By Anthony T., Teen Portal Staff Writer
I am addicted to K-pop. More commonly known as Korean pop music, my first exposure to these infectious tunes occurred about a month ago. A friend of mine sent me an innocent-looking YouTube video: So Hot by The Wonder Girls. Unbeknownst to me, this video would lead to a prolonged obsession.
The entrancing rhythm and catchy lyrics caught my ears; I was hooked and couldn’t stop listening. Over and over again, I played the same subtitled music videos. I downloaded some of the songs and set them on repeat for hours. Several weeks and hundreds of video views later, it was safe to say that I was enamored with K-pop.
Now I’m not Korean, but it’s evident the K-pop phenomenon spans all racial and ethnic divides. With the help of video websites like YouTube and a burgeoning online community of K-pop fanatics, K-pop is reaching and penetrating other country’s cultural confines. Korean music has conquered the Chinese, Japanese and Thai markets, and is reaching the shores of America. Several artists, such as Korean songstress BoA and the aforementioned Wonder Girls, have been featured on PerezHilton.com, the king of all Hollywood gossip blogs.
But what exactly makes K-pop so popular? What makes it so alluring? The lyrics are catchy, but can be rather shallow. The music is energizing, but can be argued as over-produced. Personally, I think that K-pop is analogous to the American music scene of the early 90s. Like the bubblegum pop that had a stranglehold on the previous decade’s music, today’s K-pop scene features many boy bands and girl groups in addition to a slew of solo artists. Each group or singer has their own flavor, but they’re all pop music-filled guilty pleasures.
But unlike America’s doomed groups, K-pop has been able to change and evolve with constantly shifting trends in music. Take, for example, Big Bang, arguably one of Korea’s most popular boy bands. At the surface, they seem like any other boy band: five members each with their own designated personality, attractive faces appealing to a wide variety of female fans, and dance moves choreographed with utmost precision. They debuted in 2006 as a hip-hop group, heavily influenced by rap and R&B. Today, though, they have released songs ranging from heart-wrenching ballads (Haru Haru) to trance-infested club music (Last Farewell). K-pop artists’ ability to become musical chameleons has helped them to remain fresh and relevant in an age where attention spans last as long as a 30-second video clip.
So the next time you’re prowling YouTube instead of doing homework, search for a K-pop music video. Perhaps you’ll find yourself rocking your head to the beat, playing the song over again, and who knows? Maybe, you’ll end up in the K-pop addicts club like me.
