My KPop Playlist: Ladies Code - Galaxy
This will be the most depressing thing I will post about KPop. So get your hankies ready.
Ladies Code formed in 2013 as a five member group with members (left to right): Sojung, RiSe, Ashley, EunB and Zuny.
Today, Ladies Code looks like this:
The members are now (left to right), Sojung, Zuny and Ashley.
Unlike TVXQ, it wasn't a contract dispute that changed the membership so drastically. And it wasn't the suicide of a member, as happened with SHINee after Jonghyun took his own life. It was worse that that, even. Far worse.
Most Korean pop stars have scary-busy schedules, where they get up early in the morning to tackle a packed calendar of "schedules," aka appointments and events. On any given day, they may wake up at 8, eat breakfast on the way to their first radio interview of the morning, then make an appearance at an army base to perform a few songs, then go to a college campus to perform a few more, then they're off to make the rounds of variety shows, do print or television ads, record new songs, and of course squeeze in a dance practice as well. If they get home at 3 a.m., they're lucky. And then it starts all over again the next day. Days off? Give me a break. They don't get days off. And neither do the managers or other support staff.
It's a recipe for disaster. As Ladies Code got to learn, all too harshly.
On 3 September 2014, at approximately 1:30 in the morning, Ladies Code was at the end of one of those long days, coming back to Seoul after performing at a concert for television station KBS. It was raining, and their manager was driving 85 mph in a 62 mph zone. He lost control of his vehicle before hitting a patch of water and hydroplaning across the road. And then came a sickening smash into a retaining wall.
Needless to say, all of the members were badly injured, none worse than EunB, who was declared dead on arrival at the hospital where she was taken. RiSe was in critical condition, but lingered for four days before dying as well. Sojung had injuries severe enough that she required months of rehabilitation and recuperation. Although Polaris, the label managing Ladies Code, said that Ashley and Zuny suffered "minor" injuries, the funerals of EunB and RiSe told the ugly truth: Zuny wore a neckbrace and needed assistance to walk, and Ashley could barely stand under her own power, people literally holding her up while she dragged her feet along the ground. That's what they call "minor" injuries?
Even worse than all of that, the deaths of EunB and RiSe were only one in a long series of tragedies that hit Korea in 2014, after the sinking of the ferry MV Sewol and numerous other terrible events that struck K-Pop itself that year, like how the father of Super Junior's Leeteuk killed his parents and then himself. There's a reason 2014 is considered one of the most awful years in Korea's history.
But as for Ladies Code, there would be one major question they had to contend with after 2014: How do you come back from something so horrifying? Their heartbroken fans were almost certain that they could never get back together and make music again.
I don't know how they managed it, but the remaining three members of the group pulled themselves together to release a spectacular comeback song in 2016 called "Galaxy." It's moody, jazzy, gorgeously engineered, and with a video loaded with symbols of how they are now a trio thanks to the tragedy they had suffered...but had no choice to move on from:
Holy cow--did you hear how they stripped down everything at 2:05 and all you can hear is Ashley's breath? That is incredible stuff, engineering-wise. I love it when an amazing song gets matched with an equally fantastic production. And then there's that video...
I have loved this song beyond all reason since the first time I heard it--when I myself was in the hospital, recovering from an operation. I didn't know the words, or even who Ladies Code was at the time, but it spoke to me, somehow. I could feel the pain in their voices, but also the determination to keep going, and to stay strong. It was exactly what I was going through at the time, so "Galaxy" will always be special to me, for that reason. Everything about it is absolutely perfect as the first major comeback for a group that had suffered such a terrible tragedy, in showing respect for the members they had lost, but also acknowledging the present and how they could still make music on their own.
As always, I include a live performance, but this time with all of Ladies Code as they were before the accident, and with more of the sound that was their signature then. This video comes from a radio interview program, and most of the time, groups don't take themselves too seriously in these spots. Still, Ladies Code sounds quite good here. Not as polished as they usually sounded live, but their personalities show more, which I like about the video:
RIP EunB and RiSe. Your bandmates did you proud with their comeback.
