What is k-pop and why is it listened to? What is k-pop? 21st century: the beginning of the Hallyu wave.

Hello, I would like to talk about one of your passions, k-pop, but first, please introduce yourself.

My name is Alice and I'm a k-poper. It's a disease.

Let's move on to the first question. I heard that before becoming a direct member of a Korean music group, a person must undergo quite serious training. Can you comment on this?

People who train in agencies are called trainee . A large number of trainees debut each year. A lot are released every year. Let's say five idols . Some may come and literally debut in three months, while others may stay there for up to twelve years. The leader of the EXO group, for example, trained for nine years, studied a lot, not only vocals and dances, rapping or something else, but also languages ​​and etiquette.

What are the agencies you mentioned? How can you get into them?

For example, big three are large agencies called " entertainments » in Korea - people are often recruited through simple selection. That is, they have selections once a year, of course, not all over the world, but, let's say, one of the Big Three companies announces recruitment in different languages.

Please tell us about the process of releasing the band's new album.

What is mandatory in K-pop when releasing an album: maybe you don’t spoiler the song itself title , but they can, for example, post some "pieces" from the new album. But, in particular, it happens like this: they announce the release, probably, somewhere in two weeks, maybe one and a half. Everyone is waiting, and a couple of days before the release of the album, the company starts uploading teasers. Moreover, there can be as many teasers as you like, although most often one or two. Then they release a clip, this is a must. They released an album - they released a video.

Is there anything following immediately after the release of the album?

Yes, there will be further promotion, without it it is very difficult for groups, especially not very famous ones. Month the group is moving forward. The first week is coming comeback stage . That is, people still show their song, dance and performance on various shows along with other groups. Awards begin next week. During the three weeks of the show, the sales and views of each group will be calculated, and a score will be calculated from this. If your score is higher than your opponent's, you get a reward. There is such a thing as double or triple crown . Let's say one group won every day for three weeks (famous groups do this). Then she gets a triple crown on one of the shows.

They say the sheer number of K-pop fans is insane. What can you say about this?

I can comment on this in just one word: sasaeng. sasaeng fans . Such fans in K-pop and in general in Asia are very common among, perhaps, the female audience. These are very inadequate people who can
With talker their biases Or just your favorite band.

Are there any gestures or rituals that fans can use to publicly show their love for the band, say at a concert?

If we talk about good fans, who simply love either the group or the bias ... In general, in Korea, each group has so-called light sticks . They come in different shapes and different colors, it all depends on the group. And very often, fans express their feelings with color. These sticks are very supportive of the bands. Let's say there is some kind of awards, and at this awards there is an opportunity to be just a fan and support your pet.

And the last question: does it happen that the band members themselves and their agencies express gratitude to the fans or try to do something nice to please them?

At concerts, it happens that the fans of some pairings can often to ship one male group member with another. And in the agencies themselves there are special people who monitor fan activities. They see that there are, for example, two members who they really want to see together (they can be written about fanfic or edited video). Then these band members are approached and asked to "interact" in front of the fans. It is called fan service .

K-pop or, more simply, Korean pop is bursting into our lives more and more rapidly. After the resounding success of the famous musician PSY, everyone, including Russia, paid attention to South Korean pop. In the last five years alone, the number of stars in this genre has grown by 72 percent.

According to recent surveys, 21 percent of Korean children, when asked what they would like to be in the future, answer: "K-pop star."

At the moment, there are a huge number of management companies in South Korea engaged in "creating mega-stars." They audition, teach, and then turn young talents into the most popular performers.

So what is so attractive about this genre of music?

According to a Rolling Stone article writer, K-pop is "a mixture of trendy Western music and high-energy Japanese pop" and "headhunts listeners with repetitive hooks, sometimes in English." K-pop "goes down the line of mixing styles, combining both singing and rapping, and emphasizing action and powerful visuals."

We invite you to get to know the five most sought-after and popular musicians in the K-pop genre.

g-dragon

Let's start with a young man with the pseudonym G-Dragon. For the past nine years, he has been a member of the BIGBANG team, has a solo career, and has already become a fashion icon of our time. You can find the most fashionable novelties in his wardrobe - from Givenchy, Saint Laurent, Rick Owens, Balmain to street brands Hood By Air, KTZ, Ambush.

Naturally, this 26-year-old young man is always in the forefront at fashion shows. Among his friends:, and many others.

The guys from the SHINee team have been together since 2008. Foreign media call them the "princes of the K-pop scene", and fans believe that this team has the best choreography and vocals that have ever been seen in the Korean scene. In May of this year, their new music video for the song View was released, which took first place in the ranking of the most viewed Korean music videos of May 2015 in America and around the world.

