K-Pop 101

Before I tell you about my K-pop celebrity encounter today, I need to give you a quick K-pop primer. What is K-pop? Technically it just means Korean Popular music, but a big part of popular music in this country consists of sappy love ballads, and that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the packaged for mass-marketing boy and girl groups like the Wonder Girls, Big Bang, Dongbangshinki (a.k.a. TVXQ) and the likes.

This video, “How To Dance K-Pop Style,” is a really good overview of last year’s top K-pop songs. It also sums up why I love K-pop so much: it's all about the dance moves. Watch and learn:



I love this video because what the couple talks about actually happens in class. Like If you use the word "nobody" in a sentence, someone will inevitably break out into the chorus of the popular Wonder Girls' song.

When I first got here, it was my students that did this. Now that I've been here nearly 8 months, I'm down with the K-pop, and I usually beat them to the punch.

Actually these days I'm probably too down with the K-pop. Upon my arrival I thought most of the songs were poor imitations of American pop songs, but like many things in Korea, I have grown to love K-pop; Big Bang especially. And because of the Hallyu* phenomenon, all of the groups have English names and most of their songs have English refrains, so I can at least sing along to that part.

Big Bang's latest project is a terrible song that was written to market Cyon's new 'Lollipop' phone:


T.O.P., my favorite member, looking very manly as always:


More about Hallyu
*Hallyu means "Korean wave" or "Korean fever," and it's a term used to describe the surge of popularity of Korean culture in the past decade. Korean pop music, television dramas, and movies have a wide fan base across Southeast Asia, and the "hallyu" is spreading to other parts of the world as well. In fact, K-pop megastar 'Rain' has been spending more time touring overseas (recently in Los Angeles and Hawaii) than he does in his home country. Rain has been trying hard to crack the very lucrative US market, and was even seen last May on the Colbert Report having a dance-off with Stephen Colbert himself. I will post this video because even though it pokes fun at the very hard-working Rain, it's hilarious.

He's Singin' in Korean



The Dance-Off

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Rain Dance-Off
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Gay Marriage Commercial

I could go on and on about my new obsession, but I will stop now. There will undoubtedly be more K-pop posts in the future.

For all the latest K-pop news in translation, check out my favorite blog of the moment: K-Popped