are social creatures and talk to people offline about who Hyori Lee is currently banging. This case was most evident with Se7en’s failed attempt to debut in America.

Granted, he has the chops to make it. He has the talent and he can speak English without having so much as a FOB-ish accent and continue the stereotypes of Asians.

However, Se7en only narrowed his scope of American fame to only the Los Angeles area – particularly around downtown LA where Koreatown is. This is a huge mistake because he should realize that he has fans all over the country and that not all of them have the means to go to LA to have him sign his Korean album.

And not only that, he could have appealed to the rap, r&b, and hip-hop communities had he collaborated with someone who was relevant – not only Lil Kim was irrelevant but she was someone who was about to go to jail for perjury.

LIL KIM: “You see, I was going to help promote more but then I had to go and lie on the stand. Sorry, Se7en. We cool though. We cool.”

So after the failed attempt Se7en went back to Korean with his tail in between his legs.

However, JYJ on the other hand are making big news on this side of the Pacific Ocean. They’ve already been featured in the Billboard magazine and on Yahoo news. Also among the grapevine is that they were appearing on “The Late Night Show with David Letterman”.

The kicker? They have barely done shit other than say, “Oh hey guys, we’re going to make an American tour. You should buy it if you’re a fan.”

Also, they’ve collaborated with THE Kayne West of the western world, Kayne West. They’re also releasing a CD so that’s probably helping them out as well. We can expect lulzy things to happen.

So there you have it. You debuted in America and you’re boredom is gone! Now pat yourself on the back and continue to make shitty songs.