K-pop

Kpop is something that's caught my attention recently. Kpop, which I'd never heard of before this semester, is a genre of completely over the top korean pop music, heavily electronic and influenced by R&B. Extremely sugary, bubblegummy music by teen idol bands of young attractive women or men. What I find so interesting about it is that is seems like a cultural product of globalization. While it is uniquely Korean, it is a heavy export to the pacific rim and is attempting to make inroads in the US and UK. The  producers of the music run everything, from the production of teen idol signers to songwriting to marketing. Everything is totally in-house. It's like the Monkees, but no one really cares if the performers are actually playing their instruments. One production company actually keeps a staff of primarily British and Scandinavian songwriters, and often, the same song will be recorded in Korean, Japanese, and Chinese as the bands have presence in each of those countries.

There's a huge commercial aspect as well. The producers of one band, Girl's Generation, made a song for LG celebrating the release of a new phone. The video shows them smiling and dancing around with the phone. That song went to the #1 spot on Korean charts.

I think that what gets a lot of airplay in the US is for the most part overproduced and probably part of the marketing strategy for one company or another (luxury cars in rap tunes, every iPod commercial ever made), but I don't think we're quite at the point where the main point of the song is to sell something. Also, its very likely that major brand companies don't want to come in too heavily. If they have a popular singer sing about their brand or product, there is a risk that the artist will be perceived as selling out, and the that company somehow corrupted them. I get the impression that because the K-pop groups are so manufactured and created, people don't really care if they're selling something.