NU'EST is a Korean Pop Music Boy Band ("urban electro band", as they'd tell you) created by Pledis Entertainment in 2012. The members consist of:
- Kim Jonghyunnote , Stage Name JR
- Aaron Kwak, Stage Name Aron
- Kang Dongho, Stage Name Baekho
- Hwang Minhyun
- Choi Minki, Stage Name Ren
NU'EST debuted in 2012 with "Face", which became successful and made them one of the most promising rookies of the third generation of Korean Pop Music. However, following an Audience-Alienating Era of poorly managed projects (including their Chinese collaboration subgroup, NU'EST M) and an oversaturation in the Boy Band market, they never reached the same level of success. In the middle of this, they were also sent to Japan to promote, leaving any momentum they were gaining in South Korea to fizzle out (though they did release an independent film titled Their Distance).
Beginning in 2016 with "Overcome", NU'EST began promoting with a "knight" storyline, highlighted in a series of music videos heavily inspired by The Queen's Knight. Since then, almost all of their Korean songs have been exclusively produced by Baekho and fellow singer Bumzu. However, their popularity was still dwindling, and in a last-ditch attempt to save the group from disbandment, four of the members decided to enter Produce 101 Season 2 as contestants. During this time, the Korean public began listening to NU'EST songs and acknowledging their talents. Despite the popularity of the members, only Minhyun made it to the top 11 and debuted in Wanna One, while the rest continued to promote under the temporary name "NU'EST W."
In 2018, NU'EST W released "Where You At", which became an instant hit and earned them their first music show win. "Dejavu" and "Help Me" also won awards, solidifying and renewing their popularity. With Minhyun's return to the group in 2019, the group has now become one of the biggest Boy Bands in Korean Pop Music.
Tropes related to NU'EST and their music:
- Animal Motifs: All the members have an animal officially representing them:
- JR is represented by a turtle due to being nicknamed Wartortle from his facial features.
- Aron is represented by a dog due to being known for owning two dogs.
- Baekho is represented by a tiger, as his Stage Name literally means "white tiger."
- Minhyun is represented by a fox.
- Ren is represented by a rabbit.
- Audience Surrogate: The queen in the knight trilogy represents the group's fandom, known as LOVEs.
- Boy Band: They're Exactly What It Says on the Tin: a standard Idol Singer boy band. With the boy band tropes applied:
- The Sweet One: JR is The Leader of the group (even earning the industry nickname "Nation's Leader") and is known for his kindness and patience. He often plays up his cute image and lists his strength as "cuteness" in an episode of NU'EST Road.
- The Bad Boy: Baekho's image is often played up as a bad boy because his large, muscular appearance often intimidates others, not to mention he has five tattoos on his body. His real personality, on the other hand, is more of The Shy One and his appearance is more of a Face of a Thug.
- The Cute One: Ren is the youngest of the group and is often complimented as "cute" by the other members. In the group's earlier years, he often had a more feminine image.
- The Big Brother: Aron is the oldest in the group (even if he doesn't act like it most of the time).
- The Shy One: Minhyun is very quiet and reserved.
- Break Up Song:
- Of the "we're done" variety: "Good Bye Bye"
- Of the "I miss you" variety: "Not Over You", "Where You At", "Help Me"
- But Not Too Foreign: Aron grew up in Los Angeles, California, and because he is American and a fluent English speaker, he can relate and communicate to Western fans easily. However, he is ethnically Korean, which still lets him appeal to his Asian fanbase.
- Call-Back: The final chorus after the musical interlude in "Segno", where each member dances individually, has choreography from their old hits. Baekho does the movements from "Hello", JR does the movements from "Overcome", Aron does the movements from "Look", Minhyun does the movements from "Love Paint", and Ren does the movements for "Action."
- Catapult Nightmare: In the music video for "Sleep Talking", Baekho briefly dreams about being chased by a chainsaw wielder and suddenly wakes up. It turns out to be real.
