The KPop
Industry
K
orean Pop Music, or K-pop as it is
most commonly known, is not just
a type of music that can be found
in the East, for its artists and fans
involved it is a culture, a way of
life. Think large groups of fresh-faced
teenyboppers, performing meticulously rehearsed dance routines all to the sounds of
bubblegum pop and power ballads to R&B
and Euro dance.
The leading girl and boy bands in K-pop, referred to as ‘idols’ have been seen to cause
complete hysteria within the media and
amongst their fans, turning a working industry
into a fanatic civilization across the whole of
South Korea.
Kpop as a music genre has taken its
inspiration for success from the rise of the
internationally known pop groups which
began in the mid 90’s. These included the
likes of The Spice Girls, NSYNC and No Doubt
releasing catchy pop songs with hugely
popular music videos, subsequently
generating hundreds of thousands of fans
worldwide. Within the Korean culture there is
a term named ‘Hallyu’ translated it means
The K-pop songs are written not only to appeal
to the South Korean fan bases but also to have
mass-global appeal. Therefore, like the songs
from Lady Gaga and alike K-pop tracks are
not inhibited by Korea’s socially conservative
culture and beliefs. The songwriters are also
often Korean Americans who have travelled to
Korea from the West to conquer the K-pop
industry. They understand Western society and
help Eastern and Western music tastes
conform in order to produce multi-million dollar
tracks to propel K-Pop stars into global
recognition.
The idols have highly over active
Twitter accounts and their management groups
control fan pages that are available in a multiple of languages.
These videos are highly promoted on the
website, they are some of the most watched
videos to date and help catapult Korean
stars into international limelight. PSY is a
typical example with his first worldwide
single ‘Gangnam Style’ that now has over
1 billion hits on YouTube.
This increased rate of social networking
and digital distribution of K-pop related
videos have aided the rapid expanse of
K-pop beyond Korea and into the far West.
Some of the most successful groups today
beginning their global expansion are girl
groups, Girl’s Generation and 2NE1
(pronounced twenty one) and boy bands,
SHINee (shiny) and TVXQ
Boy band group SHINee
(Tong Vfang Xien Qi), translating to
‘The Risising Gods of the East’.
’.
THEtheKOREAN WAVEand inThis is
export of all things cultural
‘
cludes film, television dramas, historical
culture, celebrities and of course
K-pop, its now most profitable export. K-pop’s
international growth is down to its strong
desire to globalize and its music industries’
embrace of social media and the video site
YouTube.
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K-pop star PSY
The K-pop industry has also reduced the
usually lengthy time period that fans have to
wait to see their favourite bands new music
video and in most cases upload them to
directly to YouTube.
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