Which country had a more significant influence on Korean music industry, Japan or the US?

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In order to determine whether Japan or the US had greater impact on Korean music industry, we need to first get to know a little bit about the history of Korea. Korea was colonized by Japan during 1910-1948. Japan was strictly ruling this place for 38 years, result in affecting Korean culture, including music, and ‘recreating’ through Japanese lens. On the other hand, US troops were settled in South Korea to help fighting in the Korean War in 1950-1953. Although both countries had significant influence on Korean culture and music, I would argue that US had a more prominent and long-term affected on Korean music.

According to the research Ryu did about music development from 1920-2011, he mentioned about Korean music genres that was inspired by Japanese music genres during the colonial era. Examples are trot which was alike to enka and shinminyo was similar to folk songs. (Ryu, P.27, 2012) However, the trend of shinminyo started to diminish in the 1970s while trot remains popular today. Other than music, Japan was aimed to brainwashed and assimilate Korean’s culture by strict monitor such as censoring the songs with inappropriate lyrics.

Contrarily, AFKN (Armed Forces Korea Network) had been established along with the arrival of the American soldiers. AFKN is a radio broadcast station which played a lot of American music. With the exposure of American music, it had a significant influence on Korean music industry in a way on both music favours and music composition. Although the AFKN was originally aimed to help the American soldiers better adapted into a foreign living style, it had become one of the most important major entertainments to the Koreans as well, especially the college or universities students. In the 1957, the AFKN even added TV programmes which made American culture and music more tempting to the Korean. Besides, from the lecture video posted by Professor Cedar-Bough T. Saeji, she stated that there were American Military Base Shows that Korean performers were hired to perform in front of a mass of US soldiers (Saeji, 2019). In order to attract the audiences and get considerable income, performers had to choose the songs wisely according to the troops’ favours on music such as Jazz, country music, and Rock ‘n’ Roll to catch their eyes (Saeji, 2019). As a result of abundant exposure of American music and practice, American music style had gradually seeped and mixed with traditional Korean music.

In Ryu’s research, he also pointed out that modernity was a key point which made Japan became more advanced than Korea and being able to took over the land. (Ryu, P.8, 2012) This contributes into part of reason why the American music had a greater influence that America was believed to be a better developed and modern country. Therefore, listening to American music and even being to sing along can possibly create a ‘hallucination’ of being ‘upgraded’ and escape from the reality of hardship left by wars. Another reason is based on the sense of patriotism and anti-colonialism, Korean would undoubtedly favour the American and their culture whom came and assist in Korean War. Even today, we can still see similarities of Korean music’s style and the American music which portrays how the American music was fusing into the development of Korean music.

Tell me what you think 🙂

 

Bibliography:

Ryu, Donghyup. The Making of Modernity in South Korea: A Discourse Analysis of Jazz in the Mass Media from the 1920s to 2011 (2012). Journalism & Mass Communication Graduate Theses & Dissertations. 5. https://scholar.colorado.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=jour_gradetds. [PDF]

CB Saeji, “AFKN, the American Military, and Rock in Korea”. Vimeo video, 1:29: 24. May 21, 2018 https://vimeo.com/271137337

 

The Flourishing K-Pop

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K-Pop has stayed the same from the perspective of hybridity and transnationality. It has integrated elements from its trot-based melodies transformed from the Japanese enka, European electronic dance music, American contemporary R&B and hip pop (Lee 2013). Short and catchy English phrases, visual emphasis and trendy fashion styles are used in both eras. However, videos, performances and the systematic “idol-making” process are evolved due to advanced technology and the rapid-growing industry.

In the early 1990s, the “New Generation Dance Music”, which is influenced by the American rhythmic patterns such as rock, hip pop and dance music, had become mainstream (Lee 2013). Seo Taeji and Boys had greatly impacted the Korean music industry at that time with the release of their first song, “I Know”, which has rock elements, up beat rap verses and dance moves. In the late 1990s, the first generation of Hallyu idol groups such as H.O.T., Shinhwa, Sechs kies, G.O.D., S.E.S. and Fin.K.L. are all under agencies which hold auditions, provide training so as to perform well with kalgunmu (synchronized group dancing), set specific roles for each member and implement respective marketing plans (Lee, 2013).

