personally I think a lot of successful kpop girl groups have been marketed using sexuality. It might be harder to pick up because of culture difference, possibly?
ex) SNSD isn't like Rania but their concept/image can get pretty sexual, SM is just very good at balancing the line between innocent girlish vibes and mature sex appeal. [which is a market strategy that clearly has been very successful lol] Their 'oh' concept seemed pretty innocent, but if you take note of how much skin their outfits showed, SM also had the male audience clearly in mind.
Definitely. I think they're adapted their idea of what is most sexually appealing into these girl groups to fit the tastes of East Asia (and even Southeast Asia) better. There's still a bit of that "cute" image going on because the audience enjoys that. It's actually a bit disturbing because it's these young girls are being sexualised at sixteen when they're still probably coming to terms with their own sexuality and identities.
Girl groups ... kinda express sexuality, but they're never able to go FULL OUT or stick with it for long. I wish they were able to be sexy without having to revert back to to horrifyingly cute the next single or whatever (e.g. Oh! after Genie). Heck, I wish girl groups didn't have to choose between cute and sexy altogether. Vintage SNSD is mind-bogglingly different from SNSD now - sure, the girls had those teeny little skirts in Into The New World, but they were also doing some hardass dance moves, and the video for it was insanely empowering for a young girl. Same with the Girls' Generation video.
Plus, a lot of girl groups who "do" sexy are practically fetuses, or too young for it to come off as genuine. I mean, even in Rania, there are two sixteen-year-olds, are they comfortable with their image? Maybe the reason I enjoy Abracadabra so much is because I know Brown Eyed Girls are full-grown women who seem VERY comfortable with their sexuality, and even if the song/video was company-orchestrated, they exude enough maturity and experience that I can actually believe they're able to take that sexy concept and make it their own. The fact that most girl groups are really quite young, imo, hinders them a lot.
I get where you're coming from but I think that they're usually not blantantly sexy and that's the thing. They use a much more subtle brand of sexiness that I think is easy to bypass if you're not looking for it but which is packaged in a particular way that it will grab the attention of the male audience.
seriously kpop is so big rn its crazy. maybe its just where I am but everyone I know IRL knows a little something about kpop. Quite a few keep up with groups and download new music and stuff and even the ones that don't still know Wedding Dress and Nobody and Abracadabra and Gee.
Even when jpop was at its height in the early-mid 2000s, I didn't see the same mainstream proliferation...I think the advent of Youtube, twitter and tumblr helped a lot.
same for me. it's always weird when i talk with my friends who live in different areas and they're like "what do you mean nobody at your school knows about kpop?" and i'm shocked that so many people around them actually do know...haha.
Same here, and I only have five friends that are familiar with KPop. The others ignore me when I bring it up ;; On the other hand, my best friend in Canada goes to an all-Asian school (actually, practically all-Chinese) and...yeah.
martina and her husband simon were recently at some jeju island k-pop concert where they inverviewed and met with a bunch of k-pop idols, they're hardly random lol
I first realized that K-pop was taking over the world when, during a five hour layover in Seoul, I saw that the airport was a trending topic on Twitter. Was there a bombing? A plane crash? No, something much more important: a K-pop singer had been spotted at one of the terminals. In the six months that I've spent traveling through Asia and living in Tokyo, I've encountered a diverse array of cultures and customs. Yet from a hole-in-the-wall pho restaurant in Hanoi to a local bus on route to Siem Reap to the famous Shibuya crosswalk in Tokyo, the soundtrack blasting over loudspeakers and on TVs has always been the same: K-pop — that is, Korean pop — with it's catchy dance beats and Korean lyrics. Now, with Kanye West making a cameo on a track by boyband JYJ and Wonder Girls cracking the Billboard charts and touring with the Jonas Brothers, could the U.S. be the next country to fall for K-pop's charms? To understand the phenomenon, you need to go all the way back to Michael Jackson, at least according to Ben Richardson, general manager for MTV Korea. “If you look at the regional history of pop, Western pop was dominant in the '80s and '90s, then J-pop came through, and I think Korean music leaned a lesson from [that] and they refined it and improved upon it,” he says. Although K-pop has been around for more than a decade, its popularity has only exploded in countries around Asia in the past two years. Now, there's usually at least one K-pop music video among the most popular on Youtube at any given time (Girl's Generation's video for “Gee” has racked up more than 40 million views), singles dominate the charts in countries as diverse as Japan and Malaysia, and concerts sell out almost instantly, as I learned while trying to track down tickets for Big Bang's Japanese tour this past spring (for research, I swear!). The genre's success is in part due to this refinement; just as Lady Gaga borrows liberally from the likes of Madonna and Grace Jones, K-pop takes what works and turns it into a formula. Three major labels— S.M. Entertainment, YG Entertainment and JYP Entertainment— dominate the airwaves, putting bands through intensive regimens before packaging them up for consumption. “K-pop— its hit factories and major agencies— remind me a lot of Motown,” says Richardson, “Groups here are taken in at a very young age and taught style and dance and language. It's unashamedly pop and it's really focused on being successful. There's no notion of selling out.” Such strict recruiting has resulted in some very good looking bands. Unlike J-pop bands, who trade on looking cute, K-pop bands— particularly girl groups, like 2NE1 and Girl's Generation— express a form of sexuality that is not commonly permitted for many teen girls in Korea and other Asian countries. “They're so focused on studying that they can't let out their sexuality. So they do that with K-pop,” says Martina Stanski, a Canadian who lives in South Korea and runs the Korean culture blog Eat Your Kimchi with her husband. Much as the Spice Girls were a watered-down version of girl power in the '90s, K-pop bands give a sense of empowerment to its millions of (predominantly female) teenage listeners while still be acceptable to their parents. That's helped with it's export power, as well. “Compared to American styles, K-pop is somehow suitable for Vietnamese people,” says Vu Ha Kim Vy, a reporter who has written about K-pop's far reaching influence in the Southeast Asian country. John Thornton, the deputy editor of Ho Chi Minh City— based magazine The Word, agrees: “Amazingly, K-pop boy bands are 10 times more popular here than Justin Bieber.”
