Korean Pop Music

In the era of globalisation, popular music has become one of the significant trends that most people consume in daily life. As music comes in different genres and styles, consumers have the freedom to select on what suits best for them. As in Asian regions, “K-pop” or also known as Korean Pop music has successfully grabbed the Asian attention since the 90s. Originally derived from Southern Korea, K-pop has stolen the spotlight among the Asian audiences. In the last decade, the K-pop music phenomenal has tremendously increased its popularity across different countries in Asia. There are also some successful K-pop artists managed to expand their music across The United States market such as Girls Generation and PSY. However, the existence of

Even though South Korea country neighbour, Japan has its own music J-pop, but K-pop seems to overshadow the popularity of pop music culture in Asia. One of the reasons why it could have succeeded in the music industry was because K-pop mix music culture has acquired various consumer’s sentiment which closely relate to themselves. At the same time, K-pop prioritizes the high quality of each song produces from lyric to music video. Despite the fact that K-pop has succeeded in the music industry, the Korean pop has been criticized of its values heavily influenced by the West. For instance, K-pop songs have imitated hip-hop, dance, rap, or R&B which originated from the American music culture. Likewise, majority K-pop songs included snippet of English language as part of the lyrics. So, most people question whether K-pop has that one unique quality that define its identity or is it just an effect from the West music influence. Ryoo (2009) argues that K-pop shouldn’t be labelled as a merely copycat from the West and suggested that it is a form of hybridity where different cultures mix together in one music. The mixing of English lyrics in K-pop music doesn’t mean that Korean lost its national identity. Indeed, the distinctive values about K-pop music that define its uniqueness from others are such as an innovative creation, all-in-one choreography, super catchy and attractive song, high stylish attires and most importantly the smoothness of music video production. Ryoo (2009) emphasis that cultural hybridity allows Asian consumers to have sense of belonging to K-pop cultural and sentimental attributes. Even though dominating globalisation can be the reason for the tendency of media imperialism happens in Asian countries but cultural hybridity help to explain further on how Asian consumes media. In today’s world, some K-pop artists were able to