K-Pop Aims To Be Music With A Meaning

Popular music, especially in the era of streaming and digital platforms, is a business of numbers, views and streams. In this context, perhaps the musicians that have capitalized the most on these new forms of engagement are the South Korean music subculture, or K-Pop as it is now known worldwide. The genre has set and broken several records in the digital era of music, right from the rapper PSY's 'Gangnam Style,' the first song to get a million hits on YouTube. Out of the current top ten music videos with the most views within their first 24 hours on the platform, nine are by K-Pop artists. 

One obvious reason for the current dominance of K-Pop is the way that artists and labels have used social media to mobilize and connect fans across the world; for example, the group BTS' recent song 'Butter' was released in May 2021, and over 300 million tweets were posted to mark the event. The fandoms for BTS and other K-Pop groups are in line with the definition given by the sociologist of pop culture Henry Jenkins, who described a fandom as an alternative social community with common practices surrounding the collective reception of media and the collaborative construction of meaning around it. 

Members of a fandom take an active stance and create their own culture, and in K-Pop culture on Twitter, these interactions between fans, the media they consume and the creators of the media, create a community that transcends national and social boundaries and has ended up giving the media a huge popularity boost. Twitter, where most K-Pop fans meet and interact, even has a Head of Global Kpop and K-Content Partnerships, YeonJeong Kim, who describes the platform as the ‘holy place of K-pop,’ not only because of the way artists engage with their fans, but also the way fans interact with each other. 

However, it would be a logical fallacy to assume that the meteoric rise of K-Pop has been a result of social media alone. While the two phenomena have certainly been closely intertwined, and indeed many current bands and idols were promoted by labels seeking to cash in on the intersection between the genre and social media, a direct correlation may not be possible. 

Some musicologists have also suggested that the nature of K-Pop songs, with simple bridges and hooks, infectious tunes that often recalled the R&B of the 1990s, and choreography that was easy to understand even if listeners didn't understand the lyrics, helped make them popular. However, another more interesting theory arises when the aesthetics and messages of K-Pop are contrasted with those of so-called mainstream music. 

The current top K-Pop group, BTS, was formed in 2013, a year in which the top-selling album was by One Direction, a group that was similar in terms of composition, audience and lyrical content to the nascent K-Pop band. The author Peter Doggett writes that a large part of One Direction's fame came in contrast to the violent objectification and commodification of women that several other artists, especially in the genres of pop, rap and hip-hop, had made common. 

The band's songs, he wrote, eschewed the braggadocio of several other pop acts, and instead "turn the spotlight away from the stage and on to each of their yearning, lustful fans," assuring teenage girls of their worth and capacity to be loved. While he did argue that it still left women in a passive position, "it was perhaps a healthier message to carry away from a pop infatuation" than the degrading or violent language of so many other popular songs. 

Many K-Pop groups continue with this relatability, narrating common teenage struggles and experiences in a way that can even transcend language barriers. Coming from a country and culture in which one's social status is often hierarchical and determined by a number of interlocking factors, and where teenagers are under a great deal of pressure to succeed, quite a few of their songs talk about a coming-of-age experience that is vulnerable and conditioned by others' expectations - as are the lives of many of their fans. Moreover, in providing an alternative to the macho and violent form of masculinity that many musicians had cultivated, it also exposed the narrowness of Western beauty standards for men, and made way for artists whose aesthetics were more androgynous and emphasised physical beauty.

Indeed, this has led to a shift within Korea itself. When in 1991 the American-origin singer Yang Joon-il presented an unexpectedly flamboyant and genderless persona onstage, he was booed and his Korean visa was revoked, eventually leading to the end of his career. Now, as societal mores have changed, with masculine beauty becoming more desirable and the appearances of most K-Pop stars reflecting this with makeup and cosmetic surgery, the model of masculinity that the genre offers to fans around the world is a lot more nuanced and varied. 

Moreover, unlike Western stars like David Bowie and Harry Styles who pushed the boundaries of gender, this does not occur as a subversive or transgressive act, but rather, as part of the cultural belief in Korea that being well groomed and physically attractive is respectful to others. While this is obviously not sustainable as a model for everyone, it does push the envelope of gender norms and binaries. Occurring simultaneously with a larger, post MeToo cultural re-evaluation of gender roles and toxic masculinity, it could perhaps cement K-Pop as not just a foreign novelty but rather as a phenomenon with the potential to redefine norms surrounding appearance and how it is linked to gender. 

The genre is not, however, without its flaws. Though culturally attuned to what Koreans want to hear, some less well known artists such as NCT 127 are known to have also included controversial content like racist remarks and blackface in their acts, apart from the genre itself borrowing from black R&B music. For this reason some K-Pop fans have also spoken about how they feel alienated in the community. Evidently, their appeal cannot yet be seen as universally thoughtful.

While it has been argued that K-Pop groups lack adequate representation in mainstream awards ceremonies like the Grammys, the genre's impact and popularity is such that it can no longer be ignored. Whether in terms of cultural impact, popularity, or even just the numbers game, K-Pop seems set to become an important part of youth culture and the music industry. 

Image credits: By NenehTrainer, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79503095