Category: K-pop

K-pop is a type of music originating in South Korea. Korea pop music is influenced by styles and genres from around the world. For example, jazz, hip-hop, country classical are all K-pop roots. K-pop idol culture began with the boy band H.O.T. in 1996. In 2003 TVXQ and BOA started a new generation of K-pop idols. Now as for development, not only in East Asia and Southeast Asia, but also in India, Latin America, North Africa, the Middle East and even though in Western countries, gain global fans. K-pop is the most popular style of music all around the world. The Korean artists have unique musical and performance styles, Entertainment company has well strategized for K-pop groups and the Korean artists pay off hard work. These are all the best prove for why K-pop is so popular?

First Main Idea

First of all, the development of K-pop, made the Korean artists have unique musical and performance styles than European pop music or other types of music. In this website ‘Why K-Pop Is Growing?’, written by Teenink organization, one can see K-pop artists have a different style of music and performance and they are all very good at what they do. Korean artists concert tickets can quickly sell out in America at the Madison Square Garden. K-pop band was on the David Letterman Show. A song by Wonder Girls was included in the Billboard Hot 100 Songs. A Korean-Pop chart was even added to the Billboard charts. The author has new thoughts about K-pop and American music by these phenomena. For example, “the Korean artists have unique musical and performance styles, which are new and fresh compared to some American styles” (Teenink). This quotation shows that K-pop’ unique musical and performance styles is American styles insurmountable. American artists such as Beyonce, Ariana Grande, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, all sing and dance, but they all perform like a same way. In this respect, K-pop artists have diversified musical and performance. On the basis of dancing and singing, each group is difference. For instance, a famous Korean boy band named 2AM will just stand on the stage and sing slow and emotional songs. When people think of 2AM, they will imagine concept of gentle, sweet guy. Another famous Korean girl group named f(x). They always sing about things that do not really make sense together. When people think of f(x) will imagine concept of naughty and cute girl. 2AM and f(x) are two of the many of how Korean music is difference from American music. The other artists all have unique musical and performance styles and they are difference from each other.

In addition, in the website, ‘K-Pop Takes America: How South Korea’s Music Machine Is Conquering the World’, written by Flatley, L. Joseph, one can see K-pop have unique musical and performance styles and it is where the East meets the West in a musical uncanny valley. Psy’s has become a bit of a world-wide sensation, and has achieved what all K-pop artists have failed to do with any real success, it has broken into the American market. Actually, Psy’s is much different than most K-pop. There are lots of Irony, humor and Korea star rules in that video, while other K-pop songs are serious and very well crafted. “K-pop is catchy and calculating strain of Korean popular music, including every contemporary musical genre, a conflation of the various strains of electronic dance music” (Joseph). This quotation shows K-pop music type is catchy and extensive. K-pop is influenced by styles and genres from around the world. Compare with black music, K-pop have really short music history. It is because of this, K-pop mixed different types of music like R&B, House, Britpop and World Music, but also reflects K-pop musical uniqueness. Strong music and group dance have influenced another characteristic of Korea music – catchy. For example, in the most popular girl group named Twice, this song has mentioned likely this word 42 times.

In the end, while both authors are talk about K-pop music and performance, one compares Korea music with America music, while the other introduces K-pop two characteristics. However, these examples both show Korean artists have unique musical and performance styles.

Second Main Idea

Secondly, K-pop industry’s success and entertainment company has well strategized are inseparable. In the website, ‘Why Is K-Pop So Popular?’, written by AsiaPundits organization, one can see the popular and visible music industry in Korea has everything to do with actual entertainment companies. JYP, SM, YG are the most famous entertainment companies in K-pop. Most people who have an interest in K-pop know which entertainment company their favorite artists belong to and have preferences to one specific entertainment company. For example, JYP entertainment company like trainee who has good moral characters. SM entertainment company like trainee who looks pretty. YG entertainment company like trainee who has strength. “As time has gone by, I have come to realize that these record labels are shrewd and smart cookies indeed. They have built up an industry based on a kind of music” (AsiaPundits organization). The quotation in this website shows the main entertainment companies YG, SM, JYP have the great advantage because company only need to put trainee together in such one group so long as they are young and beautiful boys and girls with talents to perform. These three entertainment companies have a never-ending production line of new star and resources they have at hand, it is enough for these new stars to become top and popular groups.

Furthermore, in the website, ‘Why Is K-Pop So Popular?’, written by Hallyu Guide’s writer, one can see entertainment company has well strategized is depend on put K-pop idols into groups. In K-pop industry, K-pop group represented normalcy. Hundreds of performers make their debut every year, but think of the most popular, the most famous artists, not K-pop solo singers but K-pop bands. Such as, BTS, EXO, TWICE, BLACKPINK. “This is actually a planned technique. This may sound like nonsense at first, but if you really think about it from a marketing point of view, it will make sense” (Hallyu Guide’s writer). This quotation shows, if is solo singer, advantage and disadvantage is finite. On the contrary, many hands make light work, viewers have plenty of choice to choose they like. Here’s an example, there is a clothing store only sells 2 types of products bundled and non-bundled clothing. With the bundled one, you have a variety of styles in a single package. At the same time, the non-bundled only offered one style. Assuming price is not a factor, people will more likely to buy bundled one, because you will get will types.

In the end, both authors have same aspect is that entertainment companies has well strategized for K-pop groups. The nuance of strategize that one is company provided resources and have a never-ending production line of new star, while the other is K-pop groups are better from a marketing point of view than idols or solo singers.

Third Main Idea

Finally, behind all the glamorous, have survived numerous dark nights. Wanted success will require efforts. It is the true meaning of K-pop industry. In the website, ‘How K-Pop Became a Global Phenomenon: No Country Takes Its Fluffy Pop Music More Seriously than South Korea’, written by Romano Aja, one can see how the company system strictly to manage artists. From trainee period, trainee have to take dancing, singing, acting and even language class to become a global star. “K-pop has become the international face of South Korea thanks to an extremely regimented coordinated production system” (Romano, Aja) This quotation demonstrates in this coordinated production most of these trainees are still in school, trainee have to jugging school life and trainee life. The worst part is you will never know if you ever get the chance to debut. For instance, Jihyo from Twice had to train for ten years before officially debuting as an idol group member, so make effort is only possible way to be succeed. This is reason why Jihyo is popular artist now.

Furthermore, the website, ‘The Extremes that Koreans Take to Become a K-Pop Idol: It’s More than Just Good Looks and Great Talent’, written by Chua Jessica, one can see the Korean artists need to pay off hard work to become popular group. Korean aesthetic standard is thin is beautiful, so K-pop artists have extreme diet to keep fit. For example, “Nine Muses is an idol group who is known to follow a ‘paper cup diet’. This unusual plan basically requires you to fill a small disposable cup with any food – of course it has to be healthy – to maintain a very controlled food proportion and keep you in shape” (Jessica). This quotation shows that female artist ways of losing weight is scary, fill a disposable cup with any food to eat is unhealthy, but as an artist. They still need to insisted. Some idols not only have to lose weight but also maintain the current weight, which can be tough because of the intense dancing and exercise they do for hours on end every day. This is hard work artists pay off.

Specifically, we can see that both authors tried to tell us artists pay off lots of effort to exchange successful. One is long and hard period of trainee life, while the other is keep fit, eat extreme diet. Being a K-pop idol is more than just having good looks and amazing talent. Break down the blood, sweat and tears that it could possibly to become a successful K-pop star.

Conclusion

In conclusion, K-pop is the most popular style of music all around the world must be reasons for it. There are three reasons, K-pop is different from other types of music and performance, K-pop industry have great strategized for K-pop group and K-pop artists put effort on their work. For a couple of decades now, K-pop groups have come and gone, they had their time in the sun when they were young, beautiful and fashionable!

Works Cited

1. Romano, Aja. “How K-Pop Became a Global Phenomenon: No Country Takes Its Fluffy Pop Music More Seriously than South Korea”. Vox. Com. Vox, 26 Feb. 2018. Web. 23 Feb. 2018.
2. Author Unknown. “Why is K-pop So Popular?” blog.Hallyuguide.com. Hallyu Guide Blog, 12 June. 2016. Web. 22 Feb. 2018.
3. Author Unknown. “Why K-pop is Growing?” teenink.com. Teenink, 27 March. 2012. Web. 22 Feb. 2018.
4. Author Unknown. “Why is K-pop So Popular?” asiapundits.com. Asiapundits, 26 August. 2012. Web. 23 Feb. 2018.
5. Chua, Jessica. “The Extremes that Koreans Take to Become a K-pop Idol: It’s More than Just Good Looks and Great Talent”. rojakdaily.com. Rojakdaily, 27 January. 2017. Web. 17 Mar. 2019.
6. Flatley, L. Joseph. “K-Pop Takes America: How South Korea’s Music Machine Is Conquering the World” theverge. com. The Verge, 18 October. 2012. Web. 18 Mar. 2019.

Introduction

K-pop is a genre of music that originated in South Korea. While its earliest form dates back to the 90s, with Seo Taiji and the Boys, this industry doubled its growth rate in the mid-2000s in the Korean and international markets as well. During these years the concept of idols grew with the genre itself and became a representative of it. Many different groups such as H.O.T., TVXQ, and BoA were created at the time and started the tradition of K-pop idols. This genre was considered as “South Korea’s Greatest Export” (Time Magazine 2012) and as “Asia’s foremost trendsetter” (The Economist 2014). In 2016 the industry was valued at US$4.7 billion according to the Korea Creative Content Agency, whereas today due to worldwide famous boy groups such as BTS, it is one of the hot topics when it comes to entertainment, but not only. This cultural ambassador of Korea is growing rapidly in terms of its popularity; however, its content is extremely controversial and debated especially when it comes to female idols.

Sexism and Objectifying of Female Idols

Women who are part of the industry are continuously objectified and sexualized by their agencies. They have been always introduced as cute and innocent dolls instead of human beings and also they are shown as submissive to their lovers in their songs to exhibit male dominance. In their performances or music videos, they are consistently presented in very little clothing to help with the promotion of their albums so the respective company can gain a greater profit.

—- “…female idols are seen in either skin-tight clothing or barely these shorts accompanied by body waves or self-stroking while talking about their pounding heart from a first infatuation”… (Gabrielle 2013, 1)

As their costumes, choreography, and lines are not up to them to decide, many of these female idols have expressed their discomfort including famous K-pop girl group members such as Red Velvet’s Irene, Blackpink’s Lisa, Momoland’s Nancy, etc. These girls have even been caught by the fans trying to cover certain parts of their bodies or even lowering their dresses during the performances.

Failing behind

Some scholars have pointed out that apart from male pleasure and high sales these ladies “are objectified as normative commodities under corporate govern-mentality” (Kim 2011, 342).

The sexism in K-pop can simply be a reflection of the patriarchal and sexist culture of South Korea. Although it is one of the most well-known countries in the world, with a great infrastructure, strong education system, and a “tiger economy”, this country is falling behind when it comes to gender equality and women’s rights and dignity. According to the Global Gender Gap Index 2018, The Republic of Korea was ranked 115 out of 145 countries and it is a very low rank for such a powerful state. This country has also the largest gender wage gap among rich countries. According to Economist’s “Glass-ceiling Index” Korea has ranked the lowest of all OECD countries (The Economist 2015). Even when it comes to serious crimes, sexual assault is one of the most frequent ones (OSAC 2018) and occurrences of such activities are unfortunately very much alive in the K-pop industry.

Sexual Assault Scandals

10 years ago Jang Ja-Yeon, an actress and K-pop singer committed suicide at her home in Seoul, leaving a seven-page letter in which she claimed that she had been a victim of sexual abuse and exploitation. Jang Ja-Yeon wrote that her agency had forced her to have sex with 31 influential men, including politicians, businessmen, newspaper executives, and entertainment figures. This raised a huge question for the companies which at the time were massively using their idols, mainly women, as pleasing objects. Unfortunately, though, the industry has not changed much since then. In January 2019 The Burning Sun scandal erupted. The Burning Sun is a nightclub in Seoul where many illegal activities involving idols have happened. The scandal revealed that many K-pop girl group members were drugged, raped, and filmed without their consent inside the club. Some of these young ladies had been sent by their companies or their sunbeams to the club without knowing the reason why. The police never made the names public to protect what was left of their reputation.

Reality Check

In the constitution of South Korea, Article 10 clearly states that: “All citizens shall be assured of human dignity…” and Article 11 (1) states that “All citizens shall be equal before the law, and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic, social or cultural life on account of sex, religion or social status.” However, when it comes to practice none of the articles are respected in Korea. The right to human dignity is restricted to these young girls who are used as objects with no emotions. They are used as sex slaves under the agencies and even the right to choose for themselves is denied to them. They are treated unfairly and unequally. They are sexualized and played as puppets for the interest of the companies. They are discriminated against, humiliated, and hurt up to the point of severe depression for the sake of their dreams.

Conclusion

The issues of gender inequality and violation of women’s rights and dignity are huge problems that have strongly grasped Korean society. The fact that women are not even treated as living beings is very disturbing. K-pop is just a genre of music when you look at it firstly, simply catchy songs that people hear in their daily lives. But in its depths, K-pop is a whole system, a structure of producing young slaves that will work for these money-making companies according to their rules. And those who suffer greatly from it are the female idols. Those girls are used as objects to please men’s desires and as machines for producing income. Those girls’ dignity is shattered and the way they are being treated is animalistic. The Korean entertainment industry is rotted to the core and this situation continues up to nowadays it is very saddening to learn that this economically powerful Asian country still has severe difficulty in putting into practice crucial matters such as gender equality, fair treatment of women, and protection of their right and their dignity as citizens of South Korea.

If we were to travel 15 years back, who would have thought that South Korean music industry or otherwise known as K-pop would rise to become one of the world’s leading recorded music industries. With worldwide fanbases, statistics have shown that South Korea succeeded on becoming the sixth largest global music businesses in 2017. Needless to say, the total streaming revenue on 2013 reached up to $89.78m. These findings lead us to one concrete question – ‘How do K-pop music industry manage to be this successful?’. This essay aims to unveil the reasons behind the success of K-pop in the global music industry.

Introduction

The evolution of the research and development (R&D) sector of became the impetus for the changing nature and structure of the music industry. The term ‘music piracy’ or ‘Internet piracy’ came into the surface when Internet was first introduced into the public. This had made the act of illegally copying and distributing of recordings of a piece of music without the owner’s consent possible. In 2005, statistics showed staggering total revenue figure where global music industry has approximately lost $3.3 billion worth of total revenue at that period showing the negative effect of widespread free streaming. While this phenomenon has negatively struck the whole music industry, this became a trajectory to the South Korean music industry instead. As a matter of fact, South Korean music industry had shown positive figures relative to the rest of the world for the consecutive period after the fall. In 2013, South Korea had become one of only four countries (United Kingdom, United States, and Sweden) who exports music more than it imports. From the statistical evidence mentioned earlier, one could fairly say that the South Korean music industry is economically and culturally successful – often referred to the K-pop phenomenon.

Korean Wave (Hallyu)

Korean Wave or Hallyu (‘flow of Korea’) refers to the globalization of South Korean culture – ranging from entertainment, music, TV dramas, and movies across East, South, and Southeast Asia initially and now extending further into the Western countries.

The Korean Wave or Hallyu first embarked in 1995 responding to the economic crisis in South Korea which pushed the South Korean government to shift their focus from domestic markets into the global markets. It was around this time when the South Korean policy makers became aware of the importance of nation branding to improve their competitiveness in the global market. In fact, they discovered that their cultural product could be used not only as a financially viable export product but to control the global image of South Korea. Private investments into media, entertainment and other industries were highly encouraged by the government in effort to create a national ‘brand’ that builds upon the idea of entertainment which became the foundation of Korean Wave.

Evidently, the Korean Wave or hallyu has gained much attention and love from people across the globe – attracting not only domestic consumers but extending to young and old people from Asia, North America, and Europe. It was recorded that the total revenue of Hallyu was estimated around $11.6 billion in 2014, with K-pop exclusively contributed $2 billion of revenue towards the Korean economy annually.