But while management and sex appeal play a big part in band's success, it also comes down to the basic fact that the music gets stuck in your head. “Our songs are catchy!” says Min Sunye, a member of the Wonder Girls. “No matter where you are from, you can escape and enjoy our music.” That's exactly what they've done for their listeners. As Stanski says of K-pop, “It's so broad— hip-hop to dance to R&B— that eventually it hits something you like, even if you don't want to admit it.”
As the bands set their sights on making it big in America— an achievement Richardson dubs “the holy grail”— it could be the music's undeniable catchiness that shows K-pop to succeed where other international music movements have failed. “The level of performance is so real, so K-pop is closer to U.S. Pop [than J-pop],” says Misako Ogura, a Rag & Bone sales representative who's based in Japan. “Beyonce isn't adult music, but it's enjoyable because she's such a good performer.” Also on K-pop's side is social networking, which has already played a major part in the genre's popularity. Between Youtube, twitter, Myspace, and message board, the globalization of music is inevitable; it's easy to hear a new band, watch their videos, buy their music, translate their lyrics, and connect with other fans without ever visiting Korea. Notes Kim Yubin of Wonder Girls: “It's exciting to see how people who come from opposite sides of the globe can be so different, yet truly enjoy the same thing.”
Much as the Spice Girls were a watered-down version of girl power in the '90s, K-pop bands give a sense of empowerment to its millions of (predominantly female) teenage listeners
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 08:27 am (UTC)ex) SNSD isn't like Rania but their concept/image can get pretty sexual, SM is just very good at balancing the line between innocent girlish vibes and mature sex appeal. [which is a market strategy that clearly has been very successful lol] Their 'oh' concept seemed pretty innocent, but if you take note of how much skin their outfits showed, SM also had the male audience clearly in mind.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 12:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 09:18 am (UTC)Plus, a lot of girl groups who "do" sexy are practically fetuses, or too young for it to come off as genuine. I mean, even in Rania, there are two sixteen-year-olds, are they comfortable with their image? Maybe the reason I enjoy Abracadabra so much is because I know Brown Eyed Girls are full-grown women who seem VERY comfortable with their sexuality, and even if the song/video was company-orchestrated, they exude enough maturity and experience that I can actually believe they're able to take that sexy concept and make it their own. The fact that most girl groups are really quite young, imo, hinders them a lot.
And woop... a dissertation. Ack.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-30 12:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 08:23 am (UTC)Even when jpop was at its height in the early-mid 2000s, I didn't see the same mainstream proliferation...I think the advent of Youtube, twitter and tumblr helped a lot.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 02:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 07:09 pm (UTC)On the other hand, my best friend in Canada goes to an all-Asian school (actually, practically all-Chinese) and...yeah.
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Date: 2011-05-29 08:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 08:23 am (UTC)world stars~
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Date: 2011-05-29 08:39 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-05-29 08:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 08:25 am (UTC)I LOL
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Date: 2011-05-29 08:52 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-05-30 01:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 08:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 09:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 08:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 09:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 09:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 05:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 10:32 pm (UTC)Text for anyone who can't see the scan very well
Date: 2011-05-29 09:17 am (UTC)I first realized that K-pop was taking over the world when, during a five hour layover in Seoul, I saw that the airport was a trending topic on Twitter. Was there a bombing? A plane crash? No, something much more important: a K-pop singer had been spotted at one of the terminals.
In the six months that I've spent traveling through Asia and living in Tokyo, I've encountered a diverse array of cultures and customs. Yet from a hole-in-the-wall pho restaurant in Hanoi to a local bus on route to Siem Reap to the famous Shibuya crosswalk in Tokyo, the soundtrack blasting over loudspeakers and on TVs has always been the same: K-pop — that is, Korean pop — with it's catchy dance beats and Korean lyrics. Now, with Kanye West making a cameo on a track by boyband JYJ and Wonder Girls cracking the Billboard charts and touring with the Jonas Brothers, could the U.S. be the next country to fall for K-pop's charms?
