Thank You, Dreamcatcher (Korean Girl Group)

I will admit my biases upfront and have on multiple occasions: I miss the 2nd Generation of Korean pop music and believe it to be the best from an artistic standpoint. Of course I am nostalgic and sentimental for it not just because it was the era in which I entered the space, so of course it is my favorite. But also because it was a far more vibrant and flexible industrial space of artistic creation. Conceptually, stylistically, and genre-wise, there was far less homogeneity and overlap than we have seen growing steadily from the 3rd generation onward, drifting further and further away from what we knew before. With each soloist, each group having something closer to a unique sound, visual style, color palette, and identity in the previous two generations. 

Even those in the know like myself might struggle to discern one new group’s music from another in the current generation. Often giving the feeling that which being created lends more to the “art-as-industry” way of feeling and being. That isn’t to say there aren’t excellent artists working today, in fact that the independent space in Korea’s music marketplace is in as vibrant and expansive of a place as I can remember it. But it feels like in the realm of pop music, I have to look harder than I used to when finding distinction.

A fated day in the late 2010s found me watching the music video for the relatively new Kpop girl group Dreamcatcher and the title track of their recent mini-album (EP for us westerners) “Good Night” and was immediately stimulated visually and auditorily in a  way that I hadn’t been before in regards to Kpop. Blood red, forest green, and black was the color palette, not something I regularly see in Kpop to begin with. The guitars weren’t merely present, but dare I say heavy and crunchy, a guitar tone more apt in a heavy metal song than a Kpop one, and the music video was more than just visual fluff and choreography, there was legitimate attention to symbolism and framing. The further I dug and watching the subsequent music videos that released from Dreamcatcher, I knew it was no longer a one-off or an accident. No, this was something entirely different for a girl group.

Dreamcatcher’s music often invokes and earns the feeling of totality and ultimatum in its music. That I could be persuaded that THE FATE OF THE WORLD HINGES ON THIS SONG is saying something in and of itself. This isn’t restricted to singles and title tracks either. A couple of personal favorites like “Mayday” which has an escalating composition that makes whatever situation you could come up in your head feel even more epic, and “Break The Wall” which sounds like it was on the cutting room floor of Evanescence’s famous 2003 album “Fallen,” cryogenically frozen, thawed out, translated into Korean and released in 2020.

Their songs have a certain gravity to them that gives them weight independently of anything else they might be connected to. Through both its lyricism and intensity of dynamics and choreography for those that have music videos and dances accompanied with them. It’s rare to have these feelings attached to not just a Kpop group’s music, but music that is not already accompanying a pre-existing narrative like soundtracks to film or television. Already a decent portion of their music sounds like it could be the opening or ending theme for a shonen battle anime series, just without said series actually existing. 

That's where Dreamcatcher subverts that usual expectation. Taking cues from the aforementioned BTS, their music videos have symbolic narratives that string together lose but palpable strands and work in tandem with the music they create. One ripe for interpretations and analysis spread amongst the Dreamcatcher fanbase (of course I have my own and of course you’re going to hear about them). Anytime Kpop fans (or fans of anything really) are compelled to see their favorite things as art and analyze them as such, engaging those parts of their brains has/will always bring a smile to my face and validation in my heart.

Its story is one of duality. Specifically in this case, the violent separation of the people they want to be deep down and the people that they are expected, maybe even passively encouraged or forced to be in the public space by those who sign their checks and those who. Idols in Korea are often given a mandate of perfection. That these are the best and most talented of us and in that backwards sense they must never be allowed to show frailty or god forbid, humanity. The impossibility cannot be lost on us and yet time and time again the population demands an unrealism and phoniness that they themselves could not possibly meet either. Idolization. Projection. These aren’t themes and that are unintelligible with our everyday lives as regular people and not international megastars. We are the people we truly want to be only in the most ideal circumstances and there are varying degrees to which we are expected to hide that most whole of ourselves around certain people, in certain places, jobs, family members, in a non-specific crowded place. They all bring out other aspects of the self, possibly ugly aspects, and characteristics that exist within us we intend to keep buried deep down lest these unpleasantries manifest and spill out over onto our most authentic selves. At what point does the survivalist in us start to become normalized in the tapestry of self? We all must play the balancing act of society if we are going to overcome its various unspoken restrictions and untruths. We do not have to sacrifice who we want to be to exist.

As of writing this piece there is uncertainty regarding the future of Dreamcatcher. On March 10th, 2025, Dreamcatcher’s record company formerly known as Happyface Entertainment, now operating as Dreamcatcher Company (it’s almost like the group is important to them or something) announced that three of the seven member group, members Handong, Gahyun, and Dami, would be leaving the company but not leaving the group a la Girls’ Generation. It was also announced that the remaining members JiU, SuA, Siyeon, and Yoohyeon would be focusing on other activities, with one of those being Dreamcatcher’s first ever sub-unit (think of it as a TV show spin-off) consisting of three of the four remaining members. I don’t know what is next for them. the future is uncertain as of now, but this piece is not about what comes next, it is about honoring what has already come and the impact they have already made on my life and so many others.

At a time when I was first starting to feel disillusioned with the state of the Kpop industry, Dreamcatcher proved to me that this industry is still full of people, ready to believe in good art, different art, maybe even a little subversive and experimental art. Even if they are currently the exception, they are an exception I am grateful for reminding me why I fell in love with Korean music in the first place. I have immense gratitude for all of those involved with making Dreamcatcher’s art possible, and treating them well. Whatever happens in the business side I wish each and every one of them nothing but the best for their futures.