Girls' Generation

Before Gangnam Style, the most popular Korean song on YouTube was Gee by the girl group Girls "Generation, founded in 2007. Just a couple of days ago it became known that the new track of the group Lion's Heart reached unprecedented heights - it became number one on the Billboard world chart.

The music and songs performed by the eight-member group belong to various genres, including K-Pop and bubblegum pop. According to journalists, the public likes the way the members look, their "simplicity and restraint", friendliness to fans and each other. Fans told the magazine that when Girls' Generation is on stage, it feels like sometimes they look you straight in the eye and talk to you in person.

The main character of the Gangnam Style video, rapper HyunA, also sings and has become quite a popular lady. In Korea, her Bubble pop music video was banned from television for being corrupting the youth. They even banned the public performance of the song and the choreography for it.

Every year, Hyuna's work becomes more popular and more interesting. Now the bubble girl has released a new video called Roll Deep, where she looks like the Korean Iggy Azalea.

BEAST debuted on October 16, 2009 on KBS Music Bank's music show stage with the single "Bad Girl". After their debut, the group released their first mini album Beast Is the B2ST. They were not taken seriously for a long time until, during the promotion of the single Shock, the group performed an orchestral version of the group's ballad Noel Despite Holding On. After that, they were recognized as a group with outstanding vocal abilities.

In modern society, it is difficult to find someone who has not heard about the popular phenomenon of k-pop. This musical direction arose in the early nineties of the last century, and is a Korean pop music (hence the name - short for Korean pop), known for its interesting genre component, which has absorbed elements of Western electropop, hip-hop, dance music and modern rhythm. -and-blues. Let's look into the origins of k-pop and, finally, decide what kind of animal it is.

What it is?

Starting as a musical genre, K-pop has evolved over time into a massive musical subculture that has spread all over the world.

One of the most important features of this style is the complex stage choreography. The clips of k-pop groups are always high quality and brightly filmed. And the script and directing are not far behind.

Examples of the popularity of k-pop are literally everywhere: for example, an awards ceremony was recently held in Las Vegas Billboard Music Awards 2017, where they recognized the most stylish group bts project from South Korea. And the song "Fantastic Baby" groups big bang hit the famous American TV series Glee.

It should be noted that k-pop culture does not stand still. So singer CL has gone beyond k-pop music, now she performs songs in English. Her unusual, outrageous image is remembered immediately. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why it is so popular in the US.

England did not bypass the genre either. At the Korean Festival 2011 "United Cube" spoke 4minutes, B2ST, SISTAR, SHINee and other famous k-pop teams. Even then, many journalists noted that the k-pop industry had suddenly burst into Europe and was rapidly gaining popularity.

Photo by Callie Morgan on Unsplash

Why has it become popular?

The answer is partly that society prefers more and more unusual forms that do not fit into the framework. A kind of rebellion on the scale of their own musical tastes. In addition, live complex choreography, high-pitched strong voices, unusual outfits and melodies that are memorable from the first time are captivating in k-pop.

The genre is extremely popular among teenagers: girls of all countries imitate their idols in clothes, style and lifestyle. But unlike American and Russian stars, Korean performers are always modest and well-mannered. In numerous entertainment TV shows, they are characterized only on the positive side, often talking about the fact that, in addition to musicality, they still have a lot of undiscovered talents.

Photo by Anthony Delanoix on Unsplash

When will it end?

It is too early to say that Korean music will soon leave the world stage. It is only gaining momentum, and it certainly is not going to give up its positions. Koreans competently approach everything related to marketing and any organizational and technical issues. Plus, you will never see a person on the Korean stage who cannot sing or is unable to learn how to dance.

*Onnie and Oppa are Korean words for a girl and a boy.

"K-POP", "K-pop", "K-pop" - I began to hear more and more often from people I know, see comments on social networks and see various posts and images. "K-po-o-op", yes "K-pop", what is it?I climbed the sites, read a lot of literature, talked with people from this area and was stunned. It turns out that this is a whole subculture that is gaining popularity around the world. A WHOLE SUBCULTURE! And I didn't know.

K-POP or Korean Wave or Hallyu is a subculture made up of fans of South Korean music groups. If someone you know puts a picture of some cute, sweet, Korean resident on their profile photo, and the corresponding slang appears on the wall, then know that this is it. Here are the most "neaaaaaaaaaly" adored celebrities fans call "oljan", which means models with big eyes, a small nose and lips. Such a puppet appearance is achieved thanks to plastic surgery, makeup and photoshop.
In general, K-pop (keɪ pɔp /, an abbreviation of the English Korean pop) is a musical genre that originated in South Korea and incorporates elements of Western electropop, hip-hop, dance music and modern rhythm and blues.

