Part 2.
(pre-script: I spent an entirely useless Saturday in my room, save for the 2 occasions on which I left to get life-sustaining food. I also realized what an unhealthy dependence I have on the internet, seeing as the internet in my goshitel was down for about 2-3 hours and I spent most of those 2-3 hours sitting around waiting for it to come back on. But seeing as today was the first day I've relaxed in a while, and will be the last one in which I can for at least a week - I am going to on a 5-day-long Korean cultural trip starting Monday morning - I don't feel much guilt in still wearing my glasses and PJs.)
So the title for this post is an unlikely one, and it sounds creepy, but you can probably guess what I'm planning to talk about. And that is:
2) Korean Pop and its ridiculous place in Korean youth culture
FANGIRLING! Okay, none of that.
I hate pop music in the States. Of course I liked it when I was younger, because everyone did and isn't that what you're supposed to do in middle school? I was, as I recall, obsessed with *NSYNC, particularly that one guy that turned out to be gay. But I can't stand pop anymore, at least not for listening pleasure (it's fine for dances, parties, etc.). When I'm driving, I plug my iPod into the adapter my brother thankfully bought for the car we share and listen to what my friends classify as the Worst Playlist Ever (copious amounts of Vanessa Carlton and Michelle Branch, plus assorted other artists). Very, very few (if any) of the American artists I listen to do not write or play their own music. That they have a part in the production, the writing of raw, meaningful lyrics and expressive trills on their instrument of choice, has always been really important to me. Maybe it's because I'm a (psuedo)musician, having played the piano since I was 7 and dabbled in some pretty terrible amateur music/lyrics composition; I don't know. But since I was about 14, I left pop music to its rightful place at the annual Crushes and Chaperones dance. Ironically, that's probably my favorite dance all year at Yale. Anyway.
Now, why might I like pop music in Korea? Why do I get ridiculously excited when a song that I know blasts from the speakers in front of Nature Republic (yet another makeup store)? Why does everyone I know want to smack me, because inevitably I start singing along and (if I've seen the music video enough times) mimicking the dance steps?
Okay, I give up, too. I don't know.
I actually think that originally, it had something to do with a combination of comraderie and a challenge. K-pop was actually one of the things that brought me and Hayeon close as we shared a hallway in sophomore year. The thousands of times we listened to Super Junior's "Don't Don," screaming out the rap in the middle, are memories that I will probably always remember (to this day, "Don't Don" is still the most-played song in my iTunes library, despite the fact that I've not heard it in quite awhile). So whether she wants it or not, Hayeon naturally has a part in my love for this terrible music.
The second part, as I mentioned, was the challenge. Anyone who knows me knows that I have kind of an absurd (and selective) memory. I can rattle off lyrics to a song I've heard less than 5 times if I think it's good, but I can't remember the spelling of the word for "to progress" in Korean. The first time that I heard Korean pop was a full year before I decided to start taking Korean, but even then, it was a puzzle. For some reason, I really wanted to remember the words, sing them, and pronounce them sort of correctly. I don't know why. But I did, and I learned every last word to "Don't Don." To my credit, I know more of the song than Hayeon ever did, and if we ever sing Korean pop together, usually I am the one supplying the lyrics. Sorry, Hay Hay :)
I guess a third part - one that I'd rather not admit - is that these songs are incredibly catchy and I truly just like listening to them. Plus, due to the fact that most of the lyrics remain outside of the realm of my understanding, I remain oblivious to how trite and stupid they probably are and therefore can't shred their songs the way I have shredded Avril Lavigne's or The Veronicas'. I have seen translations for some of the songs, and it's true that the songs are totally ridiculous and simplistic. But they're SO CATCHY that I am willing to overlook it. How do they do that?
These days, everyone and their mother makes fun of me for being addicted to K-pop, but I have to say that I have learned a lot from listening to these songs, and nearly everyone compliments my pronunciation, so those wasted hours must have paid off in some way. Besides, it is certainly not the first time that I have liked something that is practically universally acknowledged to be terrible (anyone remember Big Brother? But enough said about that).
