Post 4: How K-pop Began

H.O.T back in the 1900's

Well, I know that you've heard about the song Nobody by Wondergirls and you most certainly heard about Gangnam Style of PSY in the radio even once. I know that some if not most of you knew how popular k-pop became -specially last year; however, have you ever wondered how all of this began? To the average people who only hears k-pop whenever their friends (who are fans of k-pop) or the radio plays it... have you wondered on how all this craziness started?

Let me tell you about a bit of history. Korean pop music is still very young compared to other music genre. According to http://brett-tesol.hubpages.com/hub/The-History-of-Korean-Pop-Music written by Brett. Tesol in his article The History of Korean Pop Music, "Pop music has become quite popular in Korea due to the Western influence of pop music. This doesn't mean that Western culture is overtaking the Korean culture, but more that it was the start of various popular music channels like MTV and internet sources, that have spread pop music and had a great influence upon the inspiration of Korean musicians, as well as general music lovers" . So based on my understanding, Western music had a great influence on k-pop, however, the Koreans infused these two to produce a new music genre, then this makes me not to wonder why Korean became a hit.

Sechs Kies

It is said in http://kpoponlinenews.wordpress.com/k-pop-history/ on the article K-Pop History (written by an anonymous) that H.O.T, Sechs Kies and S.E.S are some of the boy and girl group that started the k-pop fever in the late 1990's. Hip hop and R&B also became popular in Korea that time, groups such as Epik High, TVXQ and other single artists entered the scene. They then proceeded to reach out to Japan and China then to other Asian countries.

In 2000s, k-pop began to spread all over the world. In 2009, Wondergirls introduced k-pop to the world with their hit song Nobody and then they were followed by Girls Generation. In 2012, Big Bang and 2ne1 invaded the U.S. and Canada by topping the music charts.

Again, according to K-pop History, Korean agencies use the strategy of apprenticeship as strategy in nurturing and producing groups in Korea. Agencies overspend up to $40,000 just to train their talents in singing, dancing, acting, make overs and studying different languages all while attending school. They also try to search for new talents from other countries. The example of it is the TV show K-pop Starhunt in Channel M.

S.E.S

All-in-all k-pop is still very young. However, considering its success worldwide k-pop has a long way to go and I know that it will continue to give us fans the music that we want. By seeing how the agencies give their best in nurturing their idols, I know that in the near future k-pop will really be a part of peoples everyday lives.