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136 Shin Hyunjoon 136 CHAPTER 7 Transnational K-Pop Machine Searching for “Asian” Model through Crossbreeding? Shin Hyunjoon Though it is no longer fashionable to speak of the “Korean Wave,” the term commonly used to denote the diffusion and consumption of Korean pop cultural products across the East and Southeast regions of Asia, it cannot be denied that the growth of Korean cultural industries is regarded as one of the most successful contemporary cases of expanding “global” centers.1 Throughout its short history since the late 1990s, the Korean Wave has been constantly evolving through various cultural channels . The reason I will specifically address the role of the music industry in the following article is not because it is the driving force of the Korean Wave but because its activity illustrates significant shifts in the Wave. After exploring the development of Korean popular music across the Asian region, I will investigate the more recent changes in the strategies and practices of the Korean music industry. First, however, it is necessary to consider the term K-pop, the abbreviated expression for Korean popular music. It should be noted that the term is rarely used by native Koreans residing in Korea. Instead, they seem to be satisfied with the age-old local term of gayo when speaking of Korean popular music. The term K-pop can be traced back to the Japanese music industry, and though K-pop is a catchall term for Korean popular music the way J-pop is for Japanese popular music, there is one big difference. While J-pop primarily signifies “domestic” popular music within Japan (Mori 2009a), K-pop alludes to the portion of Korean popular music recognized outside of Korea. In that sense, the label “K-pop” was not only created by an outside party but also finds itself a product of border-crossing practices in composition. Transnational K-Pop Machine Searching for “Asian” Model 137 However, perhaps even more important than the development of the term are the accompanying implications. As one Japanese journalist said, the term K-pop is “more friendly, more joyful, more compact, lighter, and brighter” (Konishi 2003) than previous or rival terms. It reflects the shifting status of Korean popular music in the regional market, as well as its commercial potential. To put it simply, K-pop is an international name signifying the popular music produced by the Korean music industry and consumed across the Asian region. With these points clarified, I will go into detail regarding the evolution of K-pop over a period of nearly ten years. As I have dealt with the processes of production (Shin 2009) and consumption (Siriyuvasak and Shin 2007) of K-pop elsewhere, here I will focus on the international distribution of K-pop (both regional and global), focusing on the everchanging forms of the products and the agents. Put differently, when K-pop is diffused and consumed in the region, what and who are crossing the borders? Who is collaborating with whom at the international level? The Pre-History of K-Pop in Japan and the Explosion of Korean Pop in China There have been several cases of Korean popular music crossing borders in the Asian region, starting with Japan. In the 1970s and 1980s, several Korean singers such as Yi Seong-ae, Kim Yeonja, Kye Eunsuk, and Cho Yong-pil released records of their music and held concerts in Japan; some went even further by releasing records sung in Japanese. What must be noted is that most Korean singers during this period sang enka, although their musical roots were not confined to that specific genre. That is why a Korean-Japanese writer said that “it is the commonsense of the music industry that Korean singers cannot sell a record without singing enka” (Kyo 2002: 131). Otherwise, the business tactic for distributing Korean popular music in Japan was to try and find a small niche market with the hope of reaching a target audience. In this way there are a few lesserknown cases where Korean “folk singers” such as Song Changsik, Hahn Daesoo, and Kim Mingi came to be known in Japan, but their influence was limited to informed Japanese music fans, and they found it difficult to find a niche market in the Japanese music industry (Shin 2009a). However, these cases do not have much to do with the current state of K-pop. Though noticeably different...

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