Rolling Stone magazine stated that " K-pop is "a mixture of trendy Western music and high-energy Japanese pop" and "headhunts listeners with repetitive hooks, sometimes in English"; K-pop "goes down the line of mixing styles, combining both singing and rapping, and emphasizing action and powerful visuals.».

In Korea, the concept of K-pop refers to almost any direction of Korean pop music. In other countries, "K-pop" refers exclusively to music performed by the so-called idols, similar in concept to Japanese idols, performed in a mixture of the above genres. Also, this concept outside the country includes modern South Korean fashion and style.

One of the distinguishing features of Korean groups is the number of participants in one project (about 12-15 people). As a rule, they all live together in the same house, they also spend all their time in each other's company. Some of the members have been preparing since childhood for their role as a "music idol". To enjoy success, Korean performers need to train a lot, because in their work a big bet is placed on the visual range.

Despite the large number of participants, the group performs all the choreographic movements with amazing accuracy and synchronism. Also a feature of k-pop artists can be called a constant interactive way to communicate with their fans. Performers run their own forums, create their own pages on social networks and youtube channels. In many ways, it is thanks to this that the popularity of Korean groups has grown so much.

Keypopers

So, having learned all this, I still could not understand what K-pop owes such popularity to. For this I met (Albeit not in real life, but on the Internet) with a representative of this subculture and asked her a couple of questions. Terry (that's what she called herself) described herself as such.

Terry

“I'm not that active person, but I really like to go to various festivals created by K-pop fans. These are various dance parties, gatherings and just weekly meetings of K-pop culture lovers. Many of my friends are satisfied cover dance team. They change into clothes that are similar in style to the style of a particular group that they dance, put on dances, as well as crossovers of dances from different groups, perform with this and win in various competitions.

They also perform at various city events as activists. They gather for gatherings in the Youth Palace, where we listen to music, unprofessionally dance for the soul discussing news from the world of k-pop.

I'm not one of those fans who want children from idols, but for me personally, Korean music is very uplifting, I want to dance, smile, jump to it, it charges with positive. One of my favorite bands is BTS (author note: BTS (Korean: 방탄소년단, also known as Bangtan Boys) is a Korean hip hop group formed in 2013 by Big Hit Entertainment.

I love them for bright, incendiary clips, funny songs, high level of choreography. Their group, in fact, is divided into guys who dance well, rap, sing. And many of them do not know how to do what others can. But for group dances, they train a lot.

There are various video projects where they participate for fun and to show their abilities to the audience. Just recently I watched a funny video where they switched parts and the guy who raps tried to sing. They are not afraid to show their weaknesses. In playful variety shows, they come up with poems / compose songs and raps on the go, try to repeat their dances at speed, dances of others, including girl groups. Funny guys, in general, very open."

After such an answer, I came to the conclusion that, apparently, K-pop just needs to hook. And I can't help but insert the answer of another very interesting girl.

Sania

“K-Pop is kind of my hobby. I follow the news. I sometimes save photos biases(note av .: favorite members of boy bands), I watch various shows, videos, reactions, sometimes dramas (note: Japanese TV series. They are among the highest rated programs on Japanese TV channels. Despite the name, dramas are released in various genres - comedy, detective stories, horror, etc.) . I vote for biases on various sites and battles.

Many people think that K-pop is not very common in Russia, and, in general, in the world, but this is not so, there are a lot of fans. Sometimes groups come to Russia, mostly to Moscow. In addition to Moscow fans, there are also fans from other cities. Tickets sometimes sell out in minutes, which indicates that there are a lot of fans. Many fans buy albums, stuff from the staff, etc. Fans support people from different countries with the same interests in a friendly way. A lot of people, myself included, look to some of the members as role models.”

k-pop fan profile

Then I made a small questionnaire with simple questions and asked K-pop fans to answer them as well. For help in finding interested people and very unusual interlocutors, I would like to say the same Terry.

1. Favorite artists (groups, songs, videos, whatever)
2. What do they catch?
3. How do you show your interest in K-pop?
4. Who are you in everyday life?
5. K-pop for you is...
6. Do you participate in any festivals? If yes, then tell us about them.

Alexey Werner

1. Nu'est, BTS, Got7, Big Bang, EXO, Block B.
2. Very cool voices, looks. I like that the songs are combined English and Korean.
3. I listen to a lot of songs, watch videos, look for information about groups and their members.
4. Man, no?
5. Sweet for the ears.
6. So far, that has not happened, but this is so far.

불

1. Wonder girls, 4minute, Mamamoo, Exid, Dlackpink, Red velvet, k.a.r.d, cl, taeyeon.
2. Like songs. As soon as I hear it, my ass starts to twitch.
3. A strange question, to be honest.
4. I run a special public.
5. Schoolboy ordinary.
6. A "Who knows him."

