K-pop's Cultural Revolution: Redefining Music on a Global Scale
- Minjun (Jun) Bae(Legacy)
- Aug 1, 2024
- 3 min read
Whether you like K-pop or not, you must have heard the term K-pop in your life, you have probably heard K-pop songs too, even if you were not conscious. When you go to a restaurant or a mall, you hear pleasant music that resounds inside your ears, a voice of a girl or a boy but is not in your language, these would probably have been K-pop songs. K-pop has developed about 30 years ago, slowly gaining recognition locally and globally, now, K-pop is one of the most popular genres in the world, showing a unique characteristic that stretches beyond the fields of music. This unique characteristic also resulted from the complex and unique nature of Korean society and culture. How did K-pop become a grand phenomenon?
Before K-pop was introduced, Korea’s music trend was based on the traditional songs called Guk-ak, some genres of Guk-ak were the pansori(판소리) and minyo(민요), minyo includes famous korean traditional song: ari-rang. Guk-ak was recognised for its sad mood and slow beat. However, this changed during the Japanese colonial rule, Guk-ak adopted the Japanese popular songs that had resonated with American instruments, Joseon (Korea) soon started to produce their own popular songs which are called the ‘Trot’: Guk-ak that adopted fast rhythms and western instruments. After the liberation, genres such as blues, jazz, rock, ballads were popular in Korea until the 21st century.
The music industry of Korea faced a massive problem, the IMF or the Asia financial crisis and online music piracy threatened various music companies to bankruptcy. The survivors tried to find new possibilities to maintain their company, the ultimate solution was to create idol groups that are not just limited to singing, but can dance, appear in Tv-shows and advertisements in order to maximize the revenue. The synergy between this crisis and the trend of music genres such as rap, house, techno, created the unique characteristic of K-pop idols, young people were trained to be fit, good at singing, and good actors. They formed groups and performed songs that are based on the latest genres.
K-pop is divided into 1 generation up to 5 generations, each gens are usually divided by the entertainments (idol agencies) that dominated a certain period. The 1st generation, from late 90s to the early 21st century, was the time of the most early K-pop idols. The entertainment that controlled this period was SM entertainment. Many K-pop terms used these days were made during this era, like fan name and group color. The most well known idols were HOT and god.
K-pop generation 2 shows a different trait, where the entertainments remained but the popularity of K-pop started to grow exponentially, as early social media started to develop in Korea, the music companies formed a new strategy to communicate with the fans through social media, this helped the formation of close relationships between the fans and the idol. 2 generation groups like BigBang, IU, 2AM, Girls generation were popular back in the times.
In Gen 3, the SM, JYP and YG entertainment rose as the biggest entertainments in K-pop industry, this period was when K-pop started to receive global phenomenon not retrained to local popularity, groups such as BTS, EXO, Seventeen, and Twice were very popular in China and Japan. I bet many people are aware of these names.
Thanks to the global popularity of K-pop, generation 4 idols were able to get awareness in a short amount of time compared to gen 3 idols, Hybe entertainment: a small company rose shoulder to shoulder with the 3 entertainments and started the domination of the 4 entertainments. Generation 4 is still present, groups like Newjeans, Aespa, and Kiss-Of-Life, and Le-sserafim are popular currently.
2023 MMA Kiss Of Life. 2 Dec. 2023.
Accessed 10 Aug. 2024.
BTS at the MelOn Music Awards. 1 Dec. 2018.
181201_BTS_at_the_MelOn_Music_Awards.jpg. Accessed 13 Aug. 2024.
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