Sarah Wolfgang, was Hanhee of Tahiti, dropped out partly because of eating disorders. Similar background as Melanie; grew up on a military base. Q&A on reddit three years ago:
Had signed up basically as stepping stone to acting, not for the music. Now she does have some musical hopes for herself (jazzhop) but doesn't like K-pop at all. Does like some Korean hip-hop. In her experience, idols had utterly no artistic input. She does have a friend who trained with YG who said it was different there: YG actually teaches music production to its trainees! She says there's abysmally bad social mobility in Korea, incredible gap between rich and poor. (I might question some of that, given the almost total transformation of the society from rural to metro in the last sixty years.)
Balancing her distaste for idol music, she says that idol fans shouldn't just pay attention to the performers but all of the others involved in creating the songs, the talented songwriters, choreographers, etc. Her life difficulties seem to have made her generous.
(Note that it was Sarah's interview with Kpopalypse that inspired Melanie to get in touch with Kpopalypse/Asian Junkie.)
Sarah Wolfgang
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/24o8js/iaman_ex_kpop_trainee_ama
Had signed up basically as stepping stone to acting, not for the music. Now she does have some musical hopes for herself (jazzhop) but doesn't like K-pop at all. Does like some Korean hip-hop. In her experience, idols had utterly no artistic input. She does have a friend who trained with YG who said it was different there: YG actually teaches music production to its trainees! She says there's abysmally bad social mobility in Korea, incredible gap between rich and poor. (I might question some of that, given the almost total transformation of the society from rural to metro in the last sixty years.)
Kpopalypse interview:
https://kpopalypse.com/2014/08/17/kpopalypse-interview-sarah-wolfganghanhee-ex-tahiti
Balancing her distaste for idol music, she says that idol fans shouldn't just pay attention to the performers but all of the others involved in creating the songs, the talented songwriters, choreographers, etc. Her life difficulties seem to have made her generous.
(Note that it was Sarah's interview with Kpopalypse that inspired Melanie to get in touch with Kpopalypse/Asian Junkie.)
Her YouTube site:
https://www.youtube.com/user/sarahwolfgang