By: Jing Yang, contributing intern (@jing5233) Last year, in Los Angeles, one Korean pop music group’s concert was rated as “Top 10 Best Selling Performances in the World”. The group is Big Bang, one of the most popular groups in Korea that has earned over $1.7 million dollars in one concert. Their success proved that Korean music is a “tsunami” to spread all over the world, especially Asian countries. K-Pop, which is short for South Korean pop, is a mixture of the eastern and western popular culture. Most of the artists are South Koreans and a few are from other Asian countries. Music styles are varied, covering a wide range of styles including dance-pop, pop ballad, electronic, rock, metal, hip-hop music and R&B. As an outsider of K-pop, I think the success of this kind of leisure entertainment can be owed to two significant elements. One is their factory-made training system, the other one is their government’s attention. The “interim artists” system can best represent a Korean factory-made training system. Before people are selected by Korean entertainment companies to become a formal member of a Korean music group or band, they need to obtain professional training. Synchronized and complicated choreography dancing is one of the biggest character of K-pop, and this dance mostly rely on day-and-night training. By worldwide recruitment, youngsters aged from 12 to 19 are recruited into the stars growing programs as “interim artist” to be trained in singing, dancing, and foreign languages. Most “idols” (the word they used to call these group members) we see today went through an average training of at least 5 years. Not everyone can be a K-pop star after training of course, those people who fail will leave the companies to find other jobs, or find other companies and become an “interim artist” again. Idols will be very professional, and always show their best performance on the stage. But the biggest trouble of this training system for me, is the lack of personality. And this issue is highly related to the second element—government’s attention to K-pop. The South Korean government pay high attention to K-pop, and deems it as the main method of spreading South Korean culture. K-pop is not only a kind of music style, it has already become a symbol of South Korea, a promising business. Cultural exports have been deemed as one of the most important component of the South Korea economy. It was even reported that in 2012, Primary of the South Korea Park Geun-hye came to the backstage to show support to the artists and this industry during a China and South Korean pop music concert. She even took many photos with K-pop stars. Every year, the Top 3 Management moguls: SM Entertainment, YG Entertainment, and JYP Entertainment will gain several hundred million KRW. High profit tells a truth that one certain kind of idol is the most popular and profitable, so with the support of government, large and small managements companies train and manufacture this kind of idol to make money. Manufacturing makes this culture become a symbol. It also deletes the difference between various K-pop groups and their members. K-pop has already made many people idolize their idols crazily. But what if one-day people start to get tired of these types of idols? What can they do to retain their fans? To ensure a further development, character and personality of every member in K-pop is significant.
