[CRITICALLY SPEAKING: K-POP] The future of K-pop depends on stars speaking up

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[CRITICALLY SPEAKING: K-POP] The future of K-pop depends on stars speaking up

Music critic Cha Woo-jin sits down for an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily at his residence in Seongsu-dong, eastern Seoul, on May 27. [PARK SANG-MOON]

Music critic Cha Woo-jin sits down for an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily at his residence in Seongsu-dong, eastern Seoul, on May 27. [PARK SANG-MOON]

 
The debut of virtual singers has been making headlines with people both excited and skeptical about whether avatar artists could be the future of the music industry. While opinions are divided, music critic Cha Woo-jin believes that the answer is a “definite yes.”
 
“Why else do you think HYBE is hiring so many people from tech companies?” Cha said, referring to how the agency behind boy band BTS has been recruiting tech experts in the recent years, such as its CEO Park Ji-won who was formerly the CEO of Nexon Korea from 2014 to 2018.
 
“A lot of people think that this is just a phase and that these groups aren’t ‘real’ enough to be popular, but I think that’s only because the technology hasn’t advanced enough yet,” Cha said.
 
According to Cha, K-pop has successfully survived the challenges brought on by major changes in the industry, whether that be by technology or the Covid-19 pandemic. The advent of the metaverse, blockchains and non-fungible tokens will bring new opportunities for the market if the industry acts fast to adapt like it has before.
 
“Technology-wise, K-pop is 10 to almost 15 years ahead of the United States and other countries,” he said.
 
Cha, born in 1975, started his career in music by writing introductions for indie albums at local music magazines, which led to a career at music magazines and newspapers.
 
He currently runs a newsletter service called TMI.FM, keeping his subscribers up to date with the latest news and analysis of the music and content industry. His biggest interest these days is how the Korean music industry has evolved since the mid-2010s to become more connected to other content-related fields.
 
Cha sat down with the Korea JoongAng Daily to talk about how K-pop as an industry has successfully combined technology with culture to become one of the most thriving markets in the world in his residence in Seongsu-dong, eastern Seoul, on May 27. The following are edited excerpts.
 
Virtual influencer Rozy announces she will release her first single ″Who Am I″ on Feb. 15. [YONHAP]

Virtual influencer Rozy announces she will release her first single ″Who Am I″ on Feb. 15. [YONHAP]

Virtual influencer Han YuA signed a management contract with YG K Plus on Feb. 14. [SMILEGATE]

Virtual influencer Han YuA signed a management contract with YG K Plus on Feb. 14. [SMILEGATE]



Q. Why do you believe that virtual artists will become more successful in the future?


A. The virtual celebrities we have now, like Rozy or Han YuA, do seem a little unreal and unnatural. But the important thing is that they’ve “debuted” and signed with agencies.
 
In the future, we could even see companies releasing games or webtoons and then debuting a group based on those stories, rather than the other way around right now where we see films or stories based on existing groups. This could be flipped any day now.
 
If you think about it, it’s already happening in the film industry. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is based on comics and real people are playing fictional characters. The same could happen in K-pop and one day, the stars that debut many not even be human.


How can real stars survive if they have to compete not only with other humans but also with virtual stars?
 
They need to start voicing their opinions more on matters that are important.
 
I understand that Korea can be quite harsh toward celebrities that speak out on sensitive issues, but that shouldn’t be reason enough to hide away from issues that matter — not just ones that everyone agrees on, but things that people disagree on, like anti-discrimination laws for example.
 
In Korea, no K-pop artist reveals their political views or any ideas that could offend anyone. While this may work here, in the global scene, such silence will get them nowhere.
 
But because Korean consumers can be resistant to such behavior, the agencies need to protect them enough so that the artists can speak out. Companies need to realize that artists are not just products but the owners of their own intellectual properties (IP) and partners that need to be protected and respected. 
 
Music critic Cha Woo-jin [PARK SANG-MOON]

Music critic Cha Woo-jin [PARK SANG-MOON]



What do you mean by IP owners?
 
The IP business, put simply, is taking something original and adapting it into so many other things.
 
Music itself doesn’t make money anymore. People think music is something offered for free — David Bowie saw this coming 20 years ago. People go onto YouTube when they want to listen to something and buying albums has been out of the picture for a long time.
 
So what agencies do is they use music to make people like a band so that they go and attend concerts, buy albums and spend money on anything related to the band’s name.
 
This means K-pop artists need to realize that they are at the center of their own IP and think about the ways they can develop it to make sure they survive even after they part with the agency they debut under.


Why has IP expansion become so important?
 
The advent of online streaming services means that the business model for any content company has changed radically over the years.
 
Music labels don’t make money from albums and film makers don’t make enough from theaters or rentals. This means that they somehow need to find other ways to play around with what they’ve got to make whatever they can. That’s where the IP business comes in.
 
