There was a time in my high school days when one of my friends suddenly gave me a CD from her collection. At first, I didn't know what it was. But I remember the band's name written on it; TVXQ.
"Here, take it. I'll lend you this. You'll like it. I love them very much. You should listen to them too!" she said. She told me that she had waited for a long time to own the album. She bought it over the internet and spent a quite large amount of her savings since she bought not only one CD. So for her, I might be considered lucky that I could borrow her precious stuff.
'Thanks' was the only word I said to her.
I went home, put the CD on my desk and thought 'Should I try this?'. So I turned my CD player on, put the disk in, then waited. After the first track, I decided to not listen to it anymore. I got the disk out and returned the album to my friend a few days later, claiming that I had listened to all of the tracks but unfortunately didn't like them.
You might ask the reason why I didn't listen to the whole album. So you have to know that I have this trait towards music: I listen to stuffs that catch my attention in the first 30 seconds. No matter what kind of music that is, my 30 seconds rule never fails (that's why Luna Maya will never survive the music industry for me). So for the whole album, I think the first track should say it all.
And unfortunately, TVXQ or DBSK or whatever you call them, didn't do it for me. Bad first track perhaps. Or maybe at that time, I haven't been into Korean music or K-Pop as you might say.
K-Pop in 2007 until 2009 for me was nothing but a name. There was a huge K-Pop craze in Indonesia, that many of my friends went haywire because of it. Names like TVXQ, Super Junior, etc came out of nowhere and suddenly they were worshipped like God (ok, I'm exaggerating). Their fans said they're really cool, their music like....'wow!', and if you're an 16 years old girl you might consider to marry them.
But again, at that time, my music preferences were very different than now. I could listen to any kind of music, but K-Pop and J-Pop were really really out of my radar. Not only that I didn't understand what they're singing, but I really hated the way their boys looked with that colored, long hair. Plus those excessive make-up and costumes. God, they were so gay! (but now I'm saying 'what's wrong with being gay?') It was simply annoying for me.
I should tell you, I never hated K-Pop. I even liked some of Korean songs, especially the ones from famous dramas. I just once didn't understand what people like about the boybands, girlbands, and all. Moreover, I didn't understand why these crazy fans were so lunatic about them. So I decided to ignore it, until one day in the late 2010.
Okay, I should admit, the first Korean song from a group that caught my attention was Nobody. I don't even have to tell what group it's from since now I can hear you all in front of your screen are screaming 'WOOONDEEER GIIIRLSSS'. Ok, that's enough. But again, I stopped at that. My interest in K-Pop was stopped at that very moment after I got bored of Nobody. I didn't even know the face of the singers.
That goddamn day when I got caught by K-Pop was actually started when my friends were planning on making dance parody video from K-Pop groups. For days since then, without any intention, I had been listening to 'these songs' I didn't know what the titles were. The songs I acknowledged were only Abracadabra from Brown Eyed Girls because my friends' dance was so funny at that part and the oh-so-well-known Sorry Sorry from Super Junior.
Then here it came. I couldn't even explain further WHY this happened to me. All I know that, after such a long time, my barriers for K-Pop suddenly tumbled down. The most exciting part, these girls did it. With only one song :
GEE, from Girl's Generation or SNSD.
And that's it. I couldn't stop since then.
I know I was way toooooooooo late to hear this song and any other songs I'm listening to right now. But I guess for someone like me, really, it's a complete shock that I like them.
I'm a huge fan of John Mayer, Jack Johnson, Joshua Radin, and Teitur Lassen. And then I fell in love with these songs from those nine girls with...whatever. But then I remember that I even listen to Fatwa Pujangga and it's really normal that I like this kind of music since I listen to everything good to my ears.
And ever since then, K-Pop music is on my playlist. I started to listen to everything I could find and suddenly amazed of many things I didn't realize. I even fall deeper in love with a group named Clazziquai Project. For the first time in my life, I can tolerate some colored hair guy with tight jeans singing "Hello hello~" and even try to know what's the meaning behind the song "You Wouldn't Answer My Call" from 2AM.
As an addition to this complete shock : I LEARNT HOW TO DANCE WITH THE SONG 'GENIE' and got very stupid by memorizing T-Ara's hit.
Okay, enough with my complete 'labil' actions. Now I'm going to talk about more important things.
As a spectator, seeing a whole K-Pop industry is more than interesting. You are looking at an East Asian country which is known for it's deep culture and heritage where hierarchy and values are very respected, then you're shifting your sight to it's music industry where the image of consumerism and art collide into one fascinating scene of what we call K-Pop now. It's very difficult to picture what is really happening there if you're only looking from one side of the box.
What makes K-Pop very popular?
You can make hundreds of theories out of this. But for me, the most important part is that the Koreans seem to be very serious into this entertainment business. It seems that for them, stars are not born. Stars are MADE. Who made them? Us.
It's like nothing is instant for them. For those soon-to-be-stars, the agency holds many trainings, from dancing, singing, even modelling. After years of training, then they can debut. Not only training, they do everything to make those stars look perfect. Okay, it sounds very controversial since yeah, plastic surgery has been such a hot topic. So I don't want to talk about that. You judge for yourself. Some other even say that those girl and boybands image ruin the whole image of the Asian. But what I want to emphasize is; SELLING is everything. You cannot say 'Oh, Lady Gaga is ruining the whole Americans image! The Indians don't dress like her!' after Gaga scored platinum sales which contributes to the whole nation's economy.
We cannot lie, in every industry, sales are the goal. You can swallow your it-is-art speech and kick your idealism out of the window. If you cannot sell, then there's no point in creating a masterpiece unless your dream is to have your picture hung up in the museum. Spending thousands dollars investing on looks and expensive recording studio sound believable if you take a good look at your profit tables throughout the year.
In the end, it'll be back to something we address as Mr and Mrs Dollar.
We entertain, you pay.
It seems like a win-win solution. In every entertainment industry, including United States' most beloved Hollywood, people are doing give and take. The industry creates entertainment, ranging from the music you play while you're driving, to the blockbusters movies with special effects that can 'wow' you for hours. Then you go to the music stores buying CDs or to the cinema lining for tickets. With every profit that the company makes, they produce bigger and more massive entertainment products. While on the other hand, there are these young gentlemen and ladies who really want to be popular by acting, singing, or whatever talents they possesed. The company takes them, puts them on the stage and the screen, and wooots, dreams come true! That's why you can sing along with Rihanna at home. The process might not be that easy, but it's more or less the big picture.
Then, while the tentacles of US' music industry have spread all over the world, K-Pop industry seems wanting to do the same. It might adopt RnB, Rap, and other popular music styles from US, but it has been succesful in injecting its own style to the music. More than that, the Koreans create fashion trends and other popular culture along their music especially among young adults and teenagers. K-Pop meets huge success in Asia and it may really conquer the world.
Like other industry, sometimes it can be ugly too. No matter what, business is still business and every revolution you make costs something. When the first industrial revolution with its machines and automatization came up, there was hesitation, even rejection. But years after that, we love how we can make more money by employing less. But now another problem came up; energy crisis. It goes the same way with entertainment industry. There's no way you can make money without being ugly one way or another, even if it's only behind the curtain. And after people accept that ugliness as a normal thing, there will be another problem to face. As long as the industry goes, it would be like that.
K-Pop as an industry is growing. To be honest, it wows me. With those amazingly good looking boys and girls with great talents which have been sharpened for years roaming the world stages, it pays off in the end. They are just the whole package. But how ugly and beautiful the industry can be, it's your choice to accept it or not.
For me, I'm just going to listen to these songs as long as I want.
Cheers!
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