Star’s Audition The Great Birth [위대한 탄생] Final Review

Star’s Audition [The Great Birth], I’ve reviewed it once when the program first started, but I wasn’t too excited about it – to be honest. There are just simply toooo many programs with the same pretext.. but along the line I kinda started to follow the program, and root for some of the participants. Among other reason, well.. I’m not sure coz I didn’t follow from the beginning, but so far, I like the fact that they actually pick top 20 to train, instead of simply criticizing this and that and act god..  well, it’s possible the next stage is to pick one final survivor.. but anyhow, so far I like how it goes.

I’ve actually finished this post sometime last week (actually I’ve written all posts to be posted up to the middle of March) before the news that Tae-Won Oppa was diagnosed with gastric cancer. Now is all the more reason to post this particular post now, since we’ll be monitoring how he’s doing through this program. Again, I’d like to wish him well and recover 100%~ 🙂 사랑합니다..

As I said, I did a(n extremely) simple review before, but I’ll share a bit more this time. (share, not dig ^^ – )

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I’ll start over by introducing the five mentors:

(from left to right) Kim Yun-A (김윤아), Lee Eun-Mi (이은미), Kim Tae-Won (김태원), Bang Si-Hyeok (방시혁), Sin Seung-Hun (신승훈)

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Kim Yun-A (김윤아), born in 1974, is the vocalist of the band “Jaurim” (자우림) that debut in 1997. She’s also produced 3 single albums of her own. Among the renown song of Jaurim are Hahaha Song (하하하 쏭) and Magic Carpet Ride.

Lee Eun Mi (이은미), one of Korean legendary singers, debuted in 1992. Among her top hits are 애인있어요 (I have a lover) and 헤오지는 중입니다 (Breaking Up).

Kim Tae-Won (김태원), Boohwal’s leader and guitarist. You wouldn’t expect more explanation, would you 🙂 He writes most of Boohwal songs (by most I mean over 90%) and he’s brought Boohwal for 26 years and counting. A lot of people in Korea are likely to pick these three songs among his best masterpiece: 회상 III (Reminiscence III), 사랑할수록 (The More I Love), and Never Ending Story.

Bang Si-Hyeok (방시혁), a renown composer and song-writer. Among his songs are 죽어도 못 보내 (I won’t let you go even if I die) by 2 AM and 총 맞은 것처럼 (as if shot by a gun) by 백지영 (Paek Ji-Young).

Shin Seung-Hun (신승훈), without doubt one of Korea’s best ballad singer. I’ve known him long, much longer than I’ve known Boohwal. I love his voice, he writes .. I think all of his songs. He was born in 1968, and debut in 1991 with the song 미소속에 비친 그대 (Your smile in my memory). His biggest hit was 보이지 않은 사랑 (Invisible Love) released in the second album released one year later. Most of you would probably recognized him from the song “I Believe” which was the OST of the movie “My Sassy Girl” released in 2001.

Kim Tae-Won was the first among the 5 mentors who picked his mentees, and they are as follows:

Top-left: 이태권 (Lee Tae-Kwon)
Top-right: 손진영 (Son Jin-Young)
Down-left: 양정모 (Yang Jung-Mo)
Down-right: 백청강 (Paek Cheong-Gang)

(I mentioned I saw them on the Valentine concert, did I? Three of them did come, except for 양정모. But to my surprise, all 4 of them apparently appeared on stage on Boohwal’s Jeonju concert on Feb 19th (a week after the val concert).)

How good are these guys? You can tell for your selves~ ^^

Lee Tae-Kwon (이태권), 20 years old, from Incheon. The video below is from the second round of audition, where he sung “Love” (사랑) by Boohwal and “Staying Alive.” He was hand-picked by three mentors: Kim Tae-Won, Sin Seung-Hoon, and Lee Eun-Mi, and he chose Kim Tae-Won~ ^-^

Yang Jeong-Mo (양정모), 27 years old, from Seoul. He lost 15 kgs from the first round to the third round of audition. He sung “Beautiful Truth” (아름다운 사실) by Boohwal in the first round of audition and received high compliments by all mentors present. He’s been rooting for Kim Tae-Won from day 1 to be his mentor~ ^^

Paek Chung-Gang (백청강), Chinese-Korean. He sung Kim Kyung-Ho (김경호)’s song “사랑 그 시린 아픔으로” and “보고싶다” by Kim Beom-Soo (김범수) in the first round of audition, which I personally think was perfect, but Kim Tae-Won thinks he was imitating Kim Kyung-Ho and told him to find his own style, while Lee Eun Mi keeps noting he shouldn’t sing through the nose coz it results in unclear pronunciation. He sung Boohwal’s Never Ending Story in the second round of audition (held in Korea), and was teamed with Yang Jung-Mo in the third (final) round, which led both of them hand-picked by Kim Tae-Won as mentee.

Now, Son Jin-Young (송진영). A question mark, and not only for me, I believe. He fell in each round of audition, but Kim Tae-Won kept giving him second chances and called him back. The video below is from the final round audition, where he teamed up with Lee Jin-Sun (이진선) who was latter picked by Lee Eun-Mi. Kim Tae-Won jokingly said he probably keeps reincarnating Son again and again for his karma ^^; but in the final round, he told him that he’ll tell Son the reason he picked him, one day, when he almost reaches his limit.

Below are all of the 5 mentors and each 4 mentees they hand-picked. Wish them all luck. Despite how far they’ve got til now, despite how much further they’d go, it ‘ll be difficult to survive in Korean music industry where look is everything. I’m personally rooting for Lee Tae-Kwon, and the little girl Kim Jeong-In, and also Yang Jung-Mo and Paek Cheong-Gang, and.. Hwang Jin-Hwan and Kim Han-Jun.. I wish they would go far, really far. From the current 20 finalists, each mentor will choose 2 to go into the top-10 round.

Keep watching the show, coz Boohwal members will show in sessions where Kim Tae-Won will mentor his four mentees. And I’m crossing my fingers that bits from the Jeonju concert might show in this week’s episode. A lot of fans who attended said it was amazing and magical, even before they knew Kim Tae-Won had undergone a surgery only 4 days before the concert. All the more reason to monitor The Great Birth this week, isn’t it~ Music director Colleen Park will also be assisting Kim Tae Won as shown in last week’s preview. Actually, rumor has it that tomorrow’s Star’s Audition will be exclusively on Kim Tae-Won’s mentoring session~ but let’s see! Stay tune @ 10 pm on MBC, Friday night! ^ㅇ^