A Belated Eulogy for SMP (1996-2023)
take me back to the kwangya
Most K-Pop fans haven’t realized it yet, but something important died the day Yoo Youngjin left SM Entertainment. SMP, or SM Performance, was born in 1996 when H.O.T. released their debut album, We Hate All Kinds of Violence. It was not without precedent—early SMP was built upon the groundbreaking work of Seo Taiji & Boys and incorporated diverse influences, not limited to Hip-hop, R&B, J-Pop, Eurodance, Classical Music and Nu-metal. But still, it brought a sense of grandeur to K-Pop at a very early point in the genre’s development. It expanded the idea of what K-pop could achieve and raised artistic standards for idols.
SMP was melodramatic, often histrionically so, and it was frequently epic in a way that verged on camp. It tended toward a level of dour sincerity that was so self-serious that it became fun again. It was virtuosic, though rarely in a gratuitous way. Yoo Youngjin, the producer behind nearly every good SMP song ever, is a masterful, acrobatic vocalist himself.1 At his best, he could maximize the abilities of powerhouse singers like Taeyeon, Kyuhyun, Wendy and Baekhyun without sacrificing the fundamentals of good songwriting. At his worst, he made disastrous frankensongs that were, if not great, at least interesting.
This past summer SM Entertainment’s founder, 71-year-old Lee Sooman, left the company after a Succession-esque power struggle. LSM is a white-collar criminal who ran an agency notorious for its unreasonable employment contracts. He’s not an admirable person. But also, his galaxy-brain ambitions set SM apart from its competitors and kept the company at the forefront of the Hallyu wave until very recently. It may be hard to defend LSM, but it’s easy to understand why some of his employees seemed to love him.
When he exited SM Entertainment, Yoo Youngjin, followed suit, releasing a statement on February 10th explaining his departure:
SM Entertainment was able to play a leading role in the past and present of K-Pop, as well as begin key preparations for the evolving world of music in the future, precisely because of Lee Soo Man's batting eye, his keen judgement.
Without teacher Lee Soo Man's producing capabilities, SM would not be the true SM.
I can’t tell Yoo how to feel about the whole debale. But from my perspective, perhaps more than LSM, Yoo was the person who made SM the true SM.
Since his departure, SM artists have continued to release music, and plenty of it is decent—SM still has ties to a lot of great songwriters and producers. Their idol groups are no less skillful or talented. But nothing this year lit me up the way “Go” or “Savage” can. SMP is dead, and K-Pop is less interesting because of it.
Top 30 SMP Tracks, According to RMXBB:2
“Rising Sun” by TVXQ!
“I Got A Boy” by SNSD
“Tempo” by EXO
“Girls on Top” by BoA
“Red Light” by f(x)
“Lucifer” by SHINee
“Tri-angle” by TVXQ! feat. BoA and Trax
“Feel My Rhythm” by Red Velvet
“Mr. Simple” by Super Junior
“Warriors Descendant” by H.O.T.
“Savage” by aespa
“The Boys” by SNSD
“Obsession” by EXO
“Simon Says” by NCT 127
“Hot Sauce” by NCT Dream
“History” by EXO
“Resolver” by Shinhwa
“Go” by NCT Dream
“Happiness” by Red Velvet
“Mama” by EXO
“Turn Back Time” by WayV
“Nu ABO” by f(x)
“I-Yah!” by H.O.T.
“Next Level” by aespa
“Jopping” by Super M
“Ring Ding Dong” by SHINee
“We Are the Future” by H.O.T.
“Bonamana” by Super Junior
“Keep Your Head Down” by TVXQ!
“Zimzalabim” by Red Velvet
Yoo Youngjin also wrote a lot of great music that isn’t SMP. Much of it is S-tier Korean R&B, the kind of stuff that will make you bawl in your car like a baby. The man wrote “Be Natural,” “Sea of Love” and the slutty SuJu KRY remix of “Sorry Sorry.” Show some respect.
People always get goofy about lists, so to be clear: these aren’t the best songs by SM groups or even the best songs by Yoo Youngjin, just my favorite songs that I personally think fit the definition of SMP. The other half of the SM story is everything Kenzie and Min Heejin did in the mid-2010s, but that’s beyond the scope of this post.