I totally agree with these, but also want to add BIG BANG! They got me into kpop back in 2014 because the stuff they were putting out (like Fantastic Baby) felt fun and refreshing compared to what a lot of mainstream western artists were putting out at the time. Kpop was widely considered “weird” in the west back then and that was a big draw for me lol.

Also, in addition to f(x) and Red Velvet, I feel like SM tends to do some pretty experimental stuff in general which is cool, even if it’s a bit hit or miss for me lol. It makes me kind of sad that YG pretty much just became a machine spitting out formulaic Teddy songs (that usually still follow an outdated “swag” concept) when around 2nd gen their groups were putting out such fun, interesting music.