Even though it’s midterms for me right now, this is something I’m really excited about so I thought I would dash off a quick post.

As I mentioned earlier, Korean pop music is kind of taking Asia by storm, and a lot of Asian Americans really like it too (TIME actually just wrote an article about the Kpop phenomenon). I was a huge fan of Kpop in high school and even though I have tapered off in college, I still keep up with the biggest stars and labels.

So I was pretty excited when I heard that SM Entertainment, arguably the biggest label in Kpop, was doing something unprecedented and forming a super-boyband (called EXO) that would be split into a Chinese-language half (EXO-M) and a Korean-language half (EXO-K). Now, a lot of Kpop bands will try to branch out into China and Japan, but they would just have the same band performing in all three languages. So this idea, a supergroup split in half, is pretty novel. And just to give you an idea of what a big deal SM is: imagine that Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, etc. were all under one single label. Yeah. That’s what SM Entertainment is in Korea.

And they finally debuted last week! Personally I think the Korean half, EXO-K, is better. They are the better looking, younger, more talented trainees from SM. And the song definitely sounds better in Korean–this is a Korean label, after all, and their choice in Chinese lyrics isn’t really to my taste, plus some of the members aren’t actually Chinese and so they have heavy Korean accents. But overall, I like the song and both groups are good. SM always gets top-notch talent in terms of vocals and dancing, I can’t wait to see more from EXO in the future!

Check out EXO-M and EXO-K: