Talking About Kpop–more than just Gangnam Style

If you were to ask a random non-Asian person “what is Kpop?” before this July, chances are you are probably would not get the correct answer. However, thanks to the hilarious and extremely talented Korean singer/performer Psy, a lot of people outside Asia have begun to take a look at the Kpop genre, because of the famous song “Gangnam Style”.

Kpop, as defined by wiki, as a musical genre consisting of dance, electronic, electropop, hip hop, rock, and R&B music originating in South Korea. However, it also directly impacts other areas such as drama, variety shows, and fashion, and has gradually become a kind of pop culture. It is highly influential in Asia, as from my personal experience, more than 80% of the girls in my junior high school in China are fans of various Kpop idols such as TVXQ(DBSK), Superjunior, Bigbang, etc.

Most main-stream Kpop idols nowadays are carefully selected by entertainment companies such as SME through local and global auditions, then “modified”(plastic surgery etc.) and trained to sing, dance, host shows, and even to speak a number of languages. The training takes from 1-10 years, depending on the individual and the company. Some do not get to debut after all, and those people who finally made their debuts have to be very good-looking, and/or very good at singing, and/or very good at dancing and/or have other special talents. It is highly competitive, as the Kpop industry is so saturated today. As a result, most of the Kpop songs and MVs are really well-made, and usually have incredibly memorable and/or complicated choreography to go with them when being performed on various weekly TV showcases and other events in Korea. I have been listening to Kpop for over 6 years now and to be honest, I think the whole thing is still quite impressive.

Impressive, but unknown to most North-Americans, until “Gangnam Style” suddenly started to spread like a virus.

I actually heard the song before it grew big, and I did not really like nor dislike it. I mean, no offense, the song is catchy, the MV is hilarious, and Psy is one of the best soloists in Korea (and in the world now), but hearing it played on the radio (and over the PA in our school) every day, kind of annoys me. It is great that Korean music is starting to be accepted and apparently, loved by North Americans, but “Gangnam Style” in my opinion, is not really representative of the main-stream Kpop. Psy is not the first Korean artist who tries to poke the North American market. Wonder Girls (a female Korean band under JYP Entertainment), and longer back then, BoA (a female Korean soloist, often referred to as the Queen of Kpop, under SM Entertainment) have both tried and failed, compared to the amount of attention Psy is getting right now. The reason being, and this is based on a lot of feedback I have seen on Youtube and other sites, is that “Gangnam Style” has a very similar sound to typical main-stream North American music, such as “Party Rock Anthem” by LMFAO, which other Kpop idols who have been trying to poke the North American market lack. However, although the similarity helps it gain so much attention and popularity, it still installs a false impression in people’s mind about Kpop, that Kpop is just the same as American pop, which actually turns it into a disadvantage.

There is a video called Teens React to Gangnam Style, and notice that some people said in the video that they would not listen to more Kpop, either because it sounds just like other North American pop songs, or “it is just a one time thing”. No, almost everything about Kpop is so different from North American pop: from the auditioning process, to the hardcore training, and even the types of talents demonstrated by the artists. For example, Justin Bieber became famous because of “Baby” on Youtube, which showcases his vocal, guitar and composing skills. Cool, what a talented kid. Then, he started to dance. I thought to myself, he is actually improving himself to become more talented than he already is, which is nice, but why is everyone and the media so all over it? Well, obviously, it is because he is young, and thus cute, and talented in both singing AND dancing, which is so rare in North America that people are absolutely blown away by the killer combination. However, if you look at Kpop, more than 90% of the idols are just like Justin Bieber, if not better, than him at singing and dancing. No offense, but seriously, a large percentage of these idols are like dancing machines, and the rest of them sing amazingly with an incredibly wide voice range, or are awesome rappers. Some are all of the above. They are so underrated compared to Bieber, just because of the highly competitive market they are in. And Gangnam Style definitely cannot represent all of them, but sadly, because of the sudden popularity and the lack of exposure to other main-stram Kpop music, most North-Americans do not realize this fact, and thus are cut off from a whole world of the wonderful genre of Kpop.

At the end of day, what kind of music to listen to is one’s own choice to make. For me, LMFAO does good music in terms of catchiness and dance-along-bility (is that even a word? lol), Bieber does some good music as well, so does Psy and all the other K-pop, J-pop, C-pop, X-pop artists we do not know about yet. I believe that every artist of every genre makes music that is valuable in its own way, and cannot be overshadowed by the “biggie”. I hope after reading this very long blog, you will have a better understanding of how different music can be even within one language or genre, and be more open-minded about it, with Kpop as an example. Here I would like to share with you some of my favorite Kpop songs and movies. What kind of music is your favorite? =D

(Sources of the picture are from google, photoshoped by me)