- Chess Motifs: "Help Me" has a scene where a chess board is shattered, with the pieces flying about, after Baekho's high note before the final chorus, which also may play in with Chess with Death given the context of the song. In "Bet Bet", Baekho becomes The Chessmaster and is seen moving pieces around the chess board. In the same music video, Aron has a non-chess example where he is seen playing with the roulette.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
- JR is represented by purple, Aron is represented by green, Baekho is represented by blue, and Ren is represented by red. By the time Minhyun rejoins the group, in their "L.O.V.Ely" vlogs, he is assigned the color red while Ren gets yellow.
- In their Spoonz collaboration, JR is represented by white, Aron is represented by blue, Baekho is represented by pink, Minhyun is represented by yellow, and Ren is represented by mint.
- Dimensional Traveler: In the concert video for "R.L.T.L.", Minhyun keeps jumping between Tokyo and Seoul while trying to chase JR.
- "Double, Double" Title: "Hello Hello", "Bet Bet".
- Endless Winter: After the queen disappears in "Overcome", the members are caught in an everlasting snowstorm.
- Flower Motifs: Their 2019 collaboration with Spoonz offered themed snowglobes called "flower balls" that had each member's birth flower as well as soy candles scented with their flower. In one video, the members had to make flower crowns with their birth flower and explained the meaning for each flower.
- JR's birth flower is the jasmine, which means, "You're mine."
- Aron's birth flower is the delphinium, which means, "I will make you happy."
- Baekho's birth flower is the yellow rose, which means jealousy.
- Minhyun's birth flower is the cistus, which means popularity.
- Ren's birth flower is the bryonia, which means rejection.
- Fun with Acronyms:
- The group's name is an acronym for "New Establish Style Tempo."
- The first letters on the track listing of Q is spells "LOVE."
- "R.L.T.L." stands for "Real Love, True Love."
- Genre Shift: They initially started out with a gritty electro sound, only to shift to a more poppy sound not long after. NU'EST would eventually settle into a consistent electro-R&B and dance-pop sound after Q is.
- Girl Next Door: NU'EST has a song titled "The Girl Next Door."
- Girl of My Dreams: The lyrics and music video for "Sleep Talking" is centered on the members dreaming about their dream girl.
- Graceful Ladies Like Purple: The queen in the "Bet Bet" music video is seen sipping on a purple drink.
- Gratuitous English: They mainly sing in Korean and Japanese, with some English words thrown in. Aron naturally handles the English lines due to his being a native English speaker.
- Guest-Star Party Member: NU'EST M was a short-lived collaboration subgroup with Yuehua Entertainment in order to break into the Chinese market. In this subgroup, Jason was introduced as a sixth member.
- Hotter and Sexier: Their image has gotten increasingly more sensual over the years, as their sound matured. That said, The Table had a Lighter and Softer image to fit in with the romantic theme.
- Idol Singer: NU'EST is marketed to idol fans and is known as a "self-producing idol group" along with other Pledis Entertainment artists.
- Intercourse with You: Baekho's solo, "Feels", is very sensual and stops short of explicitly mentioning sex. That, and his live performances feature an infamous Shirtless Scene.
- I Will Find You: The story of the knight trilogy involves the knights searching for their queen after she disappears.
- Jack of All Trades: Aron was given the nickname "all-rounder" for being able to sing and rap competently, while the other members were locked into specific roles.
- Lady and Knight: The knight trilogy focuses on an integrated storyline heavily influenced by The Queen's Knight, beginning with "Overcome" in 2015 and concluding with "Bet Bet" in 2019.
- The Leader: JR is the leader of the group and was even given the nickname "Nation's Leader" by the industry due to his strong leadership skills in Produce 101.
- Likes Older Women: "The Girl Next Door" is an upbeat song about falling in love with a friend's older sister.
- Long-Haired Pretty Boy: During the group's early years and especially during the "Overcome" era, Ren had long hair that made him look very feminine.
