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ATEEZ 'BAD' Wins Inkigayo Without Showing Up, 3 Months In

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The ATEEZ 'BAD' Inkigayo win on Sunday, September 13 is the odd kind of music-show trophy: the group was not in the building, the song came out on June 26, and its official promotions (활동) had already wrapped, as Tenasia put it. Korean outlets ran the story Monday morning KST under nearly the same headline. Hankyung went with "발매 석 달째인데…또 음방 1위" (three months after release, and another music-show No. 1), and the "또" (again) is the part worth reading past. This is at least the third trophy 'BAD' has taken with no ATEEZ on stage. Three Trophies, Zero Stage Appearances Here's the run, pulled from the Korean coverage rather than the English recaps. 'BAD' is the title track of the fourteenth mini album "GOLDEN HOUR : Part.5," released June 26. On July 10 it took KBS "Music Bank" over SEVENTEEN unit V8 (Vernon and The8)'s "singasong," with ATEEZ absent from the broadcast, per Star News . On August 22 it w...

NCT WISH Confirm 'I SPY' Comeback for October 12

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NCT WISH just put a date on their next era. The six-member group confirmed their fourth mini album, "I SPY," for October 12 at 6 p.m. KST, dropping a trailer alongside the announcement this morning, per Soompi . No tracklist yet, no concept explanation, just a date and a mood. The trailer's first chapter is subtitled "Confused Boy" — I checked the upload against NCT WISH's own channel before trusting it, since teaser leaks this early tend to circulate from anywhere. A Fast Follow-Up to Their Biggest Album Yet If "NCT WISH" doesn't immediately ring a bell, here's the fast version: six-member unit, the sixth NCT sub-unit, debuted February 28, 2024 with the single "Wish" (after a stage debut a week earlier at SMTOWN Live 2024 in Tokyo) following the survival show "NCT Universe: LASTART," and jointly run by SM Entertainment and Japan's Avex Trax — built from day one to work hard on both sides of the Korea-Japan mark...

RIIZE Announce October Comeback and a Second Album for 2027

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RIIZE used their own third-anniversary fan meeting to drop news bigger than the party itself. Onstage at Incheon's Inspire Arena on September 12, the group confirmed a new digital single landing October 26, plus a second full-length album, "EMOTIION," coming in spring 2027, per Soompi . Two comebacks, announced from one stage, on the night that was supposed to just be about turning three. The Setting Was a Party, Not a Comeback Show The event itself was called "Ch. RIIZE: ON AIR," styled as the launch of a fake TV channel built just for the group and their fandom, BRIIZE — a two-night run, September 12 at 5 PM and September 13 at 4 PM KST, per RIIZE's own announcement post . Both nights sold out at Inspire Arena, so if you weren't already holding a ticket, the news reached you the same way it reached me: through a recap, not the room. That's not quite the end of the access story, though. Weverse Shop sold online livestream passes for both nights...

BTS Arirang Cinema Tickets: Buenos Aires and São Paulo Dates

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BTS is taking two more stops of the Arirang world tour to the movie theater, and this time the destination is South America. The Korea Times confirmed this week that the group's Buenos Aires and São Paulo shows will screen live in cinemas worldwide, and if last spring's Goyang and Tokyo broadcasts are anything to go by, ARMY outside those two stadiums are about to flood a ticketing site the second it opens. Here's the short version: Buenos Aires screens October 24, São Paulo screens October 30, and both will run live for audiences across the Americas before rolling out with a one-day delay everywhere else. Tickets go on sale worldwide on September 17. What's Actually Screening The two concerts being filmed aren't random tour stops. Buenos Aires marks BTS's first-ever performance in Argentina, and readdork reports it's also the group's first cinema broadcast from South America, period. The full South American leg runs deeper than these two cities: t...

PLAVE's Keep It Manic World Tour Opens Tonight in Incheon

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PLAVE walks onstage at Incheon's Munhak Stadium tonight, September 12, for the first of two shows opening "2026 PLAVE World Tour [KEEP IT MANIC]." Their last multi-city run, 2025's "Dash: Quantum Leap," was billed as an Asia tour. This one is the first tour PLAVE has called a world tour, per Sports Khan and Soompi's coverage of the June announcement. The venue backs that framing up. Munhak is a 2002 World Cup stadium built for roughly 49,000, not the 16,000-to-18,000-seat domes the group has used up to now. If you don't already know PLAVE, here's the one-sentence version you need before the rest of this makes sense. Five Members Who Have Never Once Appeared as Humans PLAVE debuted under the agency Vlast in March 2023 as a five-member boy group — Yejun, Noah, Bamby, Eunho, and Hamin — performing entirely as motion-captured virtual characters, never as the real people behind them. It's not a gimmick that stayed small. Per Wikipedia , they ...

Always Lalisa Premiered at TIFF — Here's When You Can Watch It

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LISA's first documentary, "Always Lalisa," had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, landing in TIFF's Gala slot, the same category screening Peter Farrelly's Sylvester Stallone biopic "I Play Rocky" this year. Directed by Sue Kim , whose last film, "The Last of the Sea Women," followed Jeju's haenyeo divers rather than anyone famous, the 97-minute film isn't a career-highlight reel. It's a year of BLACKPINK's biggest solo star stepping outside the group for the first time since childhood, and the trailer alone makes clear she doesn't come off looking comfortable doing it. Kim's background matters here: this wasn't handed to a music-video director looking to flatter a client. A Gala Slot Is Not a Small Deal TIFF's Gala program is reserved for the festival's biggest names, and a K-pop member's solo documentary landing there, rather than in a smaller music or mid...

LE SSERAFIM's 'Made My Night' Is Out, But Not on Spotify

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LE SSERAFIM's second single album, "Made My Night," landed in Korea at 1 p.m. KST today, with the title track's music video arriving at midnight. If you're reading this outside Korea and already refreshed Spotify looking for it, here's the part nobody put in the teaser copy: you're not getting it there yet, and depending where you live, maybe not for another month. Start with what actually happened. The MV pairs LE SSERAFIM's five members with 3D-animated Overwatch heroes D.Va and D.Mon, who launch a rescue mission after hearing the group has gone missing. The twist: the "kidnappers" turn out to be devoted fans wanting autographs. It's the group's second Overwatch tie-in, Just Jared reports ; the first was tied to "Perfect Night" back in 2023, so this is a three-year-later reunion, not a one-off. The partnership doesn't stop at the video: Inven Global reports collaboration skins go live September 13 at BlizzCon's ...