Salon Drip season two (TEO YouTube)
Lee Heewon: “From culture, art, philosophy, to backtalking and rumors! Those who want to get chatty, come on over!” Jang Do Youn’s same short speech introducing every episode of Salon Drip gives viewers a perfect idea of how the talk show works: a space for the host and her guests to engage in free-flowing, topic-hopping conversation. While the first season of the show was all about luxurious discussions taking place over “royal” teatime—complete with clothing and sets to match—the new season has taken on a more relaxed tone, now filmed in the corner of an office in Sangam-dong. The laid-back atmosphere and Jang Do Youn’s conversational prowess put the host’s guests at ease, allowing them to open up and let loose. Koo Kyo-hwan even commented that “it didn’t feel like we were working” when he appeared on the show, a sentiment Hong Jin Kyung echoed when she told Jang Do Young that she can “really make guests feel super comfortable” and that “it really feels like we’re just talking in a cafe or something.” The shining crown on top of the whole series is how well Jang gets along with all of her guests and how she helps them give viewers a great look into their lives.

“It’s easier to make people laugh by putting someone down,” noted KIAN84 when he was on Salon Drip, “but you don’t do that,” he told host Jang. The host makes it her goal never to make jokes at the expense of her guests, even just for laughs. When KIAN84, whose image in the minds of the public is that he “takes things easy,” talks about freezing delivery food and experimenting with different approaches to preparing food, Jang frames it her own way: “You try a lot of different things,” she observes, seeing it as a positive in his character where others might not. “Also, you don’t like wasting anything!” Similarly, when guest Hong Jin Kyung says she doesn’t understand why people think she’s funny, Jang exclaims, “You are just so funny!” and goes on to recount some of her favorite moments where Hong made her laugh. The fact that she obviously does her research and the genuine interest she shows while her guests are speaking makes viewers just as invested in the guests as their host is. We’re in an era where TV has passed the talk show torch to YouTube, and Jang Do Youn has the right stuff to make the conversations at her so-called salon shine above the rest.

MINISERIES 2 (SUMIN & Slom)
Kim Doheon (Music Critic): When I interviewed SUMIN in May and asked what kind of music she’d been listening to lately, she talked about revisiting the music of Antônio Carlos Jobim and bossa nova. When she said that, I was immediately reminded of an interview Slom did last year where he talked about Jobim being his favorite singer of all time. At that point, it wasn’t hard to foresee the two musicians putting out a follow-up to their 2021 collaboration, MINISERIES, and the direction it would take. While the first album was like a chemical reaction of two versatile artists coming together, MINISERIES 2 is another fantastic release that showcases a refined, delicate kind of teamwork between SUMIN and Slom as they evolve into a perfectly harmonious duo. Slom wrote and handled instrumentation for the music, experimenting with minimalist sounds and unique rhythms, while SUMIN wrote the lyrics and recorded the vocals, taking a step toward the mainstream compared to her very specific solo career, expressing a spectrum of relatable emotions with expansive vocals. The resulting record is the clear successor to the legacy of Korean pop music. Songs like “JUST A BREAKUP” is reminiscent of songs by Choi Sung Won, Kio, Park Seongsik, Jong Jin Kim, and Kim Hyun Chul from the late 1980s, and “GOODBYE” makes me want to put on some songs by Roller Coaster, plus tracks like “WHY, WHY, WHY” and “NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS,” that evoke the era of bands like Casker and Clazziquai, all fit snuggly into a playlist curated for everyday listening. With experimental songs like the swingbeat R&B track “TIC TOC TIC TOC” and the bossa nova/UK garage crossover “STOPLIGHT,” the duo continues to be at the very forefront of contemporary music. Although a straightforward listen, there’s nothing simplistic about the album’s composition. Now that’s what I call good Korean pop—and good pop in general. There’s strong demand for MINISERIES to be an ongoing project—one where a match made in heaven comes together to create something so aesthetically pleasing with deceptive simplicity.