Hola MaHigh-School - August 2023

K-pop is a lot more than just music and bands coming from Korea. It has evolved into something of a musical revolution.

I found an interesting article here. The funny thing is that K-pop is not really defined.

It is much much more than music now. Korean series and movies are aplenty (DStv has a Korean channel), Korean beauty products, language, fashion and much more. It is coming at us fast and furious.

Is there a parallel to this? I will claim there is: US influence on ‘culture’.

Fast ‘backwards’ to 1950’s and 60’s: US economy dominated all things after WWII. Now here comes Elvis and movies and cars. And all of it is in the English language.

Beatles of course, and Stones and Jimmi and so on: all in English. But something else is happening!

ABBA is the best example: Sure they sing in English, but they went for language classes to remove any trace of ‘accent’. ABBA became international. And a lot followed.

The trend was of course that to gain traction, use English.

We turn to the latest K-pop band: Black Swan. Black Swan consists of four women, not one from Korea. Sure, they sing (partly) in Korean, but use just as much English. Their sound track is filmed in India (thanks to one of the women coming from India).

As much as rock ‘n roll is not limited to US, we will see that K-pop is not limited to Korea. Get used to it.

People in Korea were asked about this trend. Some are proud of Korea putting its mark on the world

However, some would like to see the ‘purity’ of Korean language and culture. Mixed reactions.

My predictions: we will see a lot more of K-pop (whatever it is) being performed by people from all over the globe.

We will see a lot more AI-based bands who will ‘perform’ and produce music in the K-pop world.

Love it or leave it!