Nobody who ever accused KPop of appropriation was wrong. The only Korean music I have heard that is without some sort of western influence or appropriation is the truly old stuff from before they had much contact. With some genres at least, like Trot, they were putting their own unique spin on disco and such. But once you get to Seo Taiji, that’s the end of it.
Then again, if you only look at the very recent history of KPop, like since the 3rd generation, it’s kind of hard to criticize the KPop industry for the appropriation of the music styles. The reason for that is many many of the songs aren’t from Korean songwriters. Both KPop examples you linked Seven and Super Shy have western composers and songwriters, other than maybe some lyricists.
I don’t know if hiring counts as appropriation or not.
It’s not a grey area, it’s a world of grey at this point.
That’s why I say, “feels like appropriation” rather than an outright accusation. It’s like trying to speak Latin. Sure you could try to teach yourself to speak it, but is that really what it sounded like back when it was spoken? Who can say.
Well in the case of UK Garage, I can
Even if the producers are responsible for resurrecting this genre, it’s completely wild to me that it should spring to life in such a fashion.
UK Garage died when it became ‘mainstream’, as it’s origins were pirate radio DJs. As pirate radio stations were killed off, so was the genre.
The genre itself evolved in two separate directions. Funky House, which was also short lived; and what may be more known, Grime (now Drill).
It just feels weird to hear in the year 2023! I just want to know who’s responsible for resurrecting this corpse. I just want to talk.
The latest episode of M Countdown was a special in Paris. PSY was there and performed a 15-minute 3-song concert.
I wish he would do a full concert somewhere I can reach, geographically speaking. I’m not paying out hundreds of dollars just for 3 songs, no matter how hype it is. But dang, he really makes the most of those 15 minutes. His dance crew never disappoints either. They give it everything.
After a year, Red Velvet is back. It’s their third full album with 10 tracks. The second album was forever ago in 2017.
The title track is Chill Kill. It’s not too bad. There’s a very strong juxtaposition of the lyrics and music video imagery with the tone of the song. They’ve always liked to talk about how they have some songs that are Red style and some that are Velvet style. This sort of tries to be both at once.
But what’s even more exciting than that. Because they’re back with a full album, they also have a full promotional schedule. That means plenty of new opportunities to take your ears on a luxury YouTube vacation. Thanks Wendy.
That last video is really great - I love hearing striped down acoustic versions of songs. I really liked AKMU on killing voice that you posted a while ago too. I’m not against the full music videos, but I’m here for this version all day!
Dingo Killing Voice is a great lesson to all the television and Internet video creators out there. A lot of people trying to overthink things and come up with wild ideas to get views.
Dingo is like hey. What if we get singers, and we have them sing. Nothing else. Just singing. Have a person do the thing they are good at. The end. Nothing else.
Of course the viewcounts vary based on the popularity of the artist, but they are overall very high. IU obviously has the most views with 60 million, but even the less popular artists have a few hundred K.
It’s basically the Tiny Desk of KPop. There is an attempt to make an actual Korean Tiny Desk, but it’s still pretty new.
There hare been announcements before about KPop exporting not just its product, but its system. But even when JYP formed VCHA, it’s a group that exists in Korea.
This is the strongest move we’ve seen yet. Form a UK group with UK members for the UK, and maybe also Korean and the US. The UK has a pretty strong history of boy bands, so this has serious potential.
Jung Kook is one of the members of BTS who has not yet started mandatory military service. I’m sure he’ll be going soon. Mark your calendar, 2025 is when BTS will be all together again.
But in the meantime, why not release a solo song and rake in some cash?
This stage is wild. Such a high production value for a one-off weekly music show performance. He’s got the pyrotechnics on basically the whole time. It’s also interesting that the choreography is heavily Michael Jackson influenced. He’s even wearing one glove. The main beat of the song is just “Good Times” by Chic with a few notes removed. I’d love to hear both songs together. Maybe throw in some Rapper’s Delight as well.
YG’s long hyped, delayed, anticipated, and, by some, dreaded new group debuted a couple weeks ago.
As far as I can tell, it’s just a newer, younger, BLACKPINK with 6 members. I guess stick with what works, and it’s working. Their debut MV has reached the mark of 100M+ YouTube views faster than any KPop group debut music video ever.
So far I am not a fan.
The song is not bad, but it feels more like a BLACKPINK B-Side. BLACKPINK’s debut tracks “Whistle” and “Boombayah” are bangers that still hold up today. Whistle in particular had an incredible music video that really stands out. The Batter Up music video looks like every other KPop music video. No originality or sense of having their own identity.
And really the worst part, which can’t be repeated often enough. The youngest member of this new group is 14 years old. Born in 2009. The child labor laws prevent them from working too much. For example they aren’t allowed to work after a certain time at night. But it’s still an extremely situation for reasons I hope are obvious.
BLACKPINK earns the highest-grossing concert by a vocal group in history, with $11.429 million at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on August 18, 2023 as part of the “Born Pink Tour”.
