Non-Koreans (Survey).... how did you learn about K-pop?

[koganbot]

While searching "Oscar song meanings," I incidentally found this thread where non-Koreans talk about how they discovered K-pop and why they love it.

"I'm just wondering...... I see many people who aren't Korean listening to Kpop.

"How did you find out and learn about kpop?
"Why do you love it?
"What is your ethnicity/nationality?
"What are your favorite groups and why? What are your favorite songs and why?"
"Do you prefer boy groups over girl groups or both?"

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120412182534AAbtXrF

I don't think nationality matters at all because puppies of all countries listen to kpop. A norwegian puppy or a belizean puppy - they all love it! I'm central european, now living in Phnom Penh where local khmer kids dance to kpop in parks. Few nights ago they were swaying their hips to Abracadabra :D

Three people like that the groups don't have to sing about sex, money, and drugs.

I think this is my favorite bit of meta:

At first when I listened to [SNSD's] music, I didn't like it and I sorta became an anti. (I think that to like a group you have to be a bit negative to see if you prefer them. If their music and personality can persuade you then they are a good group. A group must be able to have strong persuasion to have fans)

Best food reference (in regard to Onew of SHINee):

Onew- he's adorable, he's sweet, he's kind of awkward, he loves chicken (and I do too), and his voice is amazing; though he's quiet, he's a good leader.

Most emblematic authenticity argument:

What are MY favourite groups and why?

Well .... I love mostly YG's lol. BigBang&2NE1. 2NE1, because i just love their music that they sing. I mean it's just so beautiful, and has a good feeling, it gets my emotions inside. That song ugly. It really got to me how they're calling themselves ugly. When everyone is unique, and pretty in the inside. I think their song just like gives a message to the people who think they are ugly. 2NE1 i think is just amazing, they don't care about anything. Especially Dara's hair, does she care that everyone thinks her hair is crazy no? I just love it how they all got their style, and just care about their own opinions. I love it how their different from other bands. I mean do other bands have the guts to call themselves ugly in a song? Narhh they don't! 2ne1 sings sad songs, and even their hyper songs have some feeling and emotion init for some reason !

BigBang, GOSH where do i start. Well most of the reasons are in 2NE1, some of them are not very attractive. But they don't care too, do they lolz. Bigbang's music is just A-MAZIN-G! I love their new album Alive. I like Fantastic Baby, the most yes because it's hyper. But through all the drama they went through, this is like the song that just says to me ' WOW BIGBANG IS BACK!'. With all the drama, u wud think BigBang's party-songs are gone. I love BLUE though, its like a starting-new fresh song if you get me. Like the songs 'i'm sing my bluee-oo' the songs feeling just makes me think their syaing bye to the drama and starting fresh and stuff like that. Bad Boy was like wow. I didn't understand the meaning of it, but it was a good song. What i like the most about them both is that they only got a few members! I can easily remember the members now. Bigbang - 5Members (TAEYANG, T.O.P, G-DRAGON, DAESUNG, SEUNGRI) 2NE1 - 4Members (PARK BOM, SANDARA PARK, MINZY, CL)

Anyone reading this can answer in the comments, if you'd like, even if you are Korean. How does one define "Non-Korean" anyway? I'd say that I'm non-Ukrainian, non-Belarussian, non-Russian, non-Polish, non-Austrian, nonshtetl, non-European, non-Yiddish, etc., though I could claim all those ethnicities (or whatever) under certain circumstances. By the way, the first-released (though unauthorized) version of "Tell Me Your Wish (Genie)" was not by SNSD but by an Uzbek. Not that Uzbekistan is anywhere near the Ukraine. But it's closer to the Ukraine than to Korea.

"Dineyra - Raqsga tushgin uzbek song" (Watch on YouTube)

Comments

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"How did you find out and learn about kpop?"

A lot of my friends are Asian-American (because we shared the bond of being academically-oriented minorities at a mostly African-American high school), so I was exposed a bunch of times, but it didn't stick. I specifically remember a lot of former NSync fans being into Big Bang around 2008 (because subtext (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcTcQXxvb2o)), but I was never an NSync fan or a boyband fan, so I was never interested.

My girlfriend post-college, who is not a big Kpop fan herself but whose younger brother is a very intense Taeyang fan, once sat me down and showed me a bunch of Very Sad Kpop Ballads with Kdrama-like music videos - I remember JYJ In Heaven (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJM0uAAHt3A) was one of them - to see how I would react. And I remember thinking they were so transparently emotionally manipulative that they almost became parodies - and then turning to my GF who was silently crying over the tragic unfairness of Junsu's dead girlfriend. That left a deep impression.

