![]() ![]() “The depression slowly chipped away at me, finally devouring me,” he wrote in a final note. In December 2017, lead singer Kim Jong-hyun died by suicide in a Seoul apartment. Or rather, a formerly five-member male group. ![]() (“I got a boy/ Cool!/ I got a boy/ Nice!/ I got a boy handsome boy!”) There are also several displays for SHINee, a five-member male group. There’s an extensive section for Super Junior, a 13-member boy band that was one of K-pop’s first big-ticket acts, and another for Girls’ Generation, a syrup-sweet ensemble that flirted with global stardom thanks to mixed-language tracks such as I Got a Boy. The centerpiece of SMTown is a museum honoring the label’s most prominent groups. ![]() By the elevators are hundreds of Polaroid-style portraits of the same artists in a more candid light, albeit with skin so touched up it appears carved from marzipan. The lobby walls are covered with framed black-and-white headshots of SM’s “idols,” as K-pop stars are known. Operated by SM Entertainment Co., the six-story complex in Seoul’s wealthy Gangnam district is a high-tech shrine to South Korea’s most successful cultural export. If K-pop has a spiritual home, it’s probably SMTown. ![]()
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