Line Has Thoughts

  BIGBANG are back. 2026 marks their 20th anniversary, and “BiiiG” gives us a BIGBANG that very much exists in the present rather than trying to recreate the group they were ten or fifteen years ago. And naturally, I had thoughts. 😂 Watching “BiiiG” One of the things I find interesting about artists with careers this long is what happens when they stop being the artists we remember and simply become the artists they are now. BIGBANG have changed. Their circumstances have changed. The members have changed. The music industry around them has changed. So while nostalgia is inevitably part of a 20th-anniversary comeback, I don't necessarily want them to reproduce the sound of an earlier BIGBANG era just because that's the version some of us remember most fondly. I'd much rather see what BIGBANG sounds like now . “BiiiG” certainly gave me plenty to react to, musically, visually and in terms of what this version of BIGBANG might look like going forward. You can watch my full rea...

KATSEYE. Image: HYBE x Geffen Records / KATSEYE official website If you'd asked me a while ago whether KATSEYE were K-pop, I probably wouldn't have thought very hard about the question. HYBE is involved. They went through an intensive training programme based on the K-pop trainee system. They dance. They have the choreography, the performance focus, the fandom culture. They're on Weverse. They've promoted on Korean music shows. They certainly look like they belong in the same general universe as K-pop. So... K-pop. Obviously. Except I'm no longer convinced it's that simple. This whole rabbit hole started because I kept seeing KATSEYE referred to as a K-pop group, and something about it bothered me. Not because the members aren't Korean — K-pop has had non-Korean idols for years. Not because they mostly sing in English — established K-pop groups release music in English, Japanese and other languages all the time. It bothered me because KATSEYE weren't ac...

If you’ve found your way here, welcome. This is Line Has Thoughts — a place for K-pop, fandom, music, media, culture, and whatever else happens to get me thinking. I’ve loved music and storytelling for as long as I can remember, and somewhere along the way, I found K-pop — and it stuck. Not just because of the music, but because of the feeling. The energy, the escape, the spark. And maybe the comfort of knowing you’re not alone in needing something to hold onto. K-pop will probably take up quite a lot of space around here. I’m fascinated not only by the music and artists, but by fandom, the industry around it, the way we talk about it, and the stories we collectively decide are true. I like questions. Is something really as obvious as everyone says it is? What do we actually know, and what have we simply assumed? Why do we talk about one artist differently from another? When does an opinion quietly turn into a “fact” because enough people repeat it? Those are the kinds of rabbit ...

  The Song That Surprised Me I was sitting at my computer one afternoon in the early spring of 2021, listening to BTS while scrolling through lyric translations on Doolset’s blog. Outside, the world was still quiet — not quite in lockdown anymore, but not back to normal either. My job had been shut down for months due to COVID-19, and even though I knew I’d be returning soon, I wasn’t looking forward to it. The burnout had settled deep. Then the song changed. “00:00 (Zero O’Clock)” started playing. I was half-reading, half-listening — not expecting anything more than the usual comfort their music gave me. But as I read through the lyrics, something cracked open. I burst into tears. It was the first time a BTS song made me cry — and the first time I realized how much their music had become a source of emotional comfort. It wasn’t even a dramatic moment. Just this soft, quiet unraveling. A line about waiting for the clock to reset, about the promise that tomorrow might feel dif...

  “Too Old” for Fandom? What I’ve Learned Being a Fan in My 40s Rediscovering joy, identity, and a life-long love of fan culture I was six years old when I fell for Davy Jones on reruns of The Monkees . He was funny and kind of goofy, and I remember thinking, Yes. That one. From there, it never really stopped. Take That in the early ’90s meant recording music videos off MTV onto worn-out VHS tapes. Buying Smash Hits and Bravo magazines from international newsstands. Hunting down merch in the one store in Copenhagen that actually sold it. Then came Backstreet Boys and *Nsync. Buffy. Geocities websites and fanfic. Lord of the Rings. Pirates of the Caribbean. Supernatural. The MCU. Fandom wasn't a phase—it was the thread that wove through all of it. Through all of me. For a while, I thought I’d outgrown the boybands. I spent 15 years listening mostly to rap, hip hop, and rock. Fandom still hummed in the background, but it wasn’t front and center anymore. Then the world shut do...