Republic Records just grabbed JYT, which is this five-person boy band that producer Freddy Wexler put together with teenagers aged 15 to 17. The group already had half a million followers before dropping any actual music, and their first track came out recently. Monte Lipman from Republic said they wanted to work with Wexler for like 20 years, and this is how it finally happened through his Wexler Records imprint.
The whole thing feels like labels are trying to copy what HYBE did with KATSEYE, which got Grammy nods after barely a year. HYBE's CEO basically said the pop group model died after the financial crisis because investors got scared of dumping money into acts that might not pay off. The kids trained with Justin Bieber's old choreographer and spent a year doing bootcamp-style prep in LA.
There's apparently a documentary series being made about how they formed, which is straight out of the K-pop playbook of filming everything during the training process.
The whole thing feels like labels are trying to copy what HYBE did with KATSEYE, which got Grammy nods after barely a year. HYBE's CEO basically said the pop group model died after the financial crisis because investors got scared of dumping money into acts that might not pay off. The kids trained with Justin Bieber's old choreographer and spent a year doing bootcamp-style prep in LA.
There's apparently a documentary series being made about how they formed, which is straight out of the K-pop playbook of filming everything during the training process.
