If I were to map out my college days in terms of my hobbies
and interests, Kpop (short for Korean pop) would be at the front and center.
Despite this, there was a time when I couldn’t really talk about liking Kpop to
other people, especially to those who didn’t really like Kpop. This was mostly
because if I brought up the topic, this is what most people have said”:
“Kpop? Why do you
listen to Kpop?”
There’s a lot of ways to answer this question, but today I
will try to answer this from a more perceptual point of view. To rephrase the
question:
“What makes me want to listen to Kpop?”
One of the most common reactions I’ve had when I tell people
that I listen to Kpop is this:
“Why listen to Kpop
when you can’t even understand what they’re saying?”
It seems to me that people who ask this have this idea that
music and lyrics are inextricably intertwined. While music and lyrics do work
in tandem to create a song, lyrics aren’t necessarily needed to feel what a song is trying to say.
As an example, listen to the song If You Do by Got7. :) (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0iPB_JyS5g)
My Korean language proficiency isn’t even close to the basic
level, but just from listening to the song, I could feel the hurt and pain it’s
trying to convey.
In other words, I listen to Kpop because the songs can
convey emotions even without me
completely understanding the lyrics. This is because studies have shown that
there music offers cues which, even without lyrics, allow people to perceive
emotions in a song. One example of a musical cue is tempo, which indicates how fast or slow the beat is, and studies
indicate that a fast tempo is associated with emotions like happiness or anger,
while slow tempo is associated with sadness (Corrigall and Schellenberg, 2013).
Going back to the song earlier, there were times when the tempo went faster and
slower, which conveyed to me emotions like sadness.
Of course, there’s more to Kpop than just the emotions it
conveys. I have heard numerous fans defend their interest in Kpop using
different variations of this statement:
“Kakaiba yung music
nila from Western [music] eh." (Kpop is
different from Western music.)
If this is the case, what then makes Kpop so different from
Western music?
Contrary to what some people might think, the way a typical
Kpop song isn’t actually uniquely Korean. What makes Kpop sell is how it
incorporates certain elements of Western popular songs, but also offering other
elements which make Kpop stand out from other popular songs.
When compared to typical Western pop, Kpop songs usually
aren’t actually all that different in terms of elements like rhythmic beats and
the use of hiphop and rap; therefore, a typical Kpop song wouldn’t actually
sound too different from Western pop (Tan, 2015). Despite this, Kpop
capitalizes on the element of repetition
and makes it work to its advantage.
Take some time to listen to this song "Gee" by SNSD in order to understand how repetition works in a typical Kpop song. (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7mPqycQ0tQ)
One of the advantages Kpop has over Western music is how it
can utilize the so-called “language barrier” to make itself stand out. In the
song above, the words “Gee Gee Gee Gee Gee Gee, baby” are sung within a string
of Korean lyrics, which makes it stand out even to those with little English
proficiency (Lie, 2012). So while a Western pop song may same hook or chorus,
it would work better with a Kpop song because it would stand out.
Another common reason I’ve heard for being a Kpop fan is
that Kpop songs are “dance-able”. In fact, Kpop songs are not just dance-able;
they are almost always go hand-in-hand with dance. Go back to the two songs I
have shown earlier. Choreography is just as important as the song itself, with
synchronized dance moves being especially appealing to non-Korean fans (Oh and
Lee, 2013).
Watch this dance video by Infinite to see their synchonized dance moves. (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeuejYoRbps)
This makes Kpop stand out because it provides fans with an
additional means to remember the song not just by how it’s sung, but also by
how it’s danced to. Kpop in particular seems to appeal to dancers, judging by
the numerous dance covers of different groups which can be seen on the
Internet. There has been research which demonstrated that watching dance
performances while listening to audio has an effect on how people perceive
music. One study showed that dancers who are familiar with the choreography of
a song are able to attend to audiovisual stimuli in a more efficient way (Lee,
Barrett, Kim, Lim, and Lee, 2015).
There’s so many ways to explain why Kpop is appealing, from
how it can convey emotions despite the language barrier, how it also uses that
very barrier to make its songs stand out, up to how it allows for a more
multisensory experience of listening to music. At the end of the day, though,
music is still music, and everyone is entitled to listen to what they want to. J
References
Corrigal, K.A. & Schellenberg, E.G. (2013). Music: The Language of Emotion. In Mohiyeddini, C., Eysenck, M., & Bauer, S. (Eds.), Handbook of Psychology of Emotions: Recent Theoretical Perspectives and Novel Empirical Findings (Vol.2, pp. 299-326). NY: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
Lee, K.M., Barrett, K.C.,
Kim, Y., Lim, Y., Lee, K. (2015). Dance and Music in “Gangnam Style”: How Dance
Observation Affects Meter Perception. PLoS
ONE, 10(8). Retrieved from http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0134725&type=printable
Lie, J. (2012). What Is
the K in K-pop? South Korean Popular Music, the Culture Industry,
and National Identity. Korea Observer, 43(3), 339–363.
Oh, L. & Lee, H.J. (2013).
K-pop in Korea: How the Pop Music Industry is Changing a Post-Developmental
Society. Cross-Currents: East Asian
History and Culture Review, 9, 106-124. Retrieved from http://cross-currents.berkeley.edu/e-journal/issue-9
Tan, M. (2015). K-Contagion: Sound, Speed, and Space in “Gangnam Style”. TDR: The Drama Review, 59(1), 83-96.
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