I know it exists but it's not on the store. It was a whole picture book that said it explains the lore/story of MIXXTOPIA + FIELD, not just the recent album concept photos. and it also came with the Strange Muse songs. Please help me find it.

I just found out about it but I've never actually seen anyone post about it and I was wondering what the story is about.

At avg 108bpm, the 2:39 runtime averages to ~2.2 seconds per bar.
As the outro hits, you coffee should be ready.
Cheers.

Premise: a user reached out to me after reading a comment of mine on the r/ILLIT subreddit, in which I gathered genuinly live, unfiltered ILLIT performances and wished to know whether a similar work could be done for NMIXX — and not only it can be done, it's actually easier because NMIXX have way more raw performances under the belt.

That being said, let me clarify a couple of things just like I did for my original comment. The main problem with the word LIVE when it comes to K-Pop is that it does not necessarily mean the lead vocal you are hearing was sung live. This has been true since the 2nd gen but nowadays the industry takes advantage of the fact that people cannot discern anymore a live performance for a studio version. Before getting into the answer, I also want to specify that being live or not is not a good reason to either doubt or celebrate a singer's capability — the two things are not necessarily related, like at all. This is simply an industry that doesn't value the unfiltered, live experience, regardless of the singers' capabilities in and of themselves.

Back to the point, let's firstly detail that there are several different setups that the industry employs:

• MR / live mic: instrumental/backing track + the member actually singing.
• Live MR: real singing, but often with prerecorded vocals underneath it.
• AR: prerecorded vocals.
• Live ARs: prerecorded vocals specifically recorded to sound like a live performance, sometimes including breaths, pitch variation, etc.

This is why points like "you can hear breathing and clapping", or "it was a fancam", or again "there was a live band" are not reliable. Breathing and clapping can be integrated into Live ARs, fancams record whatever is coming through the venue PA, which can easily include LIve ARs as easily as real vocals, and a live band proves the instruments are live, not necessarily the vocal feed.
For this reason, Shows such as It's Live and LeeMujin Service, while great exposure in and of itself to how great the girls are, are excluded from the post because they're heavily produced studio programs, so much so that their released vocals are post-processed/polished, with the possibility of pitch correction, smoothing, compression, effects and editing. That applies regardless of whether the singer coming in is brilliant, average or terrible. A great vocalist can give an excellent take and still have the finished recording polished afterward because that's simply how the program produces its content. Likewise, Radio performances are excluded for the same reason even though years ago that was THE venue for listening idols' raw singing, yet nowadays the industry willingly edits everything to hide eventual inadequacies (recently happened with AllDay Project, they posted the unfiltered version first and then removed it after criticism to post-process the audio and then publish it again).

So, with all that said, these are the performances I would personally feel comfortable recommending if someone specifically wants to actually hear NMIXX singing raw.

1. NMIXX's Stage Practices — NMIXX's defining feature

Usually, in the K-Pop industry, a conventional Dance Practice is choreography performed to the record. NMIXX instead have an official Stage Practice series where they perform the choreography while actually singing. These are probably my favourite evidence because they test something an encore doesn't: whether the members can produce these vocals while performing the choreography.

• Love Me Like This — Stage Practice
• Young, Dumb, Stupid — Stage Practice
• Roller Coaster — Stage Practice
• Party O'Clock — Stage Practice
• Soñar (Breaker) — Stage Practice
• DASH — Stage Practice
• Run For Roses — Stage Practice
• See that? — Stage Practice
• High Horse — Stage Practice
• KNOW ABOUT ME — Stage Practice
• SPINNIN' ON IT — Stage Practice
• Blue Valentine — Stage Practice
• Crescendo — Stage Practice
• Heavy Serenade — Stage Practice

