The seventh season of Korea’s largest audition program “Superstar K” prepares to draw to a close, and the five remaining individual and team contestants are proving to be an interesting bunch. For starters, for a show whose namesake purpose is to discover a “superstar,” none of them could say for certain what gives them star appeal.

 

Speaking to the media at a press conference held at Mnet’s M Academy in Gangnam-gu, Seoul on Tuesday, the top five contestants all said that they had never thought much about being a star.

“I’ve never really thought about star appeal, but after the preliminary rounds I felt that people seemed to like my story, my sad story, my ability to convey emotions. Maybe that would be my star appeal,” said Chon Dan-be, who worked for many years as a chorus singer before coming on the show to claim the spotlight in her own right.

“To be honest, more than becoming a star or a celebrity I came to Korea to make music,” said American-born Kevin Oh. “I want to write good music, and make music the focus.”

The only contestant that gave something of an answer was the young duo Martin Smith, who said that “being young” could perhaps be an advantage.

Rather than star appeal, the finalists emphasized their music.

“I believe that music has a special role in society,” said singer-songwriter Jhameel Kim, who hails from Los Angeles, U.S. “There are a lot of things that people can’t communicate by talking to each other, but music makes that possible. ... I want to be an artist who communicates through emotion and lyrics.”

“Our style is that we perform a genre of music that exists, but no one listens to,” said Lunch Band. “Through our original songs, we try to talk about things that no one talks about, and through our covers we try to bring attention to the genres that have been pushed out.”

These are the top five teams that have been chosen out of approximately 1.74 million hopefuls. The winner will be chosen through three more weekly live rounds at Kyung Hee University’s Peace Hall in Seoul. The celebrity judges’ votes make up 50 percent, text votes sent in by the public 45 percent, and the pre-round online vote 5 percent of the deciding votes.

The winner will receive 500 million won (about $440,000), a Jaguar XE, a record deal, the chance to perform at CJ E&M’s MAMA awards, and connections to various music production agencies.

By Won Ho-jung (hjwon@heraldcorp.com)