In this time period, K-Pop idols promote their songs through TV broadcasting and the music videos often focus on close-ups on members’ faces while they are doing lip synchronization and featuring the group dancing scenes, drama scenes and sometimes the backstage scenes. There are a lot of hiteugok (hit songs) to illustrate this pattern, for example, Sechs kies’ “Couple”, H.O.T.’s “Candy”, S.E.S.’s “I’m Your Girl” and Shinhwa’s “Eusha Eusha” and G.O.D. ‘s “Gil” (Road). For the live performance, there were not many special settings but only lighting and for the idol groups, it is common that each member would step out and sing their own parts with freestyle moves while others would dance behind. Besides, ballads’ music videos are dramatized because melodramas and love ballads are connected with the same Korean sentiments, for example, Kim Gunmo’s “But I’m Sorry” and Jo Seongmo’s “To Heaven” (Jung 2011). We have seen many Original Soundtracks (OSTs) today to make audience attach emotions from the dramas and vice versa.

Over the years, the industry has become more mature and competitive. Building on singing and dancing, nowadays, idols are expected to be all-round artists which have skills on songwriting, playing musical instruments, and multimedia exposures. The upgraded technology makes the music videos and stages more refined, modern and attractive by using more editing effects, filters and computer-generated graphics. The agencies produce and package idols with more advertising through social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and most importantly, YouTube while fundamentally based on the conventional system (Jung 2015). It is not uncommon that multiple videos share a theme or a complete story is separated into multiple videos to arose fans’ interest to have more discussion about the plots, for example, EXO’s pre-debut teasers and BTS’s Hwayangyeonhwa series. Comparing to the 1990s, K-Pop groups today focus more on kalgunmu usually with a more complicated anmu dongseon and film in different backgrounds. For the live performance, rather than just singing in the front of the stage, they often sing while dancing with other member and the position does not have to be right at the centre. Therefore, they have less freestyle moves but more facial expressions such as giving wink and finger heart. Moreover, there are large screens behind showing specific animations to each song and the “comeback stage” features some fancy settings such as chandeliers.

Bibliography

Lee, Gyutag. De-Nationalization and Re-Nationalization of Culture: The Globalization of K-pop. Fairfax, VA: George Mason University, 2013.

Jung, Eunyoung. “The Place of Sentimental Song in Contemporary Korean Musical Life.” Korean Studies, Vol. 35 (2011): 71-92.

Jung, Eunyoung. “New Wave Formations: K-Pop Idols, Social Media and the Remarking of the Korean Wave.” In Hallyu 2.0: The Korean Wave in the Age of Social Medi, edited by Lee Sangjoon and Abé Markus Nornes. 73-89. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 2015.

Haeun Is More Than Just A K-pop Fan

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Making a dance cover is a popular way of K-pop fans expressing their love to the K-pop idols. However, Na Haeun, as a great kids K-pop dancer, is not only posting her dance cover videos on YouTube, but she is also attempting to have a closer connection with K-pop industry. I think having some experience like Haeun does is a dream of some K-pop fans because she is highly involved in the K-pop industry, but being a impressive K-pop fan like Haeun needs a great amount of efforts and opportunities.

Awesome Haeun, as a “professional” K-pop related Channel, is actually support by her parents and agency company. Awesome Haeun is not only based on the efforts and passion of Haeun to practice for those dance cover video, but also a composition of her company’s investment and her parents’ management. Not many fans can do their dance cover in a professional studio, while Haeun does. This is just because an agency company has chosen her and willing to help her access to the resources she needs. This opportunity also help her to get closer to the internal K-pop industry.

