Dear editor,
In response to a Dec. 6 article, “Ham-fisted handling clips K-pop’s dollar potential,” I was left wondering whether or not the music industry’s executives have ever considered real music ― sung by real people ― as a future growth engine.
Rather than training prepubescent children to perform canned dance techniques and sing songs they didn’t write to the melodies of the same tired technopop beats, it may be worth searching for genuine artists that create their own music and give them a venue.
While international labels are also hosts to the same kind of artificial, plastic sound K-pop is known for (although most foreign performers typically pay for their own cosmetic surgery) they’re also keen to sign artists who appeal to non-preteen audience.
That’s not to say teenagers and young adults aren’t a crucial market for K-pop. They are. Hordes of them will buy every Super Junior single regardless if every song sounds the same. Good looks will always sell a few copies.
But there is room for something else. There are plenty of gifted Koreans that can play instruments and write their own music. And there are millions more eager for some music that actually means something.
Take IU, for example. She’s pretty. She can sing. But how can an uneducated, coddled adolescent like her have anything worthwhile to say to people older than 13? You know, the types that have actually lived life?
The mass of people that the artificial noise that is K-pop doesn’t relate to ― that’s a pretty big market, waiting in the wings.
Aaron Crossen
Nam-gu, Ulsan
aaroncrossen@gmail.com