Welcome again, pop followers! Whereas the American music business is waking up from vacation hibernation, the remainder of the music business is doing no such factor. This month, we’re going to try the state of Ok-Pop — the nice, dangerous, 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 business was huge however largely self-contained, even because it began producing international smashes. As of late, the boundaries between Korean and American pop are way more permeable. Typically issues are engineered that approach. Katseye, a lady group put collectively by US-based Geffen Data and South Korea-based Hybe — extra on them later — is an specific 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 keeping 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 business as a complete. These are typically present 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 spite of everything, touchdown successful 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 minimize.
The dynamics listed below are a bit fraught. Whereas Ok-Pop musicians could be sought-after, this doesn’t essentially prolong to business personnel, and Western imports are crowding out native songwriters: “There’s not quite a lot of Korean writers that really work on the massive hit songs — that goes to the Western business,” one Seoul-based songwriter informed the publication. And the cultural alternate doesn’t circulate in the other way almost as a lot; there additionally aren’t quite a lot of Korean writers that work on huge US hit songs, regardless of their monitor data.
That’s to not say these writers aren’t massively influential. You in all probability 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 huge 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 business, far 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 way in which 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 fellows may 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 maybe an excessively broad label. Whereas the Blackpink solo singles are straight-ahead pop, the BTS offshoots cowl quite a lot of style floor. RM’s solo music is maybe essentially the most eclectic (and essentially the most critic-baity), spanning metropolis pop to easy Erykah Badu-featuring throwbacks to experimental rap. (In the event you loved Tyler, the Creator’s Chromakopia, positively try RM’s Proper Place, Improper Particular person.) Jung Kook and Jimin are full-on R&B crossovers, on completely different locations on the attractive/loverboy axis. J-Hope’s “On The Road” is a pensive J. Cole-featuring rap minimize, whereas V’s “FRI(END)S” is punny, falsetto-driven pop. And Jin’s simply launched Comfortable leans into power-pop, together with a homage to “Mr. Brightside.”
A pleasant facet impact right here is that as a result of the BTS guys are working in numerous genres, there’s much less of a way that they’re competing towards each other and thus much less drama — no less than not publicly. That stated: 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, akin 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.
Bother on the Prime
Typically that’s extra than simply subtext. Lady group NewJeans is maybe 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 just lately, NewJeans had 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 way in which to South Korean’s nationwide legislature. Accusations flew. The label claimed Min held an outsize quantity of shares within the firm and/or was attempting 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 business that calls for excellent habits from its idols, NewJeans’ candor was stunning.
Caveat right here: The US pop machine is lots controlling and its contracts lots limiting, and quite a lot of the Western protection of Ok-Pop music business corruption has an undertone of cultural voyeurism. (As a comparability, think about somebody writing concerning the Diddy scandal as a product of an unfamiliar international business.) 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 nearly each approach. And in Ok-Pop, woman group Loona imploded amid comparable artistic struggles just a few years in the past, and this yr, Seunghan of boy-band RIIZE was kicked out over photographs of him kissing a girl and smoking.
However NewJeans have been particularly courageous in expressing their dissatisfaction in a approach that feels precedent-setting, each good and dangerous. Dangerous: The RIIZE scandal means that labels have turn out to be far much less forgiving of artists perceived to be stepping out of line even barely. Good: The court docket of public opinion appears to be siding with NewJeans. Unsurprisingly, lots of the public artistic 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 approach. Maybe the very best Western comp could be 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 artistic decisions 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 executed them one higher: their music has been vindicated already. Hits converse for themselves.
POP TEN
