TAN Update – Wild Idol for real

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(Written April 29, 2024)

I was working on a wrap-up to the Wild Idol recaps, and then things started happening very quickly.   A family emergency came up, and I had to pack up and leave Friday afternoon.  Saturday night, when I finally got a chance to check my messages, TAN had dropped a cryptic video entitled “[Special Video] TAN – 5:45.”

On its face, it’s a sad ballad about a breakup, but the lyrics focus on not wanting to be forgotten.  Some of the English-translated lyrics are:

People say nothing lasts forever …
I know you’re going to get hurt, but if you are like me,
Please don’t let me go, don’t let me go.
Don’t let the memories of our love become hard wounds.
Please don’t forget me, please don’t leave me.
Our story, which was like a novel, will continue
So that you and I can become “us.”
Don’t let me go …
Tell me you’re not leaving, don’t ever let go of me in your deep heart.

It’s a different kind of breakup song.  It’s putting the request on the other person, asking them not to forget, and there’s an expectation that they will be together again.

At the end of the video, six of the group members gather for a photo.  They wait for Jooan, who has been setting up the camera.  He comes into the frame as he joins them.  

The group then takes photos in subgroups.  There’s one with Changsun, Sunghyuk, and Jiseong.  Then Taehoon, Hyunyeop, and Jaejun.  Then Jooan, by himself.  He’s the only one who isn’t playful and smiling in his picture.

The comments under the video on YouTube are very anxious, asking if the band is breaking up.  I found a website that lists when the different K-pop bands need to report for their military service, and TAN’s year is 2024.  The group members are different ages, and I don’t know how the deadlines for reporting are set up, but I do know that the minimum age is eighteen.  Jiseong is nineteen, so he still has time.  But Jooan and Changsun are the two oldest, at 27 and 28, respectively, so they should be about to go.  My guess is that Jooan is going first.  That explains why he’s separated from the rest of the group. 

I know this is normal for K-pop bands. The Boyz will also have to start enlisting this year.  All of BTS and a few members of Monsta X are currently serving.  It just feels like a screeching of the brakes.  K-pop is joy and dancing and energy and sparkle, and then suddenly members of the groups have to put the music on hold and serve their country for eighteen months because they’re from a country that’s still in a military standoff with North Korea.  It’s a standoff that gets more and more scary by the year, as dictator Kim Jong Un started off 2024 by declaring that North Korea will not try to make peace and will actually launch more spy satellites. 

I became fan of TAN’s music less than a year ago.  I went from not wanting to know a single thing about TAN to recapping their origin story.  And right as I finish that project, suddenly they have to go into the REAL wild, where the stakes are a lot higher.  And when all of the band members finish their service and come back together, who knows how many fans will still be there for them?  They’re not huge like BTS, whose fans have marked their calendars with the groups enlistment dates and breathlessly await the 2025 reunion tour.

Jooan and Changsun will be on the doorstep of thirty years old when they finish their service.  I remember the impact of hitting thirty, and I’m a normie from North Carolina.  I imagine it’s going to hit those two a bit harder.  It will be an interesting story to follow.

Life has gotten very real for me and my family this year.  K-pop has been my refuge for the past several months.  An escape from the worries and stresses of everyday life.  It makes me happy.  The real world does break in sometimes, with K-pop artist scandals and crimes and label lawsuits, as well as trainee diets, overworking, and bullying.  I’ve been able to ignore it as much as possible and just enjoy the frosting.  But sometimes the frosting gets scraped away, and this is one of those times.

I know TAN will be okay.  I just spent several days watching them do shuttle races in water, roll logs lengthwise, arm wrestle for packages of raw beef, do push-ups on boulders, and dance for hours in the pouring rain, all while being yelled at by Julien Kang and the Bickering Brothers.  They’re going to make it through this. 

Like the new song says, their story has become an actual novel for me.  Part of which I wrote myself.  I look forward to continuing the story when they get back.

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