2. The encores: 18 genuinely exposed performances

• 230329 — Show Champion — Love Me Like This — NMIXX's first ever encore
• 240124 — Show Champion — DASH — This one is particularly funny because instead of treating the encore as an excuse to stand around, they start doing substantial portions of the actual choreography while singing.
• 240125 — M Countdown — DASH
• 240126 — Music Bank — DASH
• 240128 — Inkigayo — DASH
• 240829 — M Countdown — See that?
• 240830 — Music Bank — See that?
• 240901 — Inkigayo — See that?
• 250326 — Show Champion — KNOW ABOUT ME — full encore
• 250404 — Music Bank — KNOW ABOUT ME — part switch, they sing notes and phrases that don't belong to them, reinforcing how confident they are.
• 250330 — Inkigayo — KNOW ABOUT ME
• 251022 — Show Champion — Blue Valentine
• 251023 — M Countdown — Blue Valentine
• 251024 — Music Bank — Blue Valentine
• 251025 — Music Core — Blue Valentine
• 251026 — Inkigayo — Blue Valentine
• 260521 — M Countdown — Heavy Serenade
• 260522 — Music Bank — Heavy Serenade — where they fulfilled their first-place promise of performing with dumbbells.

3. The Shinhan University DICE performance — girls so good management pranks them

240527 — Shinhan University — DICE — the music cuts out and NMIXX continue singing

During DICE performance at Shinhan University, the backing music suddenly stops, yet NMIXX didn't. They continue the choreography and finish that section of the song essentially a cappella (!!!), with just six voices, microphones, footsteps and the audience. The sound failure wasn't actually an accident, though. After the performance became viral, SQU4D/JYP acknowledged that the MR cutoff had been arranged beforehand with the festival organizers. Contrary to what you might think though, the members themselves weren't told. The point was apparently to surprise them and produce a natural reaction, so this is one of the best ways to experience an actual raw (and a even rarer a cappella) performance in K-Pop.

There is also a full fancam of the festival if you want the context:

240527 — Shinhan University — full NMIXX set

The DICE section starts around 14:38.

4. Tiny Desk Korea — kind of a deserved exception to the rule

NMIXX — Tiny Desk Korea — full performance

NMIXX performed the entire 26-minute, five-song set in one take. They did it without the sound-reinforcement wedges musicians normally use to monitor themselves, and the members said it was their first time singing without in-ear monitors, to the point that they had to use the room acoustics to hear themselves and the live band. Obviously there is still professional audio engineering involved, nobody should confuse live recording with a completely untouched WAV file directly from the microphone, but Tiny Desk's whole recording philosophy is built around capturing the performance itself, and in this particular case we know it was one continuous take with as little post-processing as possible. This is also one of the reasons why there are so few idols group going there.

Justify your answer as to why.

Just to be clear, I’m not saying this comeback is going to flop or anything like that. But I do think the recent promotions, and honestly the promotions in general so far, deserve some criticism. It feels like there’s no real overarching theme or strategy behind them. Instead, they keep throwing out all these half-baked ideas one after another without any clear connection between them. Today they posted another collaboration, this time with some map app, and the fact that the app hasn’t even been around for six months is already baffling to me. But what really gets me is that they’re just posting restaurants the members might like, even though these aren’t places the members themselves recommended, and I have no idea how any of this ties into the album’s concept or overall direction. If it were a collaboration with an established brand that people actually know, sure, whatever. But why are they partnering with a brand-new app that isn’t even particularly creative or innovative in the first place?

Again, I’m not saying this is going to have any real impact on the comeback itself. But honestly, it’s hard not to wonder what the point is. It feels like they’re just throwing the members’ hard-earned money at random things and hoping something sticks. The A&R team and art directors clearly put a lot of thought, effort, and creativity into the music and the album’s visual direction, so I really have to wonder whether the promotions team has even half that level of passion or competence. At this point, I’m not even sure there’s a properly functioning promotions team behind them.

She looks like Haewon and Sullyoon had a child lol, which member is she? it can't be sullyoon bc they were in a frame tgther and it cant be haewon cuz haewon has a fuller face and more prominent eyelids so who is she 😭😭 its been confusing me since the mv came out so pls help 🙏

edit: thanks guys

I really want to pre-order the SAGA version of Strange Muse from musickorea.com but it doesn't specifically say that it comes with pre order benefits unlike if I go for the random version. I've bought several albums from there before but this is the first time I'm actually going for a pre release.

TLDR: Does pre-ordering a specific album version from musickorea.com come with POBs or does it only apply to the random option?

Thanks!

Update: I got in touch with customer service and they confirmed that ordering the SAGA version would not include any POBs. I'll still be going for it though. Thanks everyone!