Anyway. Aside from those sparkling personal insights, I'd like to try to offer an explanation of K-pop music culture here in Korea, because if you come here, you can't really avoid it.
Some background information: K-pop is basically a hugely profitable business in Korea. I think something like two major music labels govern 90% of the music produced, one of which I know is called SM Town. A company like SM Town exists to make money, and it makes money by handpicking artists and building groups specifically designed to appeal to the Korean young public. I can't think of any Korean artists on the pop scene right now who were not scouted by the label as kids/young teenagers, put into training, and later placed into a group or developed as a solo act. You follow? Two examples are SNSD and Super Junior. All of their members were trainees under the SM Town label prior the debut of these two groups. At some point or another, SM Town decided to create a male pop group and picked 13 male trainees to fill it; at another point in time, they decided to create a female pop group and selected 9 female trainees to fill it. Another two years in group training follow, and voila: a group is born, and sickly sweet pop songs are written by outside artists, sold to SM Town, and turned into megahits when performed on stage to ridiculous choreography by idealized and idolized young men and women.
Now, this formula has not failed to produce SM Town a lot of green, I'm sure. But a lot of money does not a good musician make. Some obvious problems with the system:
- A lot of the "artists" scouted by SM Town are essentially talentless people with exceptional features. One of my biggest problems with Korean pop is that the artists are so TERRIBLE. In each group (depending on the size) the number of singers with any marginal ability is always totally dwarfed by those who can't seem to even stay on pitch. Harmonizing is virtually non-existent or left to the few with any sort of singing capability, as is ad-libbing. Whenever a new pop song comes out, the first thing I do is look for a live performance of it, to find out just how much it had to be doctored in the studio before it even made for an acceptably-recorded track. Funnily enough, it's usually the most attractive members of the group that can't carry a tune in a bucket. If you're curious, here's an example (SNSD's live performance of "Him Nae") - watch from 0:21-0:26 to see Yoona, the one considered to be the prettiest in the group, "sing." The first time I heard it, I think I visibly cringed. If you watch the whole performance, it becomes evident that about 3 of the 9 are talented singers, and the rest are just eye candy/backup dancers/jail bait. What's really hilarious is that the 3 talented ones get less camera-time than any of the others. The newest live performance of their latest song "Genie" (oh, BTW - the title of this post is the Korean title of this song, did I mention that?) has the camera focused on Yoona during the end, where the lead vocalist is doin' her thang and ad-libbing. INJUSTICE. All I can think is that a good two-thirds of this group wouldn't have even made it past round one of American Idol. In fact, Simon Cowell would have rightly laughed in their faces and told them to go try modeling or something. Oh, and did I mention that a number of their live performances are totally lip-synced? I mean, even in the ones in which they DO sing, the backing track usually contains at least the song's refrain so that they don't have to sing and can just focus on those fabulous dance steps.
- Almost all of the songs are similar-sounding and devoid of any real meaning. I touched upon this before, but seriously. The songs fit into neat genres: pop-rock, bubble-gum pop, oversweetened ballads and lame attempts at R&B that wind up sugared over by high-pitched vocals and poppy music videos. None of them have any soul, and few of the singers sing with any sort of emotion or feeling. In Korea, pop stars are praised for how long their "catchy" tune manages to stay atop the charts, and it seems that nobody questions the quality of the actual performance. It's all about appeal. If your song is being listened to by thousands of screaming fangirls and played in department stores, makeup shops, and restaurants, then you win! It doesn't matter how much it sucks, or how little it means, or how similar it sounds to the last song you produced. It doesn't matter that it was totally manufactured to sell money and not written as a piece of artistic expression that tells a story deep from within the musician's soul (a la Vanessa Carlton's "White Houses," or any of her songs, really). It doesn't matter that it's being sung by 19-year-olds who've barely graduated high school and who sound worse live than you and your drunk friends at a noraebang at 3:00 AM. The point is, these people are famous, the songs are famous, SM Town makes mad bank and everyone is happy.
The problem with K-pop, therefore, is that it's so bad, it's good. And it's so good that nobody cares that it's bad.
