A&R delegate Bae Soo Jung shared her personal experiences while working on JYP Entertainment songs for its prominent bands and musicians!
A&R, which refers to Artists and Repertoire, is a division designated for talent searching and supervising musicians and songwriters in their production. Bae Soo Jung has worked with a lot of K-pop bands, such as TWICE, GOT7, The Boyz, PRISTIN, and HINAPIA.
When Bae Soo Jung started working for JYP Entertainment in 2013, she admitted in the interview that she was challenged by some other workers.
"Why do you keep choosing songs that sound SM Entertainment?" When she was called in by her boss, she sought for an aswere as to why they had chosen her for the job. Their response was, "Because your music preference is contrary to JYP's."
Bae Soo Jung has characterized songs from SM Entertainment as a possessing a complex sound.
"In one tune, there are several changes and there's no clear melody. It continues to shift. EXO's 'Tempo,' for instance, has an acapella portion in the middle. Having acapella is very uncommon for a K-pop album," she stated.
For a K-pop album to have acapella is quite rare. Further, she added that JYPE keeps the chords to a minimum, and puts emphasis on the song's hook.
Bae Soo Jung also talked about Park Jin Young's album.
"Just because it's the album owned by Park Jin Young does not always imply he can launch it as he deems appropriate. Within the agency, he must get approval from the A&R department. When it comes to a conversation with him, it's all right to suggest, 'I don't like this,'" she said.
"He's really open-minded. He pays attention to all manner of views, including from the youngest members of the team. Not clinging tightly to his own tune," she added.
When questioned about the performer most trapped in her mind, Bae Soo Jung opted for GOT7.
They collaborated on the band's 1st mini album with their track "Got It?" throughout their first full-length album "Identify" and marked GOT7's track "Stay" as her most memorable song from them.
"When I first received the demo for this song, and I absolutely loved it that I had it verified promptly and accompanied it over with the mastering and mixing. This song was made throughout the final phases of album creation, and we were recording for around 16 hours because we had a time limit to follow," she shared.
"This was a track that nobody had planned to hear from GOT7. I enjoy the song so much that whenever I travel elsewhere, I still listen to it," she went on.
Bae Soo Jung has chosen TWICE's debut album "The Story Begins" as the one for which she is quite pleased.
"When 'Like OOH-AHH' was first released, it debuted at No. 99 on Melon's weekly chart. I thought, 'I'm ruined,' and left on a trip to Europe since I didn't want to be in Korea," she revealed.
"However, when I came back to Korea, my phone was bombarded with messages. It turns out the song had climbed up the charts to No. 11. After that, I also worked on 'Cheer Up,'" she shared.
Bae Soo Jung has selected BoA to deal with the question about which musician she would most like to collaborate with.
"I want to take on a darker concept [with BoA]. Somewhat dim, to the point where it's scary," Bae Soo Jung revealed.
She concluded, "If the chance is offered, I would also like to work with a bunch of boy band who can do a truly decadent idea."
