K-Pop Demystified I: The Concept

In view of my growing fondness for and apparent bias towards K-Pop (I’ve actually stopped listening to English and Mandarin music as a result!), I’ve decided to write a series of posts on this topic.  I don’t profess to know everything, but I’ll try to impart the knowledge I’ve acquired without prejudice, to my best ability. *

Read on with an open mind, regardless of your views towards K-Pop.  This genre of music is here to stay, whether you like it or not.

K-Pop is an abbreviation of Korean Popular Music, ranging from pop music to electropop, hip hop, rock, R&B originating from South Korea.  The K-Pop music industry is a highly organised, well-oiled and somewhat regimental one, where talent agencies/entertainment companies have honed the concept of apprenticeship to perfection.  In sooth, entering these talent agencies is about the only way to debut as a solo artist (think: BoA, Bi a.k.a. Rain, G.Na), part of a girl group (think: Girls’ Generation a.k.a. SNSD, Kara, Miss. A) or part of a boy band (think: Super Junior, CNBLUE, Infinite).

Most artists are talent-scouted when they are very young – in middle school or occasionally, as young as elementary school.  Others enter the talent agencies through auditions, singing or dancing competitions etc.  This talent-scouting activity is not limited only to South Korea; the agencies also send their talent scouts to other countries like the United States, China and even Thailand.  They will then be officially known as trainees, and receive training in singing, dancing and foreign languages, amongst other things.  This is on top of juggling time for their formal education.  On average, the apprenticeship lasts for 3-4 years, sometimes less and sometimes more, depending on whether a trainee is ready to debut, he/she fits the concept of a new group the agency is creating etc.  Most artists who succesfully debuted had shared that the most trying times of their careers were during apprenticeship because, on top of the uncertainty of whether they would eventually debut, the agencies unrelentless pushed them very hard to assess their full potential.  Needless to say, very few of them look back upon their trainee days fondly.

[Super Junior Pre-Debut pictures. You could tell from the pictures how young some of them were back then, just barely out of middle school for some of them.   cr: cassielfvip]

The trainees’ lives improve tremendously after they debut, especially if their debut attain certain success.  The talent agencies are, after all, not running charities.  It is little wonder they pay more attention to artists who reap more profits for the companies, as opposed to trainees who are only liabilities during apprenticeship.

* Disclaimer: It is no secret that I am a fan of Super Junior, so my knowledge may largely be skewed towards them, S.M. Entertainment and SMTown artists (artists under the charge of SMEnt).