In additions, since Haeun is too young, the cultivation from her family is important. They are spending time with her on her dance cover like practicing and videoing and spending money on her training. I think Haeun is living like a kids idol trainee life style. Many parents in Korea do not allow heir children to do K-pop related activity “[because they] are aware that the cost of supporting their child’s dream of becoming a “Global K-pop star” is considerably high while the chances of success extremely slim,”(Ho Swee-Lin 2012,471), so it is surprised that Haeun’s parents are supporting her to do what she likes.

Haeun has over 350 thousand subscribers on her YouTube channel, and she is young. She represents the passion to K-pop from the young generation in Korean. I think this is the reason that Melon Music Awards invited her to introduce the nominees through dancing. “The Hallyu K-pop industry is clearly aware of the convergence of fan/consumer behavior that is rapidly shifting to being participatory through their daily social networking”( Jung Eun-Young 2015,83 ), which means the internal K-pop industry has already noticed the huge amount of fandom of the K-pop. This invitation is a signal that K-pop industry is trying to show that the participation and importance of young K-pop fan in this industry. They are not just audiences or fans of K-pop; they can be part of the K-pop if they want. This creates a great temtation for the young K-pop fans to enter K-pop industry. So, they can also have chances to be highly involved on K-pop like Haeun does, such as having collaborations with K-pop stars.

For most K-pop fans, involvement in K-pop will encourage her to keep loving K-pop. It is about the feeling of participating in one thing.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Eun-Young, Jung. “K-Pop Idols, Social Media, and the Remaking of the Korean Wave.” In Hallyu 2.0 The Korean Wave in the Age of Social Media, edited by Sangjoon Lee and Abe Mark Nornes. 73-89. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Pres, 2015.

Swee-Lin, Ho. “Fuel for South Korea’s ‘Global Dream Factory’: The Desires of Parents Whose Children Dream of Becoming K-pop Stars.” Korea Observer Vol.43, no.3 (2012): 471-502.

Cardia – My Journey of K-POP

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Hi this is Cardia and this is my first semester at UBC. I’m surprised that UBC offers such ‘relaxing’ course. I can still remember Rain was my first Korean idol because of the drama Full House. I re-watched it for more than 4 times and I was dreaming about him all the time. At that time, I was thinking about going to Korea so I saved up all my money. (But the plan failed…) I could listen to the OST over and over again that I would try to sing along the song and find the meaning of the lyrics. Rain has actually opened up the door of K-pop or I should say the whole South Korea and their culture.

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Time flied and Super Junior came into my world. My mind has blown up when I saw them ‘smiling at me’. My favourite song is Miracle from Super Junior and Lee Sung-Min is my favourite among the whole team. I keep looking for their shows and songs and watched them almost everyday, yes like everyday.

「miracle super junior」的圖片搜尋結果

Though I am not as a big fan as before but I am still very interested in K-pop culture and eager to learn in the following weeks!

Vinci – K-Pop: Learn and Enjoy!

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Hello, I am Vinci! I am happy to have Asia 327 Korean Popular Music in Context as my first course in UBC. Yes! I love K-Pop! I I’m from Hong Kong, and K-Pop is very popular in Hong Kong since I was in secondary school.

At first, I didn’t understand why there were so many people loving K-Pop, and I don’t want to know about K-pop because I thought it was a temporary thing. However, I changed my mind ocassionally. It was a special event for Christmas party in school, so me and my friends had to prepare a dance performance. My friends suggested to use a Korean song, which is T-ara’s Cry Cry.

圖像裡可能有3 個人(Me&friends)     「tara cry」的圖片搜尋結果(Tara)

After I watched their music video and dance, I thought Korean idols have good dance song, so I tried to know more about this group and other Korean idols. Then, I found myself really like Kpop, not only K-pop music, but also K-pop drama and variety show.

And now, with a big heart of K-pop, I am trying to learn more about Korea.

Ka Yu – My Journey of K-pop

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Hi, my name is Ka Yu and I have done my third-year studies in management at UBCO.

I started paying attention to K-pop since 2009 because of the Korean drama ‘Boys Over Flowers’. I was deeply attracted by Kim Hyungjoon and began listening to the music of SS501 as well as SHINee (they sang an OST called ‘Stand By Me’ for the drama).

