February 17, 2013
Undeniably, 2012 was the year of scandals, relationships and Americanism being demonstrated through not only PSY, but also artists like Girls' Generation, Wonder Girls and even lesser known ones as they begin to press their luck (only PSY and HyunA actually gaining note-worthy popularity) to beat the American market. By making deals with already well-established American companies, like Interscope Records, Schoolboy Records and "Jonas Records" (aka Wonder Flops attempt at fame), they started to inch closer and closer to their dreams on being famous world-wide, especially with PSY's recent breakthrough to the global eye. Nevertheless, though one should be ecstatic that their oppar and unnir might be popular around the world, resulting in things like their peers being easier to communicate with about music tastes and more K-Pop concerts around their area with more accessible K-Pop "goods", I have to voice my own opinion about this whole "movement towards global domination" and say one thing:
I hate it.
Without a doubt, K-Pop in nothing truly original. There's groups specific to gender--being girl groups and boy groups--and there's even co-ed groups. There's groups containing mostly members visually appealing yet talentless and there's groups containing mostly members visually unappealing yet full of talent. There's singers, there's dancers, there's "rappers", there's songs containing worthless jargon... yes, K-Pop is nothing original.
However, there's a true reason why I, as well as thousands of other K-Pop fans, let myself be captivated by the guilty pleasure of K-Pop... and that reason? Because it was something new to me. Let's be honest here, when you first got into K-Pop, what did you think about it? Did you think it was "innocent"? A change from the "corrupted" American music? Did you think it was the perfect kind of music here nothing went wrong?
I'd bet my life savings that 9 out of 10 people would say yes, admitting to not knowing that when a contract said "No dating", idols said "To hell with it!" and did it anyway. Not knowing when idols appeared alert and energetic on camera, the night before they only salvaged an hour of sleep before having to go to their next schedule. Not knowing that when idols become sick, they invite their naked boyfriend over to play doctor...
And that's the thing.
Now that K-Pop is going global and companies are basically killing themselves to westernize the already western-ed music so they can pull another Gangnam Style, K-pop is beginning to lose the... "it" factor that once pulled us to it. And though a person who is for the global movement of K-Pop would protest by declaring "if the music is good, then I'll still listen to it," many fans are into K-Pop for more than just the released songs... and the fact that it's starting to become more and more like the music we tried to avoid is something to go on about.
To conclude, now that the year of 2013 has already began and the CEO of oppar and unnir wants to achieve Gangnam-Style-Level music, companies are starting to westernize K-Pop to a point that I just can't approve of as a long-time K-Pop fan. I don't like K-Pop going global, but at this point, there's really no going back for it. The days when Gee was the closest thing to global success and when companies only started to begin to press their luck in Japan are over and for the people like me who dislike the global movement, we'll just have to let the cards fall where they may and hope for the best:
