Discussion #2

Essay

Q2: Compare the conventional path to Korean pop music stardom with newly emerging paths. How do both paths compare with the historical path for popular music stars in the decades before and after the Korean War?

Elaine:

The idea of “cultural life” was first adopted as a popular discourse in the Korean media industry in the colonial era, when the commercialization of pop music artists was rooted. Decades later, the emergence of Hallyu rapidly appeals to a wide audience inside and outside Korea. From big stars of top record sales to global K-pop idols, the Korean pop music stardom has evolved into complexity of artistry and entertainment business.

Throughout the colonial period, Japan tried to control Korean media culture and to make money through cultural products. Not only introducing records technology, Japanese also brought in Western music, and thus promoted production of new style shin minyo and yuhaengga. Japanese companies selected right performers with photographs on records and songs already been popular. Therefore, women were turned into public idols and became the majority part of popular culture, and Gisaeng are seen to be first Korean pop stars. It was promoted by the common notion that “the music’s elegance would be best expressed through female musicians” (Maliangkay 2007: 65). Similarly, today’s female K-pop idols ensure their continual popularity by maintaining perfect body shape and beauty. Besides recordings, the folk singers regularly appeared on the radio and attended contests making to stardom. With the enter of US army, Koreans had no access to records and many Korean artists moved to North. A few all-girl and family singer groups only served to entertain the US Forces. It was not until the Korean War ended that pop stars and their music were back on public stage. Shin Chunghyon, rock bands from college festivals and Seo Taiji started their careers mainly through live performances or underground styles, instead of getting trained and promoted by management companies. Such liveness drove music creation and co-presence with audience, echoing today’s newly emerging paths to “produce” stars by the public.

Due to the rise of affluent middle class and democratization of the society, the conventional K-pop idol management structures were gradually formed and “teenage idol stardom” prevailed after the 1997 Asian financial crisis. SM Entertainment first established the trainee system for idol production. The management companies invest in the production cycle, and the trainees should commit to highly intensive programmes. If they survive the system, they can realize their dream of stardom. Specifically, idol groups are most produced to attract more fans with a variety of talents. Each is defined to play suitable function in the group and retain his/her stage characteristics, which commodifies the individual celebrity as an object of consumption for the audience (Elfving-Hwang 2018: 194). Recent market trends have seen some new paths to stardom. Talent shows like Super Star K and Kpop Star discover more talents not involved in the trainee system, while talent competition franchise Produce 101 innovates a way to showcase a large number of trainees from smaller management companies. Notably, these new programmes absorb up-to-date tastes of consumers into pop music, and interact with a wide public audience. Shin argues that real variety shows empower the consumers with the position of producers, which I think can satisfy the different cultural products sales in current Korean pop music market (2015: 138).

Overall, the path to Korean pop music stardom has been influenced by Korean social and political background for decades. I believe the heavily commercialized nature of making pop stars is unchanged. Korean artists in early 1900s were pleased with their powerful popularity and got trained to be tools for Japanese to make profits, but not embedding their music with patriotism (Maliangkay 2007: 68). However, today’s idols are trained to undertake important responsibilities of cultural identity representing Korea to the world.

Bibliography

Elfving-Hwang, Joanna. "K-pop idols, artificial beauty and affective fan relationships in South Korea." In Routledge Handbook of Celebrity Studies. Edited by Anthony Elliott. 190-201. London: Routledge, 2018.

Maliangkay, Roald. "Their masters’ voice: Korean traditional music SPs (standard play records) under Japanese colonial rule." The World of Music 49, no. 3 (2007): 53-74.

Shin, Haerin. "The dynamics of K-Pop spectatorship: the Tablo witch-hunt and its double-edged sword of enjoyment." In K-pop – The International Rise of the Korean Music Industry. Edited by JungBong Choi and Roald Maliangkay. 133-145. London: Routledge, 2015.

*Currently google sites do not support the hanging indent for the bibliography, we are still trying to find a way around this.