You would think it would be Taylor Swift, but no. Taylor Swift charges too low a ticket price for her concerts, and a lot of money goes to scalpers.
The KPop groups charge the high prices right on the face value. A lot of groups can’t sell enough tickets when they do that. But the big groups still sell out the stadium, and this is the result. $11+ million in one show.
When BTS comes back and they have a concert where face value of the tickets are $1k+, they’ll probably break this record.
There is some really really funny shit going down with G-Dragon.
If you forgot, he was the leader and most famous/popular member of BIGBANG. I like him, but in BIGBANG I like Taeyang and Daesung more.
Here is my favorite GD track, which is actually him and Taeyang together. Pretty sure I’ve posted it before in the distant past.
So what’s all the drama that’s new?
GD has always been sort of a bad boy of KPop. What had he actually done that’s bad? Very little that anyone had real evidence of. He just had that kind of attitude and personality that makes him seem like a bad dude. He’s also somewhat mysterious and quiet, which creates lots of space for rumors to flourish. Also, other people who were near him were bad, or bad-ish. Especially his boss YG.
BIGBANG has been basically done for for quite awhile now. But because of contracts and all that the members were still tied to the company and such. It’s taken a long time for them to shake loose and start being active in the industry again. At least, those who want to be active.
Just recently the cops announce this big investigation into GD on suspicion of drug use. It’s fucked up, but in Korea that’s a much more serious crime than it is here. Getting caught even with just some weed there is a super serious crime still. Of course, people believe this because you can’t imagine a world where GD doesn’t do drugs. An ultra famous music industry bad boy who is totally clean, no way!
Well, whether he does drugs or not is uncertain, but the cops had no evidence. They gave up their investigation. WTF? That’s gotta be pretty embarrassing, and it’s a whole fiasco. Was there some corruption going on in either direction? We’ll likely never know.
Right after that, GD finally officially leaves YG after all these years and joins a new company. Is the timing of this somehow related to the timing of the drug accusations? Who knows, but it’s fishy AF.
And the final cherry on top of the whole situation. GD announced he is starting a foundation to help fight drug addiction.
This is some interesting data, but it largely confirms what we already knew. A few groups are really popular, and there’s a long tail. BTS is still the only boy group that isn’t in the long tail. The girl groups, when added together, really make the music that gets the most listens.
Been peripherally following some K-Pop stuff as they hit more widespread awareness in the West, and I have a few questions to ask any of y’all who might be more familiar with the topic:
Is NewJeans considered the #1 popular global K-Pop group nowadays, even over bands like BTS and Blackpink? I hear “SuperShy” on the radio all the time, and it just seems like a total snooze-fest of a song.
So BabyMonster is from the same company as Blackpink, right? To my non-trained ears, it almost sounds like they’re intentionally recreating the Blackpink sound, but it doesn’t seem as organically “good”. How common is this in the K-Pop industry?
On the Riot/League of Legends side of things, how popular was K/DA back when they released their songs? K/DA was actually what got a lot of my friends/colleagues into K-Pop proper, and I know they worked with bands like TWICE and G-IDLE, so I’m wondering where that whole endeavor hit with the wider K-Pop audience.
NewJeans is indeed huge right now. It’s not entirely clear whether they are truly the biggest right now or ever. It depends what you count, and how you count it. Don’t underestimate BTS. They seem not so big right now because many members are in the military. In June 2025 the final member will be done with their service, and they will come back BIG.
I also agree that I don’t understand the appeal of the sound of New Jeans and other current groups. I was into the KPop sounds of the 2nd and 3rd generations mostly. They had lots of catchy pop hooks, EDM bangers, theatrical productions, etc.
This is very common. The KPop idols, especially young and new ones, have little to no creative input. They are performers. They practice singing, dancing, acting, etc. and they perform what they are given to perform.
Some companies try to come up with different themes and concepts for different groups they produce. Others just keep doing similar things repeatedly with newer and younger talent after the older ones have their contracts expire.
When BLACKPINK came out, people said “Isn’t this just younger 2NE1?” 2NE1 was the first girl group from YG. BLACKPINK was the second.
Even when companies give different groups different concepts, there are still commonalities in the dance and vocal styles because the training program shares the same philosophy. It’s the same as how martial artists will have similarities if they are from the same dojo. There are lots of YouTube videos closely examining this. Here’s just one example:
K/DA was just a short-lived promotional group. To avoid beating around the bush, it was an advertisement. KPop makes most of its money on ticket sales, but the second source is advertising. You make an idol into a famous person, and then they can get the same kind of product endorsement deals that famous athletes get.
They didn’t “work with” bands like TWICE and G-IDLE. Riot created 4 digital characters, similar to groups like Gorillaz. They then hired voice actors to speak and sing as those characters. Some of those singers were KPop idols, mostly two members of G-IDLE.
It was popular when it came out, because the one song was pretty good. Then it faded because they didn’t deliver more hits and keep it going. It was an advertising campaign, and it ended.
situation for reasons I hope are obvious.
