Читать книгу K-POP Now! - Mark James Russell - Страница 5

Wonder Girls is one of the most successful K-pop groups of the last few years.

The stadium lights darken, replaced by thousands of fluorescent sticks waving madly as screams fill the air.

Then comes the boom and flash of fireworks from the stage as silhouettes strike dramatic poses, waiting to begin. Somehow, the impossibly loud screaming grows louder.

Finally, as anticipation reaches an apex, a deep bass kicks in. The stage lights suddenly blast, the bodies on stage start dancing. The concert has begun, and for the next two hours the cries of joy from the legions of fans will not stop.

It’s K-pop (an abbreviation for Korean pop), the musical mania that has come out of South Korea and enraptured a world of fans. More than just music, K-pop is also about fashion and style, fun and the future, of a new wave of attitude coming from an old world. And, of course, it is also about the beautiful stars and their adoring fans.

The names of the bands may look strange—Big Bang, Super Junior, 2PM, 2NE1, TVXQ!, Girls’ Generation, U-Kiss, T-ara, EXO, JYJ, 4Minute, MBLAQ. And as K-pop becomes more popular, the list grows ever longer.

For me, it’s hard to believe K-pop has come so far. When I first arrived in Korea, one of the first and greatest K-pop groups, H.O.T, was just getting started, setting off a wave of mania that could not compare to anything I had seen in North America or Europe. Their first big hit, “Candy,” was on the air and on TV everywhere, and at the time H.O.T featured a cuddly, cute image, with the group’s five members dressed in bright colors, often in large, plush jumpsuits. Only later would they take a turn toward the goth. But soon came other groups, nearly as popular—S.E.S., FinKL, g.o.d., Shinhwa and more.

I soon began writing about Korean music for a variety of Western publications, including Billboard, talking about the coolest new groups and the hottest new music labels. And gradually it became clear that K-pop was also building followings outside of Korea, in other parts of Asia. But the question I was asked by people in the Korean music business, over and over again, was “When will Korea have a Destiny’s Child?” Or, later, a Beyonce or a Justin Timberlake? That is, when would a K-pop group become big in the United States?

At the time, the question seemed ridiculous. K-pop was catchy but it was so far away from the big pop stars of America. When I posed that question to Western music executives, they would also answer the same way: “Why would we want a Korean Destiny’s Child when we already have Destiny’s Child? We already have Beyonce and Justin Timberlake, too.” K-pop would have to wait.

The thing is, K-pop didn’t want to wait. It kept growing and pushing, winning over more and more fans. And then came Psy and “Gangnam Style.” Goofy Park Jae-sang, who had been singing and dancing for a decade with his catchy, silly songs. But “Gangnam Style” was even goofier and catchier than usual, and this time the West got the joke. Leading websites and celebrities started tweeting and linking to the “Gangnam Style” video on YouTube and soon the song took off. And somehow, it kept getting bigger and bigger, until today it tops 1.8 billion views, nearly twice as many as the next biggest song.

Even before Psy, K-pop had been growing. It spent much of the 2000s spreading around Asia, with BoA becoming a major star in Japan, and Rain finding huge popularity around the region. But, like a lot of people, I thought it was mostly a local trend. However, as I spent time on the Internet, reading the popular Internet forums, I couldn’t help but notice other names beginning to appear, people from other locations around the world.

The first time I heard K-pop in Europe was in 2009, in a dingy local café on the western end of Barcelona, far from the tourist strip. It was a quiet Sunday morning, and I was enjoying a coffee and a snack when I suddenly noticed a strangely familiar sound on the radio. The music was bright and poppy, in different chords than Spanish pop usually uses. Then I finally heard the voices. They were singing in Korean. I asked the bartender, a middle-aged Catalan man, how he could have K-pop on his stereo and he shrugged and said he just liked it. No big deal.

It’s amazing, but in just five years 2PM has become one of the leading groups in K-pop.

Soon after that, K-pop began springing up everywhere. SM Entertainment held two hugely popular shows in Paris in 2011. The group JYJ had concerts in Barcelona and Frankfurt. Girls’ Generation appeared on David Letterman and other US television shows. Groups like Big Bang and Super Junior started playing in Europe, the United States and South America. Clearly, something was going on.

There are also more groups than ever, with dozens now making their debut each year. From 1998 until 2008, about thirty K-pop groups, duos and solo artists were introduced each year. In 2009, the number leapt to more than forty. Then nearly seventy in 2010. And more than a hundred in 2012. Clearly, no book can cover all of K-pop but I hope this book will include most of your favorites.

Before July 2012, who could have predicted that Psy would become Korea’s most famous pop star?

So, what does it all mean? Aside from Psy, the top K-pop acts often get ten million to thirty million hits for their videos, with the biggest songs topping fifty million views, and Girls’ Generation’s “Gee” now over one hundred million. A hot new song from a big star can rocket to the top of the iTunes charts all over the world, at least for a day or two after it gets released. Western music websites like Popdust regularly feature articles about Korean music, and when Korean artists face off against the biggest American pop stars in online polls, the Korean artists usually win hands down. K-pop may not be dominating sales but its fans are numerous enough and passionate enough to make a real difference.

K-pop may not get much play on Western radio or much respect from “serious” journalists but that’s mostly a sign of how the middle-aged powers that be often just don’t get it. But the stars of K-pop—along with the songwriters and producers and fans—know what they like.

People have been underestimating K-pop since the music started. They won’t be underestimating it anymore.