To understand the phenomenon, you need to go all the way back to Michael Jackson, at least according to Ben Richardson, general manager for MTV Korea. “If you look at the regional history of pop, Western pop was dominant in the '80s and '90s, then J-pop came through, and I think Korean music leaned a lesson from [that] and they refined it and improved upon it,” he says. Although K-pop has been around for more than a decade, its popularity has only exploded in countries around Asia in the past two years. Now, there's usually at least one K-pop music video among the most popular on Youtube at any given time (Girl's Generation's video for “Gee” has racked up more than 40 million views), singles dominate the charts in countries as diverse as Japan and Malaysia, and concerts sell out almost instantly, as I learned while trying to track down tickets for Big Bang's Japanese tour this past spring (for research, I swear!). The genre's success is in part due to this refinement; just as Lady Gaga borrows liberally from the likes of Madonna and Grace Jones, K-pop takes what works and turns it into a formula. Three major labels— S.M. Entertainment, YG Entertainment and JYP Entertainment— dominate the airwaves, putting bands through intensive regimens before packaging them up for consumption. “K-pop— its hit factories and major agencies— remind me a lot of Motown,” says Richardson, “Groups here are taken in at a very young age and taught style and dance and language. It's unashamedly pop and it's really focused on being successful. There's no notion of selling out.”
Such strict recruiting has resulted in some very good looking bands. Unlike J-pop bands, who trade on looking cute, K-pop bands— particularly girl groups, like 2NE1 and Girl's Generation— express a form of sexuality that is not commonly permitted for many teen girls in Korea and other Asian countries. “They're so focused on studying that they can't let out their sexuality. So they do that with K-pop,” says Martina Stanski, a Canadian who lives in South Korea and runs the Korean culture blog Eat Your Kimchi with her husband. Much as the Spice Girls were a watered-down version of girl power in the '90s, K-pop bands give a sense of empowerment to its millions of (predominantly female) teenage listeners while still be acceptable to their parents. That's helped with it's export power, as well. “Compared to American styles, K-pop is somehow suitable for Vietnamese people,” says Vu Ha Kim Vy, a reporter who has written about K-pop's far reaching influence in the Southeast Asian country. John Thornton, the deputy editor of Ho Chi Minh City— based magazine The Word, agrees: “Amazingly, K-pop boy bands are 10 times more popular here than Justin Bieber.”
cnt'd because I didnt know lj had a character limit
Date: 2011-05-29 09:18 am (UTC)As the bands set their sights on making it big in America— an achievement Richardson dubs “the holy grail”— it could be the music's undeniable catchiness that shows K-pop to succeed where other international music movements have failed. “The level of performance is so real, so K-pop is closer to U.S. Pop [than J-pop],” says Misako Ogura, a Rag & Bone sales representative who's based in Japan. “Beyonce isn't adult music, but it's enjoyable because she's such a good performer.” Also on K-pop's side is social networking, which has already played a major part in the genre's popularity. Between Youtube, twitter, Myspace, and message board, the globalization of music is inevitable; it's easy to hear a new band, watch their videos, buy their music, translate their lyrics, and connect with other fans without ever visiting Korea. Notes Kim Yubin of Wonder Girls: “It's exciting to see how people who come from opposite sides of the globe can be so different, yet truly enjoy the same thing.”
Re: cnt'd because I didnt know lj had a character limit
Date: 2011-05-29 10:31 am (UTC)Re: cnt'd because I didnt know lj had a character limit
Date: 2011-05-29 11:34 am (UTC)Re: cnt'd because I didnt know lj had a character limit
Date: 2011-05-29 01:06 pm (UTC)my eyes are bad enough as it is lol
Re: cnt'd because I didnt know lj had a character limit
Date: 2011-05-29 02:40 pm (UTC)LOL OKAY
OPPA OPPA OPPA I'LL BE DOWN DOWN DOWN
But thanks :]
Re: cnt'd because I didnt know lj had a character limit
Date: 2011-05-29 03:41 pm (UTC)Re: cnt'd because I didnt know lj had a character limit
From:Re: cnt'd because I didnt know lj had a character limit
Date: 2011-05-29 02:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 10:16 am (UTC)lol u wished
no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 10:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 01:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-12 09:50 am (UTC)I love it too :)
no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 11:13 am (UTC)lol i love kpop but c'mon, let's be real here.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 11:32 am (UTC)...interesting read so far...
clearly, i`m only on the first page...
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Date: 2011-05-29 01:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 07:01 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-05-29 02:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 02:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 03:00 pm (UTC)This quote is just <333
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Date: 2011-05-29 07:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 08:58 pm (UTC)