K-Pop Mood Board

Modern K-pop was revolutionised by the group, ‘Seo Taiji and Boys’ in 1992. Each member is counted as legends in the Korean Music industry audiences were amazed by the group’s disregard for the existing limitations and restrictions of the time and offered precise choreography and a new innovative style to the music industry. Rap Lyrics infused with pop music which was combined with hip hop dancing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC7yS0kpHWM&safe=active

Lyrics of every K-Pop song are dominantly in the Korean language, Hangul.

Groups are usually gender segregated. There are no groups in the K-Pop genre that have co-ed genders.

Well established groups would have an official fan club and take part in merchandising to broaden profits for their respective music labels.

Majority of videos have a very bright colour palette but depending on the group and their concepts for videos. Palette’s would vary so no group would be completely type casted.

A choreographed dance is always included within most K-Pop songs.

Groups have specific roles between their members. Roles would include; Lead Rapper/Vocalist, Sub Vocalists/Rappers, Main Dancer, Visuals and Maknae (Youngest member)

Many other genres are explored through K-Pop as artists aim on broadening their music as much as possible in order to appeal to the audience interests and to improve profits for their record labels. Hip-Hop, Ballad, Rock, Electro among other genres have all been hybridised alongside K-Pop have been explored in he songs of various artists.

One of the most known iconic songs of the genre would be songs from Psy. Known for two ground breaking songs around the world, Gangnam Style and Gentleman. The dance moves are known internationally as Gangnam style is the most viewed YouTube video to date with over 2 Billion views.

In all fairness, all dances of K-Pop music videos help the songs become more memorable to fans and associating both the song and dance would be iconography.

K-Pop is also known for exploring different styles of fashion. BIGBANG being the leading group who is recognised for their vast sense of style.

EXO (Top-Left) BIGBANG (Bottom-Left)Girl’s Generation (Top-Right) 2NE1(Bottom-Right)

There are a wide variety of record labels that house the K-Pop genre. This means there is a big amount of competition between artists in order to reach the top spots of the music charts. These are just a few of the major labels in South Korea that have K-Pop as the main genre they produce. The most successful companies being SM Ent. , YG Ent. and JYP Ent.

SM EntertainmentArguably the richest record label of South Korea with the company revenue being $212,401,103. SM houses big time groups in the industry such as Super Junior, EXO and Girl’s Generation.YG EntertainmentThe company revenue is $150,000,000. YG houses the trend setters of Korean pop culture and trends such as 2NE1 and BIGBANG and introduced the mainstream Hip-Hop Genre to Korea.JYP EntertainmentCompany Revenue being $20,000,000. JYP rival thegroups of YG with powerhouse performers like2PM and Got7. The CEO himself being a veteranidol, he passes his knowledge towards hissucceeding performers.

The obvious audience being the people of Korea mainly within the female demographic of the Korean population. However due to the globalisation and

increasing popularity of K-Pop around the world. Fans regardless of ethnicity or country of origin would listen to K-Pop and in some cases idol groups would expand their promotions to other places in Asia such as Japan and China but

occasionally official English versions of chart topping songs would be released world wide. Examples are Taeyang – Eyes, Nose, Lips. Which has three official

alternative versions. Two being dominantly English lyrics.

The socio-economic group of this genre would be specified for C1, C2,D,E but with K-Pop being a nationwide genre it’s heard by all socio economic groups.

Psycho-graphic group would be aspirers and mainstreamers as people believe idols live ‘ideal lives’ that would be better then their current ones and

considering this is culture in South Korea it is a mainstream aspect of culture.

Demographics: You should have a keen interest in the K-Pop genre to listen to it and fairly young adults and teens are the main audience which take an interest in

the genre, particularly females.

There is a lot of conspiracy surrounding the genre the most important being slave contracts. Slave contracts involve signing people into companies training for long hours in bare minimum living conditions and stripping them of most of their profits they rightfully earn from that work. SM Entertainment are well known within this conspiracy as there’s been 3 cases involving slave or unfair contracts. Most recent case being a member of EXO.

The representation of woman, similar to mainstream western music over sexualise them as if they were objects. The sex appeal of these female idols are a way of attracting more audiences even though it isn’t accepted by netizens.