 

Afterwards, I have watched a lot of reality shows such as ‘Hello Baby’ and become a fan of Girls’ Generation. Unfortunately, I only had one chance to watch their live performance before Jessica left the group

Besides, I became a fan of EXO since their debut and went to a few concerts in Hong Kong as I have financial capability. Sehun is my bias in EXO. His parts in most of the songs are only a few seconds and he is not talkative. However, I think it is his unique charisma that he makes an effort to perform his parts perfectly even sometimes it’s just the one sentence.

 

Like many others, I am not only following one particular idol group, but also K-pop in general so I also bought albums from other groups such as F.T.Island, BigBang, 2AM, 2PM, B.A.P, B1A4, VIXX, MBLAQ, Beast and Highlight as well. I believe that good music deserves recognition and people should buy physical albums instead of downloading from the Internet illegally. Moreover, I even went to BTS’s The Wings Tour in Hong Kong. To be honest, it is a bit weird as I feel like I don’t belong to the fandom but still, I enjoyed the concert.

 

 

Kehan-My Journey of K-pop

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Hello, my name is Kehan and I am a second-year commerce student. I first learnt about Korea by watching dramas, especially “Full House”, with my parents when I was in elementary school.

I never really gained the interest in K-pop until my cousin went to Singapore to live with me, so she is the one that brought me into the world of K-pop.  She introduced me to EXO and Bigbang, which were her favourites.

As I was exposed to more K-pop idols and artists, I finally joined the BTS fandom. Although I am not an early fan, I feel that I have found “the one”.

What I appreciate about BTS is their relationships with one another and also their attitude towards music. However, I think the BTS fandom is somewhat chaotic due to the tremendous number of solo stans, so I don’t really talk to other fans.

Wendy – My journey of K-POP

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Hi, my name is Wendy Luo, a current second year Sauder student from the University of British Columbia. 

Since I was still in Primary school, Korean musics already became a popular trend in China.  At that time, Super Junior is promoting one of their most popular song call ” sorry, sorry” . This is the first Korean-pop song I had ever listen to. After watching their music video, I was totally fascinated by the performance of the Super Junior’s members and their talented. This has became the beginning point of my k-pop journey.

Due to the influence of Super Junior, I started to pay attention to all the k-pop groups under the SM Entertainment. At 2012, there is a new boys group called EXO has debuted. I was totally attracted by this new group, especially the Chinese member, LuHan.He was very talented and has very gentle personality, as well as he is good-looking . Start from then,  I has purchased every music records of EXO and watch almost of their performance. Gradually, I has deep understanding to the Kpop music industry, I also keep updating the most recent news of Kpop in order to follow up with the fast changing Korean music industry .

Every time, when I was upset about something, listen to Kpop music always is one of most useful method for me to cheer up.

Jasmine – My Journey of K-pop

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Hi, my name is Jasmine, a second year student from the faculty of Commerce.

When I was in elementary school, I already watched a large number of Korean dramas. However, “Dream High” was the first drama that brought me with positive energy and was full of youth and rigour. I was then deeply attracted by Wooyoung (bias in 2PM) and Taecyeon from 2PM. I started to listen to every single song from 2PM and get social media accounts so that I wouldn’t miss any updates from them.

Because of 2PM, I started to love the entire “JYP Nation.” At that time, JYP, Wonder Girls, Miss A, 2PM and 2AM were just as close as a big family (unlike the awkward relationship among GOT7, Twice and Stray Kids today). The first official concert I went to was JYP Nation in Hong Kong, which impressed me a lot.

With the debut of GOT7, 2PM was less active on screen. I gradually shifted my focus towards this new group.

As I grew older and became more independent, the number of concerts and events I went for GOT7 increases every year. It is a very different experience seeing favourite idols in person from what I experienced with following 2PM before. Nevertheless, fandom also becomes much more complex with the new generation of idols.

 

No matter how the fandom transforms and how the K-pop atmosphere becomes, I hope that the idols I love can always keep their original hearts toward their dreams.