Ahead of the upcoming Austin’s South by Southwest 2014 festival (aka. SXSW 2014), that will be held later this month, “The Guardian” has prepared a guide for K-Pop Begginers.
Nothing that K-Pop is not totally new, and that it has a solid fanbase since 1990s, “The Guardian” mentions popular acts, like HyunA‘s “Bubble Pop” as the beginning of K-Pop’s popularity around the world.
It starts its guide mentioning BIGBANG‘s leader, G-Dragon, and naming him “K-Pop’s biggest star.” They wrote about the artist, “G-Dragon stands out in K-Pop for his more in-depth themes including self-destruction and narcissism: perhaps he wants to be the voice of Korean millennials? He teamed up with Diplo and Baauer for his recent dark album ‘Coup d’etat’, so it’s little wonder that other US artists – such as Missy Elliott – are collaborating with him.”
They also mentioned his fashion sense and crazy haircuts, as well as his front cover for “Italian Vogue” and his seats in the first row during the YSL show at Paris fashion week.
The next fact every K-Pop begginer has to know about is that “groups are big in both numbers and bucks.” As the examples, “The Guardian” mentioned EXO with 12 members and Girls’ Generation with 9 members. Connecting the big number of members with big number of money for K-Pop groups ever year, and the long training, the reporter wrote, “The biggest labels are currently SM Entertainment – who kicked off K-Pop in the 1990s and have a market capitalization of $660mln (…). There’s also YG Entertainment, who take care of PSY, BIGBANG and 1TYM. Groups are often put together when their members are young: G-Dragon and Taeyang both started receiving training from their label YG Entertainment at the age of 11. The journey can be long: Jokwon of 2AM was a trainee at JYP Entertainment for seven years before his debut.”
The next step in “The Guardian” guide are music videos, that “are more like movies.” The reporter wrote, “Where else can you see owls, choreographed Streetfighter moves and bopping furry monsters? There’s a huge fusion of genres going on in most K-pop videos, but part of the fun is surrendering to the fact that you may never properly understand them.” Do you know who did he refer to?
“The Guardian” didn’t forget about K-Pop terminology, and provided definitions for “aegyo,” “sasaeng” and “oppa/unnie/hyung/noona/ sunbae/hoobae. ”
K-Pop wouldn’t be so popular without social media. “The Guardian” jokingly noted that, “K-Pop is bigger than Bieber in terms of social media” and mentioned how EXO won MTV’s social buzz competition, beating Beliebers and Directioners with the most loyal fans, how PSY broke world record with his “Gangnam Style” on YouTube, and Girls’ Generation won YouTube’s best video award last year. They have also mentioned Eat Your Kimchi as the most entertaining K-Pop related site for English-speaking fans.
Do you think “The Guardian” missed something in they guide for K-Pop begginers? What would you add? Share your ideas in comments!
Source: The Guardian
Article by: Karolina
Edited by: Alona
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