Jakarta-Born Girl Joins AKB48-Inspired Girl Radical
Billboard.com has published a feature article introducing Girl Radical, a group formed by former ‘N Sync member JC Chasez and producer–songwriter Jimmy Harry. Girl Radical is dubbed as the first “Supermassive American Girl Group”, drawing inspiration from large Japanese idol groups such as AKB48. As Chasez explains, the pop music group concept of Girl Radical is similar to AKB48 and its sister groups and even K-pop groups such as Girls’ Generation:
[W]hat we learned from the Japanese thing is that the choruses are big. In the songs that we’ve been doing, they’ve [done] these big-sounding choruses, so that’s what we’ve kept in mind. That being said, not everybody is going to get a lead/verse part on every song. It’s kind of like playing checkers – we’ll plug this one in here, we’ll plug this one in here, and so on. Every one of them will step forward at one time or another when it’s their time.
Girl Radical currently has 11 members, but there are plans to expand the membership. Its youngest member is 18-year-old Meeghan Henry Tirtasaputra, who was born on 7 January 1995 in Jakarta to Chinese Indonesian parents Djie Sing Tjwan and Christina Endang Pratiknjo. The family moved to the United States amid Indonesia’s chaotic sociopolitical environment in 1998–1999 and settled in the Los Angeles area. Meeghan is currently a rising junior at the University of La Verne, where she is majoring in radio broadcasting and has achieved Dean’s List several times. After being homeschooled as a child, she enrolled at Millikan Middle School and Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, completing high school at the age of 16.
Meeghan began training at Los Angeles’s Vocal Power Academy when she was 7 and has won a number of awards in local child talent competitions. She entered the entertainment industry in 2009 after meeting producer Ronnie King, who invited her to sign with the label Wright Records, Inc. Upon releasing her first single “When I’m 18” in 2010, she gained widespread coverage in Indonesian media outlets. She went on to release two albums When I’m 18 and Meeghan, both of which are available on the U.S. iTunes Store. In August 2011, Meeghan was crowned Miss Teen Asia USA. She left her solo career in late 2012 to join Girl Radical.
Meeghan joined the contingent from the Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia – Los Angeles at the 2013 Pasadena Rose Parade, where the Wonderful Indonesia float won the “President’s Trophy” for the second consecutive year.
Banner courtesy of GirlRadical.com. Photograph courtesy of MeeghanHenry.com.
Wew, the Asia concept is tried by the western music……..
Can the concept become success?
Well, let’s see for next few month maybe…..
Interesting! The first western style mega-group.
Looking at the ‘members’ however, it appears they are in the 18’s to their 20’s… and apparently will focus more on vocal abilities instead of emphasizing dances.
If they get big, then they will naturally became AKB48’s and K-Pop groups rival.
Good vocals. But no unique choreograph like 48. Does it attract some one?
it will
because they had the concept, and the vision of what will becoming of the group they made..
unlike the indonesian “male version” of 48 group
I knew that AKB had their tour to visit New York City and Los Angels. If AKS will decide to flanchise the 48 concept to the US local cities, such as SAT48 (Siatle), IDP48 (Indianapolis), BST48 (Boston), sure LAX48 (Los Angels) and NYC48 (New York City) so on and on.
Will the 48 concept installed the US local cities girls groups defeat this kind of the US girls? 
Tomo-san, you should be aware that a large segment of the American audience has low tolerance for these types of concepts which market female sexuality. Jezebel.com, a popular feminist blog, recently slammed the concept of the group and called it an embarrassment. With that said, it’s not uncommon in the United States to see someone receiving a lot of credit for denouncing other people’s idea and work. Girl Radical probably has a more difficult uphill battle in the American market than JKT48 in Indonesia.
Richardson-san. Appriciate for your advice. I can understand you thought. Probably as you all can see, when the music video of “Heavy Rotation (by, sure, AKB48)” was released, among many adult Japanese persons, it was said that the girls were sexualily squeezed by the project stakeholders. My wife is the one of them. She says that she can smell the money and imatured sex from 48 project. Also you have already watched the video of CNN’s “Talk Asia”. Yasushi Akimoto was hounded down by a female interviewer. She asked “Do you squeeze sex from young girls?”. Akimono repled under the pressure of nedessity, “It is an art”. When Akimoto’s a white limousine arrived at AKB48 theater, the interviewer got down. And Akimoto reached his hand to her hand. But she dinied. Please understand that I don’t want to dirt 48 and JKT48. I just want to explan various thoughts are here in Japan also.
wow, very interesting.
but I cant imagine when some western girls doing kawaiiness dancing like the asian girls.
OK, just wait n see.
Goodluck America
i reckon they won’t do exactly what AKB had done.
Idol-ish acts and dances are pretty much unfamiliar on the west. At this time, if this Girl Radical is to survive, they must cope with the atmosphere of American music industry, instead of moving up to more AKB-ish.
That means different concepts, different methods, different images.
While AKB had a more fixed concept, JC and that songwriter had to think an entirely new one to face American culture. That’s the real challenge of his producership.
See if JC can be the next Aki-P
18 is the youngest age? Something to do with child law related or labor law?
I don’t really have anything to say about this, I guess I still need to see how it’ll be going. It’s too early to make any comment, because honestly I don’t mind if a group is created in inspiration of 48group. Another story if they start to exagerate everything just for popularity and no quality, well…
Time will tell if they gonna be…
nice try ‘murica.
next time, please don’t. stick to burgers and fries.
My opinion: Their looks are too bi**hy and their faces are too old to be an AKB48-cloned girlband. Perhaps the guy from ‘N Sync was tired of AKB48 and K-Pop-cloned and swore that he could do better than those idiotic plagiarists.(Such as ***29). But, sadly, he didn’t. Me? I’ll stick with JKT48.
Oh USA, land of freedom and home for the brave. Feminist, fascist, atheist, and etc all available in USA. So why not.
If I look more, it seems they adopt the concept of “each member has her own personality and interest” of 48family, not about japanese-idol-definition and kawaiiness, plus it mixed with some K-Pop touch.
The ‘idol’ figure in america is pretty different from asia, maybe we find the girls from 48 are ideal and perfect, but I think from american perspective, they may find girls from 48 are cute but lame and weak. They prefer strong figure to be idolized, and I think they prefer more rebelious figure not the cutie ones and the angel-type. Remember Destiny’s child? TLC? Or, to be extreme, look at Madonna, Rihanna, or.. Lady Gaga.
That’s my opinion.
Let’s see if they will survive.. who knos if they could be the next Spice Girls, the most popular western girlband?