New Baby V.O.X. aims to make it big in Asia

On the last Christmas day, Buyant Ukha Airport, located 18 kilometers southwest of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, was crowded with people who came to have a look at five Korean beauties dressed in Santa costumes.

Almost all of them gathered had never seen anyone of the five before, nor did they know the five girls by name. In fact, what attracted the multi-national crowd including reporters was nothing but the name of this new girl group: Baby V.O.X. Re.v

Debuted in 1998, the original all-female quintet Baby V.O.X. (Voices of Expression) was one of the leaders of a renaissance of girl groups in the late 1990s, along with now disbanded S.E.S. and FinKL. Although the girl band that once blazed pop sensation in Asia was disbanded after Yoon Eun-hye, (who probably is better known as the star of MBC drama "Princess Hours" by now) departed to be an actress, their fans wanted to see more actions from them, which motivated their original agency DR Music to come up with another female quintet with "Baby V.O.X" in its name.

The five members of Baby V.O.X Re.v ("Re" is taken from the word renaissance, and "v" stands for voice, according to the agency) - Ahn Jin-kyeong, Yang Eun-ji, Hwang Yeon-kyeong, Kwon Ae-ri and Myeong Sa-rang - have more in common with their predecessors except for the name of the groups they constitute: They are all sexy and provocative. The new group, though, is not a bunch of sexy dancing dolls who are desperate to take advantage of the name.

Not to disappoint the original Baby V.O.X. fans and, more than that, the original member of the group, DR Music trained the five girls for three years after they were selected through a multi-stage auditioning process among thousands of candidates. Planning to focus on overseas activities from the beginning, the agency unveiled the group of new talents through a showcase in the Mongolian capital city of Ulaanbaatar, 7 p.m. (local time) on Tuesday, Dec. 26.

In the evening, what the girls saw was over 6,000 audiences packing the UB PLASE concert hall designed to sit 4,000 people, who went wild at the first sight of them.

During the double bill of the two-hour-long showcase, which was also in the next evening, the girl group whose debut album is yet to come out, presented hit songs of the original group, such as "Never Say Good Bye," "Get Up" and "SHEE." After the showcase, the five once again took the spotlight for a talk show of the country's national television network.

Of course no one can deny that the name does play a crucial role to make them stars even before their debut. "People from agencies in China, Thailand and Singapore came to see us upon hearing the news that a new Baby V.O.X. had been formed, to discuss possible showcase schedule in each country," said Yoon Deung-ryong, the president of DR Music.

Encouraged by their successful debut, the new Baby V.O.X. will kick off a promotional tour of Asian countries, starting in China on Jan. 10, which will be continued in Thailand and Vietnam on Jan. 20. "The one-month-long overseas promotional tour is something that any other Korean pop musicians will only dream of. The kind of event wouldn't be possible without the popularity of the original Baby V.O.X. in the regions," added Yoon.

Movie goers often say "a sequel is hardly ever as good as the original," but this very rare case of sequel in the local pop music industry seems to be as interesting as the original. Baby V.O.X Re.v will start their promotional activities in Korea on Jan. 28.

Source: By Lee Yong-sung @ korea Herald - 2007.01.01
Credit: kpopkingdom.com