- Magical Incantation: The chorus for "Overcome" brings up the magical spell "Mahaken da Pepeldomoon." In the episode of NU'EST Road, Ren keeps chanting it during the courage test.
- Named After Somebody Famous: Baekho's Stage Name came from After School member Uee, who had called him "Kang Baekho" (the Korean dub name for Hanamichi Sakuragi from Slam Dunk) because of how he resembled him at the time.
- Never Trust a Trailer: The teasers for each member promoting "Love Me" are ominous, especially as it was released near Halloween... but the actual music video for "Love Me" is cheerful and has none of the foreboding imagery.
- New Sound Album: Q Is was the first mini album released after the group declared an official "rebirth", and it's the first of the knight trilogy. The album was their first venture into the future bass and house genres.
- The Nth Doctor: The queen appears as an Asian woman in "Overcome." In "Dejavu", she appears as a Caucasian little girl, and in "Universe", she is depicted as a Caucasian woman.
- One-Person Birthday Party: In JR's teaser for The Table, he's seen sadly taking out a rotten quiche from his refrigerator as he waits for his friends.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: From 2017 to 2018, Minhyun promoted exclusively with Wanna One and had to put his activities with NU'EST on hiatus. However, plot elements from the knight series were still depicted in NU'EST W's three singles, and Minhyun's disappearance was Hand Waved by showing that he had only been separated from the other knights in the music videos for "Universe" and "Bet Bet."
- Rearrange the Song:
- "I Don't Care", the song NU'EST W wrote for their Spoonz collaboration, was rearranged in 2019 with a different tune to include Minhyun.
- "Dejavu" was given an extended version in 2019 to include Minhyun, who had been promoting with Wanna One when the song was first released.
- Red Pill, Blue Pill: In JR's teaser for "Bet Bet", he is seen choosing between a red and blue pill presented to him by the queen. In The Stinger of the actual music video, Minhyun is given the option to choose between a red or blue room. He chooses blue, which is depicted as a surreal, ethereal reality, and the song "Fine" is playing in the background. There are fan theories that if he had chosen the red room, it might have led him to the rest of the members from the "Help Me" music video, which had depicted them dancing in red rooms and had ended with someone opening the door to their room.
- Room Full of Crazy: In the music video for "Good Bye Bye", Minhyun is in the bathroom tattooing "Love Forever" on his arm while the walls in the bathroom are graffitied with his thoughts.
- Shirtless Scene: Baekho has an infamous shirtless scene during his live performance of his solo song, "Feels", where his back-up dancers slip off his shirt during the pre-chorus near the end of the song.
- Shout-Out: "The Girl Next Door" has a line about Gundams.
- The Smart Guy: Aron scored in top 0.5% percentile on the SATs with a score of 2200 (200 points away from a perfect score) and was accepted into New York University (though he didn't attend due to being in NU'EST). This aspect was integrated into his image, where he's often marketed as the "intelligent" and "studious" member of the group. He is officially nicknamed the "intelligent idol" of the group, and in the Spoonz collaboration, his concept was "warm library man."
- Spell My Name With An S: Aron's name is actually spelled "Aaron", but his Stage Name uses the Korean romanization due to it being easier for Koreans to read. Sometimes, his name is inconsistently spelled, and you might see both "Aron" and "Aaron" used. As of 2019, Pledis Entertainment has decided on writing his name in Hangul instead of Roman letters to avoid confusion (which in turn will improve his idol brand ranking).
- Standard Snippet: "The Girl Next Door" opens with the tune to "Mary Had a Little Lamb."
- Stage Names: "JR" is the stage name of Kim Jonghyunnote , "Baekho" is the stage name of Kang Dongho, and "Ren" is the stage name of Choi Minki.
- Travelogue Show: NU'EST Road, which was filmed to promote their first 2019 comeback, was a 4-episode special where the group went camping, fishing, and to Japan.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: In the group's early years, Ren crossdressed and modeled for women's clothing, easily passing for a woman.
