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By Kim Jae-heun
The government's decision to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) here has stoked concerns that it will take the steam out of the popularity of hallyu in China.
The neighboring country is strongly opposing the deployment of the anti-missile defense system on the Korean Peninsula and is suspected of moving to take retaliatory action against K-pop idols and other hallyu stars.
However, boy band BigBang's local concert drew more than 65,000 fans, including Chinese and Japanese K-pop lovers in Seoul on Aug. 20. With such a huge local and international fan base, political conflict might not deal a major blow to K-pop after all.
Many Koreans grow up listening to American pop songs, not completely understanding the lyrics. It is not unusual for music fans to love songs written in a language other than their mother tongue.
In 2012, Psy's "Gangnam Style," sung in Korean, became a global sensation. Many accredit the success of the song to its humorous video and an explosive verse melody with an easy-to-follow horse-riding dance that gets everyone on their feet.
No Korean song has achieved anything close to the success of "Gangnam Style" since, but the popularity of K-pop, especially in Asian countries, has grown considerably over the past few years.
The country's top record labels, YG Entertainment, S.M. Entertainment and JYP Entertainment, are pulling out their best to produce music that can satisfy global music standards and appeal to listeners around the world.
"I like K-pop because of the high quality of the productions, including the melodies, lyrics and music arrangements. Some of the music videos are just gorgeous," said Wendy Chu from Hong Kong, a passionate BigBang fan in her late 30s. "K-pop has a very strong and unique image and style with fabulous stage performances and atmosphere. K-pop is a collective pop culture."
She continued, "The language barrier may only apply to the understanding of the lyrics. However, the melodies are universal. High-quality music can link up audiences from different countries with different backgrounds."
Ever since Chu attended popular BigBang's 2012 concert in Hong Kong, she has attended 12 more BigBang shows, including the recent one in Seoul earlier this month.
"I like K-pop because of the music," said Javier Muro Rivera from Mexico, another K-pop fan in his 20s. "You don't have to understand the language to like the music. K-pop music and music videos are well produced.
"American and Mexican music have slightly lower production value even though they have good songs. I believe this is because there are only a few names in the Western industry that are really big and they destroy the competition.
"In Korea, however, everyone seems to want to be an idol and that's why there are so many new groups every year. So everyone has to be on top of their game producing the best things they can or they might lose their spot to some other groups."
Rivera said that he especially likes 2NE1 and SHINee and never hesitates to buy tickets to KCON concerts in Mexico.
K-pop has no roots
Music critic Kim Yoon-ha, a columnist for the monthly web-magazine Broadcasting Trend & Insight published by Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA), agrees that lyrics do not play a pivotal role for a person to enjoy foreign-language songs. She believes that people approach culture first and then learn the language.
Kim finds the growing popularity of K-pop is exceeding the frenzied fandom of Japanese pop music in the 1990s.
"J-pop boomed in the ‘90s and it was trendy then, but as its popularity faded and the quality of K-pop improved, music fans started listening to K-pop in the 21st century," Kim said. "However, I always say K-pop has no roots. It is neither Korean nor American and I think it has no nationality. It is some kind of mixture created from elements of multinational music."
Kim said acts like BigBang and 2NE1 sing songs inspired by mainstream American hip-hop. "SHINee or EXO of S.M. Entertainment play a mixed genre of American pop and K-pop," she said. "Plus, their performances on stage and quality music videos appeal to foreign fans."
BigBang's leader G-Dragon also credited the popularity of the band's music to the fact that it is good to listen to as well as enjoyable to watch and dance to.
"There are songs that weren't popular before but became favorites after our music videos were released or dances were performed on stage," G-Dragon said at a recent press conference.
"We make songs that include various elements, such as how they are combined with choreography, and how we shoot the music video as well as what costumes we are going to wear. I make songs that I like and that I believe my fans will like too."
He said that when he was young he liked to listen to pop songs although he did not speak English at all.
"I just liked the energy that the music had and that is how I started in music," G-Dragon said.
The future
Analysts are mixed over what the future holds for hallyu.
Jang Gyu-soo, chief of the Entertainment Industry Research Institute, paints a bleak picture for the future of the K-pop market. Jang says it could fade away in the next four years if K-pop does not distinguish itself from Japanese or Chinese pop.
"K-pop, to be honest, has no identity," he said. "You can hardly distinguish J-pop, Chinese pop or K-pop because Korea, China and Taiwan all copy from J-pop. Japan took pop culture from America first and transformed it into an Asian style."
However, music critic Kim said that K-pop can find the answer to its future by keeping its identity that many fans love.
"Of course, music comes first, but K-pop's strength lies in showing music. If it keeps churning out good stage performances and making quality music videos, K-pop can keep its market as a dominant subculture in the Western world and get an even bigger share in the Asian market," Kim said.
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