And then, around November of last year, I took another look at 'I am the Best' and when CL showed up in the straitjacket, I got it. The emotions aren't exaggerated, Kpop is full of large personalities that run very hot and very cold. And like Sabina said in her review of that video way back when, Kpop and especially the girl groups is in its imperial phase right now.

"Why do you love it?"

I like the imperial phase of Kpop girl groups, mentioned above. I like that Kpop uses different metaphors and has different touchstones than US pop music, so even songs that might be very formulaic sound new and different to me. I like trot-inspired stuff because it reminds me of Yiddish folk songs, rap-inspired stuff because it reminds me of songs I heard on the bus on the way to school in the mid-ninties, Eurodance-inspired stuff (the Norwegian wave) because it sounds futuristic and experimental, and uptempo stuff because it reminds me of anime theme song music. (And like anime theme song music it sounds like it was made by people on speed...and sounds extra-good when you are on speed. "Ritalin" explains a lot about current teenybopper music tastes, I feel.) Finally, I like 2NE1 because it's has that happy-sadness (or sad-happiness) that is great for exercising. To Anyone is my exercise CD.

Additionally:

High production values: elaborate music videos, beats that don't sound like they came out of a box, the best vocal performances the singers are capable of captured on record. The vertical integration of artist, label and studio has advantages here.

Ease: there is good, high-production-value, experimental music being made in English too, but you have to dig for it. There is less Korean music overall, but many more great songs proportionally. Often the most popular songs (by Youtube hits) are the best or most interesting ones.

Finally, I like the way the entire Kpop industry sounds like it is driving over a cliff at 100 miles an hour. It's exuberant music, bubble music.

"What is your ethnicity/nationality?

Jewish-American mom, Macedonian-American dad.

Continued in next comment!

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"What are your favorite groups and why? What are your favorite songs and why?"

2NE1, Big Bang - it's rewarding to be a fan of these groups. The more you pay attention, the more you get out of the music because it is written as *if* you have been following their careers closely from the beginning. Everyone in these groups has musical talent, and Teddy Park is a great producer. The music videos are visually interesting (2NE1) or symbolically rich (Big Bang). Production is close to US pop production - I have started to appreciate US pop music more in a kind of reverse-discovery process.

Brown Eyed Girls - I like the individual members. This group has a lot of stature and they work with great people on their solo stuff. Also, girl-on-girl fanservice!

Infinite - I like the 80s synth + electric guitars + emotional singing + obsessive lyrics thing they have going on. Their songs are consistently good and their music videos are intriguing, in that "what's going on here?" kind of way. Someone at that company is putting a lot of thought and craft into every aspect of this.

T-ara & 4minute - There's a clearly "most charismatic" member of each of these groups but instead of overshadowing the other members, the charisma seems to rub off on them/to be contagious. I admire both groups' willingness to push boundaries.

B1A4 - Good lyrics by a good-looking-but-very-introspective songwriter who is also in the band. Kind of like B2ST, but I like B1A4's style/message a little more. Group members seem to be pretty smart too.

Tablo - Fever's End is a good, cohesive album with a story behind it.

B.A.P. - I like their identification with the oppressed. So far none of their music has "stuck" on me, maybe because I'm not a fan of Linkin Park style rock-rap. But I have high hopes for this group. They are very interesting people and I like... okay, this is getting into unsupported theorizing territory, but sometimes I wonder whether Kpop is the domain of young + old female fans, and older male fans, because most of the young Korean guys are more into video games. I like that BAP has a kind of gamer sensibility - instead of playing themselves on TV, they play characters, and are promoting themselves between albums with a comic about their alien bunny avatars.

I guess what all of these groups have in common is "stories". They are interesting people and that interestingess is reflected in their music or music videos.

"Do you prefer boy groups over girl groups or both?"

I like girl-group singles more, but I follow more boy groups.

I think girls are freer in some ways: to express superiority or to physically threaten their partner, for instance. I think this is because it's "cute" when girls do this - or at least not as threatening - because of the assumed power difference between men and women. (Personally I find something something like "Heart to Heart" to be terrifying - but terror also increases adrenaline which can be fun in a way, since the violence is a fantasy. But a video where the guy was manipulating his girlfriend into staying with him would be awful, because he already has the overt power in the relationship, and now he has the covert power too... in other words he's a controlling douchebag... double standards etc etc)

On the other hand, unless it's a ballad, I don't think women are as free to tell personal stories of pain and growth as men are. I like stories, so I'm more drawn to the boy groups in this respect.