Starting from PSY’s Gangnam Style in 2012, K-pop has become the popular and hottest music genre in Asian regions. The overwhelming charisma of K-pop groups caught a lot of attention from worldwide; it is hard to go on the music player these days without seeing K-pop songs. BTS, possibly the most famous K-pop boy group, has a leading position in various charts and awards show in US. However, the K-pop industry works somewhat differently than the Western one. The process of becoming a K-pop idol is usually controlled by the entertainment agencies which the artists should follow the direction and training provided by the company.
Typically, the entertainment agencies will equally divide the role of rappers, dancers, vocalists, and visuals in a group. Each person has their unique position, so they can get along fine and is better for their career. We can see the importance of balanced position from the formation and selection of TWICE. It is a K-pop girl group formed under the television program Sixteen which held by JYP Entertainment in 2015. At first, TWICE only had seven members, but then the company decided to add two more members (Momo&Tzuyu) since the group lacks of dance and visual positions. And time has proved the decision of JYP is correct because Tzuyu is the most famous and pretty member in TWICE, adding her to the team will definitely help with the promotion.
(The final lineup)
In this way, we can see the entertainment agency does not consider vocal skill or other personal abilities as the priority of becoming a K-pop idol, and this is different from the Western music industry. For instance, the great singers such as Taylor Swift, Adele, Ariana Grande, and Ed Sheeran. Their performances are normally live performances, but the K-pop idols would choose lip-synch because of the complicated dance moves. They may sometimes perform live show, but it would sound quite different from the original song. From a MR removed video of TWICE title song- What Is Love, we can hear that Momo was struggling with singing.
(1:08-1:22)
Apart from the singing ability, TWICE concepts are often critiqued by the public. They got huge success because of the cute and sweet image which the company decided. Starting from 2016, most of their title songs all carried the message of “I don’t know anything about love.” All these songs were composed by the company in which the members of TWICE seldom participated in the song-making process. Their main job is to perform the accurate concept and atmosphere of the song which they do not need to show off their personality.
Consequently, the attractive points of the K-pop group usually are the powerful dance move and catchy lyrics. It is ironic that TWICE has so many popular songs, but it cannot represent their real-life experience or emotion since they do not create the songs. For me, they are not irreplaceable because the entertainment agency can reproduce another girl group with cute concept again. The formula of making a K-pop group would only nourish the birth of a performer, but never a competent artist.
Comments