The Prophet Blog

The last girl group to really make an impact on a global level were The Pussycat Dolls, but ever since they fell to pieces, there really hasn’t been anybody to fly the girl group flag, especially not in America. FarWest Entertainment are hoping to change that with Blush – a new group that have been carefully created since last Summer through an extensive process titled “Project Lotus”.

But there’s a catch: Every member is Asian, and they all hail from a different country, creating what could easily be referred to as an ‘Asian Super-group’. The five young ladies of Blush consist of: Angeli Flores from the Philippines, Victoria Chan from China, Alisha Budhrani from India, Natsuko Danjo from Japan, and Lee Ji-hae from South Korea.

This isn’t a group just for Asians, though — Blush are an ENGLISH language group, and they’ll be launching GLOBALLY.

The five girls were selected through a long and arduous process which involved two rounds of auditions followed by an extensive six-week training-and-elimination process held in Hong Kong. The final five girls were then selected on vocal ability, uniqueness, stage presence and dancing, to ensure that each member would be capable of being a leader.

Project Lotus is being headed by former Asia-Pacific Walt Disney President Jon Niermann, and Grammy-winning producer Elliot Kennedy, who has previously created hits for Spice Girls, Celine Dion, Aretha Franklin, Take That and more.

“Blush’s main target is girls and young women globally, with a core target of 10 to 30 year olds,” says Niermann. “We think they will have broad appeal in the West and Asia.”

“If we do it right, we’ll hit the diversity of the Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga-type of audiences for this group. In terms of Asia marketing, we are primarily an English-singing group, which will be unique, considering the girls and (the) mix we have.”

Blush will be flying out to Los Angeles soon to work with top US producers, who Niermann says are “all ‘A’ players in their field,” including one mystery hitmaker who was nominated for several Grammy Awards this year. They’re also planning to announce some “high profile collaborations” soon.

Eliot Kennedy is overseeing the music side of things, and promises that the girls’ music will NOT feature auto-tune, and that there won’t be “too many ballads” either.

For the Korean market, said Niermann, “Ji-hae will take lead in some songs and sing them in Korean versions while the girls support her. The beautiful thing about Blush, and why we spent so much time looking and planning, is that each of our girls is capable of being the lead singer, and they will all have that chance.”

Blush will also be tapping into the increasing popularity of ‘hallyu’ (AKA “Korean wave” which refers to the increasing popularity of South Korean pop culture throughout the world), with a four-part documentary on hallyu and how it relates to the Lotus Project experience. They’ll also have their own making-the-band style TV special, which will “air regionally across Asia in April and May,” right before the girls’ first single drops.

This is huge. A talented multilingual girl group created by a former Disney president and Grammy/Ivor Novello award-winning producer with A-List US producers and collaborators, a promo strategy to target the East AND the West, a reality TV deal spanning most of Asia and an eye to tap into the growing Hallyu phenomenon. And they’ve already said they’ll be recording specifically in Korean for the K-Pop market, alluding to the possibility that they could create language-specific music for even more markets — extending their reach and commercial potential further than any girl group ever before

Makes the Paradiso Girls look kind of crap by comparison, doesn’t it?

[Source: Sun Herald]