Contributors of the Success of K-Pop

While Hallyu established a basis for which South Korean music to reach the global audience, however the main driver of the Korean Wave is the innovation of technology itself which forces Korean companies and policy makers to adapt to macroenvironment changes. This section will discuss about how these changes had brought about the eventual success of the South Korean music industry.

Technology and Social Media

Music industry is essentially not one but a combination of three different industries – recorded music industry, music licensing industry and live music industry. In the pre-Internet era, the music industry was heavily dominated by record labels and physical media for music distribution. Looking back, there were not really a platform for which an artist could engage themselves with audience, if not through these record labels and hence making it hard for music disseminate to different countries. This became the rationale of how South Korean music was before where primarily made for domestic listeners and was not considered a popular genre in the global music industry.

However, the emerging technological advancement severely changed the structure of the music industry, especially the rise of online piracy, which negatively affected the way recording companies are able to generate its revenue. This is because audience can enjoy music freely through different platforms (such as televisions, radios, etc.) without having to pay any subscription fees to the recording companies. Furthermore, when YouTube was first introduced into public, it allowed for the dissemination of music videos around the world freely upon request. This forces the music industry to change the way their business operates in order to benefit from the free access of music around.

Business Structure

Ever since it was introduced, YouTube has grown into a successive music platform. In response, K-pop agencies in South Korea shifted to ‘Business to Business (B2B)’ strategy that focuses on selling content to multinational enterprise (MNEs). Music producers, artists, and songwriters upload their content online in hopes to gain royalties from MNE based on the number of views that they got on YouTube. The South Korean music industry has in fact relied on YouTube as the backbone of their music dissemination (reference). Since the royalties revenues that are generated by MNE (i.e., paying for commercial space) depend on the value of attractiveness of the content to the consumer, K-pop agencies play a crucial role in the production and marketing of their music.

The Korean Marketing Strategy

According to ‘Oh’, the three major K-pop agencies are YG, JYP, and SM Entertainment. These Korean music producers have adopted new globalization marketing strategy called ‘Global-Local-Global (G-L-G)’, which involves outsourcing raw materials (‘G’ – Global) as an intermediate goods, which will be proceeded into the local industry (‘L’ – Local) to be processed and transformed into a final and finished goods. These goods will then be exported into the world to buyers and distributors (‘G’ – Global).

The first ‘Global’ element involves outsourcing music composers from the center markets such as US, Britain and Sweden. In creating their music, K-pop agencies, especially SM Entertainment is seen to be incorporating Western elements into their music by collaborating with international songwriters and music producers as well as their respective agency. This collaboration with Western song writers, music producers, and choreographers abroad is what Karst Van Der Ploeg define as “the combination of western music styles with some distinct Korean cultural elements”.

As observed throughout the years of K-pop history, their initial success was attributed mainly from very large number of singers and dancers with distinct and beautiful physique and appearance, dancing simultaneously on stage in a perfect synchronization. The reason behind it is that K-pop undertook differentiation strategy to make the ‘L’ (Local) element unique to capture global audience – this is done through differentiating their music in terms of (1) voice-dance coordination; (2) numbers; and (3) physique.

These unique traits of K-pop music are a product of the entertainment companies acting as a venture capitalist where they actively seek for new young trainees, offered them a long-term contract with music labels, and train them for years to become global stars. To ensure that these trainees master the ‘voice-coordination’ elements, these trainees undergo intensive training involving vocal, dance, language and even acting lessons in hopes they would eventually generate high cash returns on their initial investment after they debuted. They rarely debut as a solo but instead are introduced as a group as larger group are believed to reduce the risk of unpredictable fan enthusiasm. In addition to that, K-pop agencies seek for slim, tall, and feminine looking individuals to create a visually appealing artists in terms of looks and bodies than their counterparts. The hefty amount of investment required in the training process naturally creates a barrier to entry for these K-pop agencies hence explaining why an oligopolistic market developed in K-pop music market.

