The Path to K-Pop Success
A rigid formula or multifactorial phenomenon?
Hello everyone, my name is Daisey! I’m a senior at the University of Michigan, majoring in Public Health and pursuing a minor in writing. For as long as I can remember, my life has been filled with music. Going to and from school, I would listen to the SiriusXM Top 40 countdown songs, eagerly awaiting for the number 1 song of the week (some of which I wholeheartedly disagree with). After school on Thursdays, I would attend my weekly piano lessons, where I would show off how little I practiced during the week. Starting in high school, I was introduced to a wider range of music, including Japanese-Pop and Korean-Pop.
Our families often went on trips in December during our Winter Breaks. In my sophomore year of high school and when my cousin Angela was in college, our family went on our usual trip to Florida. She was in charge of the music in the car. Unsurprisingly, the first song she played was a BTS song.
(At the time, she had just became enamored by the K-pop group BTS. Before we even left our house for the trip, she had taken out her phone and showed my mom and me "Dope" which was my first BTS music video. Each member appeared in different uniforms representing different occupations--one dressed in a white coat, another a police uniform--and were dancing and singing at the same time. Angela was rattling off names as they appeared, but I couldn't keep track of all them. To test my memory, I tried to name them as they appeared throughout the video, but I could only get one or two of them correctly.)
Music Video for Dope, by BTS
After a few shuffles of BTS songs, the first female k-pop group song appeared on her playlist: Blackpink. Angela told me that they were her favorite K-pop girl group so far, and she especially liked Jennie and Lisa. Compared to BTS, Blackpink only had four members, so it was easier for me to learn more about them. Even after the trip, I was curious to know more about them, so I downloaded their songs and started watching video guides about the group.
One night, while watching Blackpink videos, I stumbled upon a video on the friendship between Irene, a Red Velvet member, and Jennie, a Blackpink member. It was a compilation of interactions between the two: fighting over the bill at a restaurant in the United States, swapping dance moves on the stage, and holding hands at an awards show. Not knowing too much about Red Velvet, I decided to continue with the recommended videos and essentially binged a bunch of content that night to learn more about this group.
Blackpink Jennie (white turtleneck) trying to take the bill from Red Velvet Irene.
I ended up enjoying Red Velvet’s music more compared to Blackpink’s so I switched to being a fan of Red Velvet in 2019. For me, Red Velvet wasn’t afraid to experiment with their music and try out different themes. Take, for example, their song Zimzalabim which became known as a fandom cult song with its unexpected chorus. Somehow, they incorporated the classical Air in G string composed by Bach into their pop song called Feel My Rhythm. Their music videos were also quite quirky (some interesting music videos feature them killing pizza boys, killing each other, or turning into fruits).
I appreciated their willingness to test the boundaries of music and simultaneously flex their vocal prowess. Over the years, I stayed consistent with Red Velvet but I also dabbled into listening to other groups, especially those in the same company as Red Velvet. I joined Twitter and followed K-pop news and stan accounts to keep track of activities from Red Velvet and hear about new releases from other K-pop groups.
Music Video for Bad Boy, by Red Velvet. One of the releases that I first viewed from Red Velvet in late 2018.
What inspired me to start this project stems from a place of frustration. Since there's so many K-pop groups that exist, there's bound to be legions of fans for each group. Some fans like to think their group is the best K-pop group and bring down other groups. I remember seeing "Red Velvet are flops!" and "Twice can't sing."
While I was scrolling, I started thinking about why do I love Red Velvet so much. How did I decide to love this group over the plenty of others groups that exist in the K-pop industry. Also, how did I determine which groups I would definitely be avoiding for a while. I also thought about how when my cousin and I talked about our favorite K-pop groups, we would disagree vehemently one second and then agree wholeheartedly the next. While I had an opportunity to choose a more "academic" topic for my Capstone project, I decided to satiate my curiosity and reflect upon my own music tastes.
Examples of K-pop hate tweets on the social media platform X/Twitter.
The Project Question
The K-pop industry is full of so many different groups that sing all types of music and showcase a variety of talents. According to Medium, there are 208 K-pop groups in total back in 2021. There’s been a constant output of new groups and retiring of old ones. Since 2021, I’m betting there have been 20+ new groups.
K-pop groups are manufactured to have set positions and themes. They are designed to have singers, dancers, and rappers who have their own standout parts in each song. Songs are manufactured to appeal to the audience the company wants to get money from. Idols are trained in a specific set of courses that focus on performance, language skills, and media training. They are monitored all the time from their weights to how they interact with each other. Most companies follow a similar strict regimen to produce idols who are essentially the same.
Since there’s so many groups and idols are trained in the same things, you might be wondering how some groups stand out compared to others. They are all created in the “factory” and spit out as products with similar images and concepts, bound to the constraints of the industry. How much can companies control the fans' responses to their manufactured product?
New to K-Pop? Take some time to familiarize yourself with the roles within a group.
Have background knowledge already? Zoom right into my analysis of what makes a group stand out.