But here's the thing: if you come to Korea, you can decide to vehemently hate K-pop, to refuse to listen to it, to roll your eyes when you hear it played or to hit your friends when they start to sing it (ahem). But if you do that, you're going to miss out on a huge, huge chunk of Korean pop culture that, despite its total terribleness, is actually a lot of fun. Korean youth puts so much energy into being dedicated fans of these pop stars (actually, in Korea, there exists a phenomenon known as the "anti-fan," a completely ridiculous concept in which you devote all of your energy to HATING pop stars and create websites and blogs basically designed to shit all over everything they do, which seems like a big fat waste of time, but no one asked me) that you kind of have to hand it to them. The system they created is by no means a musical masterpiece, but people are happy with it and it's easy enough to get into without a great deal of mental exertion. So take a look and a listen, then become a screaming fangirl who spends hours Youtubing clips and making hundreds of LiveJournal icons showcasing how cute and pretty these people are. Not that that's me, of course.
(some post-scripts:
1. I realize that I've talked an inordinate amount about SNSD, but it's actually not my fault that they happen to so perfectly illustrate adherence to Korea's ridiculous standard of beauty as well as the total ineptitude of some of Korea's most famous female popstars.
2. Is anyone clicking the hyperlinks on this blog? Do you know how long it takes me to FIND these things? Is anyone watching these videos? Do any of you care? Hello? Hello?
3. Seriously, is anyone out there?)
If you read that all that, congratulations. I'm so "Sorry, Sorry" for making you suffer through that. HAHAHA.
Jangmi out.
wow. umm... can I say that these last two posts are stuff I've thought about writing in my blog as well... and also observed today... while I was in Lotte World...?
ReplyDelete1. I think almost every girl we saw today had her eyes done.
2. They played SNSD's new song while we were at Bumper Cars.
also... that's how I got into Korean culture and part of the reason I decided I wanted to study Korean... Super Junior
Yep, clicked on the links and enjoyed them greatly! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteKorean music, including K-Pop, is one of the things that really saved me during my linguistic journeys in Korea. Last time I was in Korea for Light, I bought a K-pop compilation for my computer back in New Haven. =)
Hey, Spice Girls were huge. Why can't SNSD be?
Korean pop is soooo bad and they don't seem to realize it! Also it's derivative of the most middling American Pop, like Britney Spears, so it's a copy of stuff that was only good if you're a tween in the first place.(and a unsophisticated one at that, some of my friends were into the Doors then)Even young adults are into it, oblivious to the fact that it's only teenagers in the US that listen to the better version of it that we have. It's like thinking George Bush is a genius, where to you start to explain it to the person they are so off....
ReplyDeleteThe problem with K-pop, therefore, is that it's so bad, it's good. And it's so good that nobody cares that it's bad.
ReplyDeleteHi, I'm a Korean Yalie passing by and I dead-dropped while reading this post because this is probably the most accurate description of k-pop I've ever read. I know that the 2NE1's new single with its nonsense English-Korean hybrid lyrics and mindless auto-tune is the lowest common denominator of all possible cultural enterprises, but I still enjoy it precisely because it's so numbingly meaningless. It's fun. Period. It's horrendously bad. We know it. I can never understand why some feel compelled to sit people down and give them a good talk about how bad k-pop really is. They're equally vexing as the snobs who turn their nose upon Harry Potter and shove Pynchon or whatever book they feel is sophisticated enough to be appropriate. Um pop-culture, hello? No doubt k-pop is going through corporate propelled, saccharine, monotonous phase, and yes, musical diversity is probably suffering, but it's a phase. Japan went through this period about 10-20 years ago, and now they're in a place where independent music is more thriving and pop idols more scarce. (And of course SM town, being perspicacious as it is, is filling this gap by exporting SNSD etc. It's genius!) This phase will pass, so we might as well enjoy the glitzy glamor and pop-tart catch phrases while it lasts.
Sorry to have ranted, but I really enjoyed reading your blog today. It's so wonderfully written that I felt the vicarious pleasure of being in my silly, weird, but endearing mother country. I sincerely hope that Korea is treating you well and you're having a good time. Thanks for the good read!