Welcome again, pop followers! Whereas the American music trade is waking up from vacation hibernation, the remainder of the music trade is doing no such factor. This month, we’re going to try the state of Ok-Pop — the great, unhealthy, and the prolific — and its rising enmeshment with the US pop world.
We’re Dwelling In Ok-Pop’s World
A decade in the past, the Korean pop trade was huge however largely self-contained, even because it began producing international smashes. Today, the boundaries between Korean and American pop are way more permeable. Typically issues are engineered that method. Katseye, a woman group put collectively by US-based Geffen Information and South Korea-based Hybe — extra on them later — is an express try to duplicate the Ok-Pop mannequin for the Western market. “Contact,” a candy NewJeans/3LW pastiche — extra on them later too — has crept into US pop radio rotation, and deservedly so.
One other factor about “Contact”: It was co-written by Cashmere Cat, a pop songwriting lifer. That is more and more widespread. In accordance with Billboard, about 80% of Ok-Pop songs now contain Western hitmakers in some capability. The pattern isn’t restricted to deliberate crossover makes an attempt like “Contact,” however to the trade as a complete. These are usually current demos from songwriting camps and classes, with the lyrics rewritten and/or localized to the Korean market — and infrequently the higher ones from these classes. In any case, touchdown a success for a Ok-Pop megastar is much extra prestigious (and profitable) than solely making it to an American B-lister’s album as a deep lower.
The dynamics listed below are a bit fraught. Whereas Ok-Pop musicians is perhaps sought-after, this doesn’t essentially lengthen to trade personnel, and Western imports are crowding out native songwriters: “There’s not numerous Korean writers that really work on the massive hit songs — that goes to the Western trade,” one Seoul-based songwriter informed the publication. And the cultural trade doesn’t movement in the other way practically as a lot; there additionally aren’t numerous Korean writers that work on massive US hit songs, regardless of their monitor data.
That’s to not say these writers aren’t massively influential. You most likely don’t get songs like Camila Cabello’s brash “I LUV IT,” and even FKA Twigs’ chamber pop/electro mashup “Eusexua,” with out the try-everything tune suites of Ok-Pop hits. Arguably, you may not even get the pendulum swing within the US again to unabashedly maximalist pop if Ok-Pop hadn’t sustained that massive sound for years.
A Star Is Born (And Then One other)
As for these Ok-Pop megastars: The entire members of Blackpink have now launched into solo careers, as have all of the members of BTS. There are a few causes for this. The US music trade, way more so than the British or Asian markets, loves the breakout pop star narrative — periodically forgetting that followers love boy bands and woman teams, from One Route to the Spice Women all the best way again to the Beatles, with many stops in between. For boy bands particularly, South Korea requires most males to serve within the navy earlier than age 28, which creates a looming time restrict for boy bands. (A part of why BTS went on hiatus was so the blokes might house out their respective enlistments with out completely going silent.) And clearly, the extra music a bunch places out, the extra they’ll maximize fan engagement.
Collectively, these debuts present that “Ok-Pop” is probably an excessively broad label. Whereas the Blackpink solo singles are straight-ahead pop, the BTS offshoots cowl numerous style floor. RM’s solo music is probably essentially the most eclectic (and essentially the most critic-baity), spanning metropolis pop to easy Erykah Badu-featuring throwbacks to experimental rap. (When you loved Tyler, the Creator’s Chromakopia, undoubtedly take a look at RM’s Proper Place, Mistaken Particular person.) Jung Kook and Jimin are full-on R&B crossovers, on completely different locations on the sexy/loverboy axis. J-Hope’s “On The Road” is a pensive J. Cole-featuring rap lower, whereas V’s “FRI(END)S” is punny, falsetto-driven pop. And Jin’s simply launched Completely happy leans into power-pop, together with a homage to “Mr. Brightside.”
A pleasant aspect impact right here is that as a result of the BTS guys are working in several genres, there’s much less of a way that they’re competing towards each other and thus much less drama — at the least not publicly. That mentioned: Whereas each Blackpink and BTS have insisted that they’re not disbanding, anybody who’s adopted any boy band or woman group is aware of how this story goes. A few of these debuts, equivalent to Rosé’s Rosie, have been explicitly framed as newly liberated re-introductions; inevitably, there’s subtext that the artist has been stifled by their former careers.
Hassle on the High
Typically that’s extra than simply subtext. Woman group NewJeans is probably the one most influential act in Korea and globally, of their throwbacks to Y2K-era pop and sugary drum-and-bass; this spring’s “How Candy” was suffused with all the identical charms. Their rise was meteoric — till it wasn’t. Till not too long ago, NewJeans have been signed to Ador, an imprint of the aforementioned Hybe; the group cut up from the label this week after years of animosity.
The story is sophisticated and protracted — right here’s a full timeline — however revolves across the group’s producer Min Hee-Jin, who mentored NewJeans and helped refine their sound and picture. Min was axed from the label, sued, and reported to the police; the following battle went all the best way to South Korean’s nationwide legislature. Accusations flew. The label claimed Min held an outsize quantity of shares within the firm and/or was making an attempt to steal NewJeans off their roster. Min and her supporters argued that the label bullied and harassed NewJeans’ members, in addition to plagiarizing them. Particularly, they claimed that Hybe’s new woman group ILLIT wasn’t simply influenced by NewJeans however a deliberate try to tear off and exchange the label’s former stars.
Unusually for the Ok-Pop world, a lot of the pushback was led by NewJeans themselves. After making some veiled feedback on TV praising Min, they made a burner YouTube account and demanded, explicitly and at size, that she be reinstated. (The unique video has, unsurprisingly, disappeared from YouTube, however followers have preserved copies.) In an trade that calls for good conduct from its idols, NewJeans’ candor was surprising.
Caveat right here: The US pop machine is lots controlling and its contracts lots limiting, and numerous the Western protection of Ok-Pop music trade corruption has an undertone of cultural voyeurism. (As a comparability, think about somebody writing in regards to the Diddy scandal as a product of an unfamiliar overseas trade.) Lauren Jauregui of Fifth Concord complained in a second of frustration that the group was “handled like slaves.” JADE’s “Angel Of My Desires” is mainly a diss monitor calling Simon Cowell a mercenary shitheel. Lou Pearlman, the Svengali behind *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys, was odious in virtually each method. And in Ok-Pop, woman group Loona imploded amid comparable inventive struggles a couple of years in the past, and this yr, Seunghan of boy-band RIIZE was kicked out over pictures of him kissing a girl and smoking.
However NewJeans have been particularly courageous in expressing their dissatisfaction in a method that feels precedent-setting, each good and unhealthy. Dangerous: The RIIZE scandal means that labels have change into far much less forgiving of artists perceived to be stepping out of line even barely. Good: The courtroom of public opinion appears to be siding with NewJeans. Unsurprisingly, lots of the public inventive struggles in Ok-Pop have concerned teams who’re marketed as genuine and boundary-pushing — and who wish to show they aren’t simply marketed that method. Maybe one of the best Western comp is perhaps the Monkees: manufactured as a fictional band and a disposable product, rocketing to pop stardom, and completely managed all through: prevented from taking part in their very own devices, selecting their very own collaborators, or making inventive selections in any respect. The band hated this, more and more publicly, and in the end fired their very own Svengali, Don Kirshner, to make music on their very own phrases. That music has since been vindicated by historical past. NewJeans, although, have carried out them one higher: their music has been vindicated already. Hits converse for themselves.
POP TEN
