K-pop
In 1996, there was a song “We Are The Future” let us know who is “H.O.T” and what’s k-pop. Nowdays, each of us would have several k-pop songs in our playlist. Form “H.O.T” to “EXO” ( a South Korean-Chinese boy band produced by S.M. Entertainment in 2012), great changes have taken place in k-pop. If you like k-pop, come with me and finding the k-pop’s yesterday and today!
Xue Han 120307237 Class 4
Look back to the history of Korean popular music, there are four important periods: the early K-pop, the turning point of k-pop, the birth of the Korean wave, and the global k-pop.
Begin talking about K-pop, we should know some of its history. The history of K-pop music can be traced back to 1885 when an American missionary, Henry Appenzeller started teaching American and British folk songs at a school. At this time, the western music started enter into Korea and started influencing Korean music. From one perspective, this is the originating of K-pop.
At the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s, Korean pop music has a very important change. Because people in this time, unlike their predecessors who had to experience war and Japanese oppression. Additionally, these young musicians were heavily influenced by American culture and lifestyle. So they had a more open and free mind, and their music pay more attention to fun and self entertaining.
Different time has different fashion cycle, for example: in the 1970s, DJs started to become popular, but 10 years later, the era of ballads become more popular. Because of more and more different kinds of music come into vogue in Korea, the k-pop started blooming.
There was a time has to mention. In the 1990s, early Korean pop musicians mixed American popular music styles like rap, rock in their music. The Seo Taiji & Boys brought a true turning point in the history of K-pop. The lyrics of Seo Taiji & Boys dealt with the problems of Korean society, which other entertainers of the era failed to do. And their sound paved the way for the “success format” of K-pop songs. In other hand, the 1990s were also a successful period for underground music clubs, punk rock bands managed to gain mainstream popularity.
In 1995 Korean entrepreneur Lee Soo-man founded South Korea’s largest talent agency and record label, SM Entertainment. By the late 1990s, YG Entertainment, DSP Entertainment, JYP Entertainment, and FNC Music had become the most important part of k-pop music market. And SM, YG and JYP often referred to as the “Big Three.”
Towards the turn of the 21st century, the K-pop music began spreading out to other regions of the world as part of the global Korean wave. In 2012, the number of fans in Turkey over 100,000 for the first time, and reached 150,000 in 2013. That year, there were 70 K-pop fan clubs in Mexico, with at least 60,000 members altogether. All this number shows the k-pop music become an indispensable part in present international music market.
If now you are only know western pop music, you are out of fashion. K-pop, the new music bomb had already threw to the global music market. Maybe the song “We Are The Future” really predicted the future of k-pop. Like the lyric in this song “I want to create my own world, don’t force me to live the same life, I want to set up my own life, we are the future!” The special, bright future belong to K-pop!
