K-Pop the Popular & popular Flashcards
Kugak – National Music
Korean music was dominated by traditional sounds from 1392-1897
Known as Kugak music (Lie 21
Westernization
At the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century Western
influences took effect.
After the war a new Westernized form of Korean music had
emerged.
Trot
Trot used a Western orchestra. Its presentation was generally decidedly urban and modern: trot singers and musicians often wore Western clothing.
The typical musician was an ethnic Korean trained in European classical music in Japan or had performed jazz and Western-inflected popular music during the colonial period (often in Japan or Manchuria) and had played for Americans in the post-Liberation period. (Lie 64)
Yi Mi-ja
1980s.1990s.
By the 1990s idol groups had emerged which copied Japanese and American groups.
With the major act being So Tae-Ji
Sŏ’s trio shattered many of the conventions that had governed South Korean popular music, decisively separating young people’s sonic world from that of their elders. (Lie 158)
Groups such as H.O.T and S.E.S
Created by Large Entertainment companies like SM Entertainment (1995), JYP Entertainment (1997), and YG Entertainment (1996).
Into K-pop – 2000s
Sŏ T’ae-ji wa Aidŭl disbanded in 1996, a mere four years after the group’s explosive debut, leaving behind a vast vacuum in the youth-music scene. This era also witnessed the introduction of the mp3 player and the slow decimation of the recorded-music industry. (Lie 158)
…a move away from bubblegum pop and toward a fusion of genres, with more sophisticated choreography and cinematography. By 2000, even H.O.T. and S.E.S. had shed their innocent, infantile presentation. (Lie 158)
Key point – THE VISUAL
At the same time, with the debut of YouTube and similar video-sharing websites in 2005…roughly coeval growth of social media as well as the nearly universal ownership of video-capable phones and other portable devices for the consumption of music videos, the visual aspect of popular music came to be prized as much as the aural. (Lie 170)
K-pop the sound
K-pop offers kinder, gentler versions of some of the more outré performers from the United States and elsewhere, but it also presents itself with a professional sheen. Once again, both elements—politeness and professionalism— are intended to appeal to a particular segment of the world music market. (Lie 197)
K-pop appropriates all the elements of urban American (often African American) sound, movement, and energy and tames—bleaches—them for popular consumption around the world.⁶⁷ (Lie 197)
Production of K-Pop
The K-pop formula relies on a particular mode of pro- duction. The incubation system dedicated to spawning K-pop stars is a contem- porary South Korean analogue of the famed Hollywood studio system…all music agencies recruit talent and train their stars to some extent, but the K-pop system is extremely comprehensive. (Lie 197)
K-pop Schools
SM Entertainment… 1 trainee for every 1,000 applicants (other agencies …1 acceptance for every 250 applicants).
Three classes of trainees: chunbisaeng (preparatory students),
yŏnsusaeng (practicing students), and “project group” members. Those at the preparatory stage may still be young enough to at- tend primary school, and their participation may be a casual extracurricular activity. (Lie 197)
Be- cause many of the yŏnsusaeng attend school, they can take part in training only in the afternoons, and they often end up returning home on the last train, around midnight.
They may spend up to twelve or more hours every day in group and individual lessons, in every sphere deemed necessary for K-pop stardom—singing, dancing, foreign languages, etiquette, and so on. (Lie 197)
300 000 USD per applicant (Lie 197)
Success in K-Pop
But an appreciation of K-pop… depends on the
momentary suspension of disbelief and the
willingness to enter into another world and sensibility.
(Lie 229)
Influence
Beyond Japan, K-pop has a significant following in the Chinese-language spheres as well as in Southeast Asia, especially Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. (Lie 213)
Global influence in the US especially the final (to date stage)