Aldyn-ay

1. Big Bang, 2ne1, Super Junior, SNSD, BTS.
2. Big Bang introduced me to the world of k-pop, it was the 2009 video "Lollipop" that hooked me with its brightness and catchy chorus ""lali lali pap"
2NE1 - they are cool, they have their own style, incomparable CL.
Super Junior - originally 13 charismatic and dancing idols, I love them very much for their songs and for their smart choreography.
SNSD - they are all very beautiful, they are beautiful to look at, I like their choreography.
BTS are like a big and fancy candle on a k-pop cake.
3. Now I try to keep track of new items, I am subscribed to the group channels on YouTube. In my school years, there was some kind of insanity, I learned the language, I wanted to delve into Korean culture.
4. Student.
5. This is a trend that unites and brings people together.
6. No, I do not participate.

Ember

1. Bts, block b, got7, 2rbina 2rista, iamx.
2. K-pop dances and idols, the turbine is positive, and IAMKS is relaxation.
3. Dancing, clothes and curtained walls in the room with idols.
4. Special chan.
5. Movement and admiration.
6. Participate. As a cosplayer and now also a dancer. There were a lot of impressions from the debut, considering that my team became the owner of the title of laureate of the 3rd degree, and I was the same.

White

1. Favorite… this is difficult because I often listen to just selections. Well, most of my playlists are "imagine dragons", "bts", "arctic monkeys", "coldplay", "exo", "bap" etc :d
2. In principle, I love music - somewhere the sound chicks, and somewhere - the text.
3. Memes and check updates on YouTube.
4. I am finishing the 11th grade, I have close friends ... I don’t even know. How can you answer.
5. Special genre of music.
6. I rarely go to festivals, but I often go to K-pop parties.

Remy

1. Bands: B.A.R, BlockB, BigBang, 2ne1. The songs are difficult, there are a lot of them 😀 . Clips: B.A.P - power \ young, wild & free; BTS - Young Forever Big Bang-tonight
2. I don't even know, everyone? Somewhere I like the concept of the group, somewhere the participants themselves, their character, behavior, and so on. At someone I listen only to songs, not knowing anything about the group. It grabs everything.
3. Well, there's only one concert on May 9th, so I'm going there.
4. Student.
5. Music, beloved and dear.

Catherine

1. There is no beloved at the moment.
2. Usually the song catches the motive, solo on some instruments (violin, flute, trumpet, not guitar xd).
3. I listen to songs, watch clips. Occasionally I visit parties dedicated to this topic.
4. Man.
5. Music and clips with handsome guys.
6. Every year I participate in the local anime festival Animiya.

It turns out that people are just rushing. Cheerful music with a beautiful picture - that's the whole secret or what? Maybe I'm tired, maybe I'm getting old already, but I didn't get sucked in and didn't get hooked. But, after all, to each his own? And for some, this very “own” is k-pop.

What is k-pop?

K-pop (/keɪ pɔp/, an abbreviation of Korean pop) is a musical genre that originated in South Korea and incorporates elements of Western electropop, hip-hop, dance music, and contemporary rhythm and blues. Starting as a musical genre, K-pop has grown into a massive musical subculture with millions of fans among young people around the world.

What if you ask yourself? What will you answer?

You're not going to tell people information from the Internet. You tell them what you know personally.

K-POP is a genre of music that combines several styles of music.

K-Pop is a separate world that takes us to your imagination.

Every time you listen to k-pop, you might think how you didn’t notice it before or it’s good that you still heard this genre.

Can you remember your world before K-pop? You listened to Russian and American songs. You didn't have high expectations, different theories and fantastic clips. You just listened. All performers could seem to you the same type, who copy the style of others. But K-pop is not like that.

You can't see the second Big Bang, the fifth Super Junior, the twentieth Girls Generation. Everyone has their own style of songs. Is it okay to only listen to one K-pop group? You have such a wide choice, so why not use it?

Many people know situations like someone insulting you just because you listen to Koreans. You cannot change their minds, and they cannot change you. What should be done?

Nothing. Should you quit K-pop for someone else's opinion? Do you have to hide what you like, but still accept a style that you don't like because it's popular? If you did so, then you are destroying your personality.

Personality is a unique gift that every person has. It's up to you to decide who you will be.

You should not care about other people's opinions. You are who you are. And you will change when you want and only for yourself.

Someone says that k-pop is a childish and frivolous genre. But who said you have to listen to adult music? Everyone grows up, but no one wants it. If k-pop makes you happier, then listen to it as much as you want.

K-POP is a genre that is becoming popular every year. He takes over the whole world.

Maybe we regret that we didn't force this genre earlier when there were 2NE1, f(x), TRAX, Shinhwa, HOT and SES. But we are glad that he is with us right now.