K-Pop Demystified VI: Releasing New Music

I have had listened to a lot of music in my life, primarily owing to my dad’s influence.  It wouldn’t be exaggerating if I told you I grew up listening to the Bee Gees, Beethoven, Teresa Teng and Richard Clayderman.  And mum listened to anything that was playing on the radio.  Diverse, I know.  Maybe that’s why I grew up confused about my taste in music.

K-Pop entertains me.  And intrigues me too, especially the way new music is released and publicised.  Again, I have to qualify that my knowledge is very skewed towards SM Ent. and Super Junior because I don’t follow the other Korean artistes as closely.  But I’m guessing that it isn’t much different.

First of all, teaser pictures about the concept of the new album are released, usually of one member each day, just to whet the appetite of the fans.  Following that, a teaser MV would be released on the agency’s official YouTube channel.  What’s a teaser MV?  It’s a condensed version of the real MV, and reveals just a little about what the actual song might sound like.  And I have to say, SM Ent. makes some of the best teasers out there.  So good the teasers were that I was actually kind of disappointed a couple of times when the full MV was released and it sounded nothing like the teaser.

Compare between the teaser and the full MV for ‘Super Girl’.  I was expecting an edgier song with a stronger beat.  The actual song is quite good actually, but I felt kind of cheated because the teaser was much better, I thought.

Of course, a few days following the release of the teaser MV, the actual MV is released on YouTube as well.  And this is call a Comeback.  No, the group did not split or disband after the series of promotions and concert tour of the previous album ended.  ’Comeback’ is just a term used specifically in K-Pop to refer to artistes who are beginning promotion activities for a new album.

And after the MV is released, they start their roundof live stage performances on the various music shows in South Korea namely, Mnet Music Show (Thursdays), KBS Music Bank (Friday), MBC Music Core (Saturdays) and SBS Inkigayo (Sundays).  Some of these shows give out awards based on album sales, audience voting but it’s too complicated so I won’t cover that here.

In the midst of this promotion period, the group will also attend other various entertainment and radio shows to promote the new album.  This is usually done on top of other duties they might already have for example co-hosts on shows etc.  This cycle goes on for several weeks (about five weeks) before they take a one-week break.  But no, they are not resting in that one week.  What happenes is they start learning the dance for the main track of their repackaged album.  And this again goes on for several weeks till the last performance known as the ’Goodbye Stage’.

Things don’t end there after the Goodbye Stage.  Usually if it is not a new artiste or group and if they had released a full-length instead of a mini album, it was time to prepare for a concert tour.  Of course, the number of shows and the number of countries they travel to depends on how popular the artiste or group is.  Take for example Super Junior’s Super Show 3 (to promote their 4th studio album) saw them travelling to 13 cities for 20 concerts in 10 months.  Seems like a long period of time for the small number of concerts but while they were touring to give their concerts, their subgroup Super Junior-M made time to release a mini album.  On top of that, another subgroup Super Junior K.R.Y was also travelling to a few countries for their first concert.  Some members were also juggling appearances on musicals.

This is one very busy group.  I’m not sure if the other groups or solo artistes in South Korea are as busy, but I’m guessing that Super Junior is busy because they have been in the industry for some years now and have several other commitments outside of promoting their music.

So, there you go.  Summarily, this is how new music is being released and promoted in South Korea.

And since this post is already the 6th installment of series, I thought I should end the post with links to the previous parts.  I know, not many of my regular readers are interested in K-Pop but in case someone who is totally new to this genre of music decides to read up on it, I would rather they read what I’ve written here than pull off information from some misguided website written by a fanatic K-Pop fan who cannot be neutral.  I’m not always neutral, I know, but I tried.

K-Pop Demystified V: K-Pop Fandom
K-Pop Demystified IV: Maknaes
K-Pop Demystified III: Leaders
K-Pop Demystified II: The Obsession with Age
K-Pop Demystified I: The Concept

And if you are not a fan of K-Pop (I know I’ve been seriously boring you to death), I apologise.  It’s just that K-Pop has, in particular, been drawing a lot of flake because they say it’s shallow, severely auto-tuned and the artistes not talented.  Music is music, whatever the genre.  What more music that entertains me.  I can’t appreciate all genre of music out there, but I blame no one for not being open-minded towards metal music or Linkin’ Park.  It’s a matter of taste and hence I don’t think anyone should slam any music without knowing much of it.  I just want to do my little part in righting this.