LOONA I miss you!!
Last year, LOONA imploded and the members scattered in the wind. A year later, where have they all ended up?
What was Loona?
For one shining year, Loona was one of my favorite underrated Kpop girl groups. They reliably produced fresh hits and they danced so well - their 2019 cover of NCT 127’s Cherry Bomb was so good they caught the attention of none other than Lee Soo-man (the founder of SM) who was so impressed that he came on board to help produce their next album [#]. It’s still absolutely wild to me that that was my introduction to NCT-127. The power of Loona!
My favorite Loona songs were from their 2020 album [12:00] which contained a bop to end all bops in Why Not? and fantastic B-side Voice, but 2021’s Paint the Town and 2022’s Flip That are also certified bangers.
One of the big charms of Loona were that even with 12 members, there was a lot of appeal in individual members. Olivia Hye was famous for being a trainee for only one day before debuting with Loona. Teeny tiny Yeojin (1.48 m tall, 4’10”) brought attitude and aegyo, and Chuu received lots of attention for her delightfully weird personality full of aegyo. Let’s say Chuu walked so Wonyoung could run. I was just a casual Loona fan and I still knew and could recognize these three.
Loona wasn’t a huge name in Kpop but they were doing really well for themselves! They were releasing good music, winning music shows and awards, and were even appointed ambassadors of Korean culture abroad by South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in 2021. So where are they now?
What happened to Loona?
Welllllll in December 2021, Chuu (the one with the adorably weird personality I mentioned earlier) filed an injunction to be released from her contract with Loona’s agency, Blockberry Creative. I can’t really find anything about her motivation for filing this injuction, but it looks like she was trying to get a contract with a different agency for her solo activities (this is fairly common among established Kpop stars). News of the injunction (and Chuu’s at least partial success in court) broke in March 2022, while Chuu was on hiatus from Loona due to “health reasons.” By June, rumors about her trying to sign with a new agency were swirling. And then, on November 5, 2022, Loona’s agency, Blockberry Creative, made a shocking announcement that Chuu had been removed from the group due to “abuse of power” and verbal abuse of staff.
Fans thought this seemed a bit suspicious given that Chuu had been trying to get out of her contract with Blockberry - what convenient timing to have discovered allegations against her almost a year after she began proceedings to get out of the group! And in an industry like the Korean entertainment industry, allegations like these can be career ending. Was this just retaliatory defamation on Blockberry’s part?
Fuel was added to the fire when, three days later, EVERY OTHER MEMBER of Loona (except ViVi and Hyunjin) had ALSO filed injunctions seeking to be released from their contracts. What a display of group solidarity. Blockberry actually denied these reports and announced a Loona comeback…that never happened.
By January 13, 2023, members HeeJin, Kim Lip, JinSoul and Choerry were granted injunctions as their contracts were the same as Chuu’s. Members HaSeul, YeoJin, Yves, Go Won, and HyeJu had made amendments to their contracts in 2021, so their injunctions were denied.
It get’s crazier!
On February 1, Blockberry announced that in December, they had filed a petition to BAN Chuu from ALL entertainment activities within South Korea, and they planned to do the same for the other four girls who won their cases!
Then on February 3, the other two members who had not filed injunctions announced that they would be filing, and they won their cases on May 9. The remaining five girls who had been denied in January finally won their cases on June 16, 2023, and after that, Loona was free! Blockberry, however, threatened to continue fighting.
I’m sure there was alllll sorts of stuff going on behind the scenes but one of the more obviously egregious aspects of Loona members’ contracts with Blockberry was that earnings would be split 70/30 between the agency and artist- but expenses would be split 50/50. I think this kind of exploitative contract is unfortunately more common than we would all like in the entertainment industry :(
Where are they now?
Two members have gone solo. After leading the charge to leave Blockberry, Chuu was among the last to debut post-Loona. She is signed to ATRP and debuted as a soloist on October 18, 2023 with the incredibly aptly named Howl, where she sings about her own resilience in the face of hardship. Yves is also debuting as a soloist under PAIX PER MIL (a really interesting and exciting choice of label to sign with!), but her debut date hasn’t been announced - her signing was only just announced on March 13, 2024.
The rest of Loona have gone to two different agencies, both founded by former Blockberry executives.
The members of Loona subunit Odd Eye Circle (Kim Lip, JinSoul, and Choerry) signed with Modhaus entertainment and very quickly released an album under their subunit name on July 12, 2023. Lead single Air Force One definitely sounds like a Loona song. Two other Loona members also signed to Modhaus and released solo tracks in October 2023 - HeeJin’s 80’s tinged Algorithm and HaSeul’s jazzy and truly delightful Plastic Candy. On March 31, 2024, the five former Loona members signed to Modhaus announced that they were forming a group called ARTMS. They’re currently releasing pre-debut singles, and their official debut will be May 31. I’m really excited to see their debut - I saved their first pre-debut single Birth right away after hearing it, even before I knew ARTMS was a former Loona group! It has a really unique sound. Exciting side note - Modhaus is the home of another girl group with a lot of potential - tripleS. They had one of the best albums of 2023.
The other five members of Loona signed to CTDENM and have formed a group called Loossemble, which released their first album on September 15, 2023 with lead single Sensitive, and their second album on April 15, 2024 with lead single Girls’ Night. Loossemble is the only group currently debuted under CTDENM and their vibe is definitely leaning more Oh My Girl than ARTMS’s darker girl crush vibes. I’m not as excited by the content they’ve been putting out, but I did like B-side Boomerang off their new album and interestingly, member Yves (who is going solo) collaborated on the writing for Truman Show.
Is it a shame that Loona hasn’t re-assembled all together under the same label, as some fans hoped? Well, as any fan of Seventeen knows, when a group is as big as Seventeen (13 members) or Loona (12 members), you can’t expect all members to be close friends, and sub groups inevitably happen. Both Loossemble and ARTMS seem to be trying to continue on the Loona ethos and story. With all the talent that was in Loona and all the craziness surrounding their disbandment, perhaps we should be grateful we now have 2 groups and 2 soloists to cheer for!