Technology-wise, K-pop is 10 to almost 15 years ahead of the United States and other countries.
 
The British Parliament began investigating streaming royalties in late 2020 and lost its war against Spotify last year, because online streaming services impacted the music market so hard. But K-pop had already fought that battle in the early 2000s when telecommunication businesses took over physical albums.
 
Even amid the chaos, SM Entertainment managed to sell over 1 million copies of CDs from its boy band TVXQ because it knew it had to target fans. That’s why other entertainment companies also looked to SM Entertainment’s model and copied it.
 
K-pop has similarly quickly jumped on the bandwagon of new technologies, like blockchain and NFTs. It has the system and it has the fandom — all it needs to do is experiment with new ideas to make new things happen.
 
Girl group aespa of SM Entertainment [SM ENTERTAINMENT]

Girl group aespa of SM Entertainment [SM ENTERTAINMENT]

 
Why was Korea able to adapt so quickly to the changing environment?
 
It’s because K-pop is not a genre of music but a system where decisions are made by businessmen and not the artists.
 
As opposed to other music markets where the artists have the upper hand and they make their decisions, K-pop artists’ decisions are made for them by their companies, whose judgments are based on business.
 
K-pop is in a way like the automobile market. With a car, you say the manufacturer and then which model it is. It’s the same in K-pop.
 
In the early 20th century, Ford made a standardized system with set rules that could produce the same quality of goods in mass quantities. Big-name carmakers like Porsche and Lamborghini have become what they are now because they’ve followed in those footsteps.
 
It’s the same with K-pop, and also what sets it apart from all other music genres.
 
In Korea, when someone hears there’s a new band in town, the first thing they ask is which company that band belongs to. A band is never described without the agency; so aespa wouldn’t just be aespa, but girl group aespa from SM Entertainment.
 
RM, leader of BTS, speaks during a press conference held on Nov. 28 in Los Angeles. [BIG HIT MUSIC]

RM, leader of BTS, speaks during a press conference held on Nov. 28 in Los Angeles. [BIG HIT MUSIC]

The face of RM, leader of BTS, has been painted on the wall of the Ilsan Dong District Tourism Information Center in Ilsan, Gyeonggi, in September 2021. Ilsan is the city that RM was born in. [YONHAP]

The face of RM, leader of BTS, has been painted on the wall of the Ilsan Dong District Tourism Information Center in Ilsan, Gyeonggi, in September 2021. Ilsan is the city that RM was born in. [YONHAP]

 
Can K-pop be described the same as a manufacturing company?
 
No, because there’s the element of humanity that makes it different.
 
People who like the Mac Book like Apple and look up to Steve Jobs, the creator, as the person who made it happen. But in K-pop, even if it’s been put together by producers, it’s RM of BTS that fans like and not Bang Si-hyuk, the person who cast him.
 
It’s true that until the 2010s, the producers were the ones that were highlighted more than the artists. Back then, popular news article subjects were about how agencies — mainly the three big names SM Entertainment, YG Entertainment and JYP Entertainment — differed in their methodology and how that led to different types of groups.
 
The agencies also purposefully pushed for a coherent vibe from their bands, because they needed to display a solid identity to attract investors so that they could go public on the stock exchange. So rather than respecting the individuality of each group, it was important to get across the idea that a group from this agency will be this good and will guarantee high returns.
 
This is so much the case that a band can gain fans even before it debuts. If an agency “teases” members and music concepts, a fandom starts to form around a group that hasn’t even been put together properly yet.
 
Boy band AB6IX of Brandnew Music poses for photos during a showcase held on May 18 for its fifth EP ″A to B.″ Brandnew Music was a hip-hop label before debuting AB6IX. [BRANDNEW MUSIC]

Boy band AB6IX of Brandnew Music poses for photos during a showcase held on May 18 for its fifth EP ″A to B.″ Brandnew Music was a hip-hop label before debuting AB6IX. [BRANDNEW MUSIC]



How has that changed in recent times?
 
These days, big agencies have already established a certain volume that allows them to let individual artists pursue their own music. But at the same time, they have to let them become more unique.
 
As I said earlier, K-pop may be similar to manufacturing companies but the consumers are different. So at the end of the day, it’s the artists that the fans like and their characters that they want to see more of.
 
So whereas in the past, the producers were the ones leading the change, nowadays it’s the artists that are pushing their own boundaries and experimenting with their work. They take more initiative and they are taking more ownership of their music.
 
Interestingly, seeing how K-pop makes money, other music labels of other genres are also tilting to K-pop. Brandnew Music, which used to make hip-hop, could be one example.
 
I believe that artists will start gaining more power in K-pop, and acknowledging that power will also give agencies the sustainability they need in the future.

BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]
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