Entry to the Global Industry

K-pop agencies concentrates on strategic alliances or joint ventures to enter the global industry – where two or more firms cooperate by sharing risks and profits as to enter the international market (i.e., where SM enters into a joint venture with Alibaba, Lidell noted that this was a beneficial exchange to both parties as SM gets the infrastructure while Alibaba gets the content. However, this approach involves a lot of transaction cost as well as long and hefty process of approaching foreign company, signing contracts and agreements, and sharing profits, a more natural and organic approach is through exportation. This involves recruiting young talented aspirants from other countries, train them local and foreign languages, and promote and export them as a part of a Korean Pop act.

South Korean Government

Since 1960s, the Korean government and domestic companies had tried to crack down on piracy, but none of them found were found to be effective. However, the year 1980 became the turning point for copyright regime in South Korea. At that time, South Korea was willing to enter into the foreign markets and Western countries, yet as a requirement they were asked reform the existing regulations. Copyrights regime was one of the required changes mainly because Korea was known as one of the countries that has the highest amount of piracy at that time, and international markets seek for legal security of their products. With such pressure and willingness to avoid trade disputes, in the mid-1990s Korean policy makers finally lift up previous bans on certain type of music and worked to improve the copyright laws and reduce piracy. However, the copyright regime adopted by the South Korean government are comparatively more liberal and much more creativity-friendly than their counterparts.

How is that so? Korea has a long history with piracy that no any other countries have had in general. Indeed, while piracy is blamed to be the source of decline in most music industries, it is piracy that helped the take-off of K-pop. In 1960s, because of its relatively cheap price, pirated albums helped contribute creativity of K-pop, which were used to be dominated by a single music – trot. Furthermore, since pirated albums offers range of new and trendy music which are relatively cheaper, hence the market for pirated music developed of which predominantly concentrated by young people (mostly students) who are price-sensitive and are more inclined towards trendy music. In fact, the domestic market size had been expanded to incorporate young consumers and new genres of music which continued until today. Nowadays, since most K-pop singers and the people in the K-pop industry grew up in the environment where piracy are prevailing, they did not insist on strict copyrights over their songs. Hence allowing K-pop contents to be available on the Internet for free of charge. In fact, Korean entertainment companies utilizes SNS to widely disseminate K-pop contents through the Internet such that international consumers can easily access to their content freely from legal official sources. By not limiting the access and distribution of K-pop online, yet protecting the revenues for the authors, it can be said that the South Korean government has implemented a well-balanced copyright regulation.

Revenues Collection

When measured by the intellectual property index, Korea ranked 34th in the world, compared to countries like Japan that ranked 8th and have more complicated and complete intellectual property rights. The effect of this problem is that artists are not able to profit as much from their work. This forces K-pop agencies to seek for other alternative to maximize their profits through live performances and physical album sales.

The global success of K-pop music in the 21st century prove that investments on young talents by K-pop agencies has been successful. The result of years of highly intensive training resulted in a perfect synergy between vocal and dance coupled with growing demand for visually attractive idols has made live stage performances appealing to K-pop music industries. The huge success of K-pop live concerts can be seen when YG Entertainment’s Big Bang managed to sell out the 50 000 seated Tokyo Dome. In addition to that, K-pop agencies utilized fan meetings as a method to soft launch music acts. Fan meetings are usually smaller and more personal where idols get to interact more with the fans, sign autographs and perform some songs at a cost. Hence allowing K-pop agencies to reap a huge benefit from fan meetings and live performances.

Another method that the K-pop industry utilize to maximize revenues from music is through the sale of physical albums. Despite the heated arguments that mobile platforms are increasingly replacing physical music album, yet the Korean market saw growth on their physical sales of albums and merchandises. Which is a result of the marketing effort of their respective agencies. Physical albums are often packaged and branded as a merchandise. Furthermore, they release several versions of an album to make it appealing as collectibles for the fans, especially targeting the hardcore fans. As an addition to the music itself, collectible photocards to photobook are included in the bundle, all packed luxuriously to make it visually appealing for people to actually buy and collect them.

Conclusion

The success of the South Korean industry is not a matter of luck but a strategic effort taken by both the local government and the private businesses in response to the changing macroenvironment. They carefully took steps to adapt their business structure, marketing strategies, laws and regulations to suit the era of digitization. Instead of considering changes as a threat, South Korea perceive this as an opportunity to gain popularity in the global market.