K-Pop: Popular Music, Cultural Amnesia, and Economic Innovation in South Korea by John Lie (review)

K-pop never had its roots in authentic Korean music. In his latest work, K-Pop: Popular Music, Cultural Amnesia, and Economic Innovation in South Korea, John Lie spearheads this simple yet daring premise. It is truly a timely and ambitious account of South Korean popular music in a broader historical context. The book’s most obvious contribution is introducing a new perspective on K-pop through the exploration of South Korean music history, rather than its global impact embodied in the discourses of the Korean Wave—a transnational circulation—or of course, the latest international dance craze “Gangnam Style” by Psy. Lie’s intellectual curiosity embraces the wider historical context of modern Korea in which he examines the morphology of South Korean popular music from its nascent form to its present iteration. This point of view has rarely been seriously considered prior to this work. The scope is highly extensive, encompassing almost every significant moment and leap in modern South Korean history, placing the development of popular music at the epicenter of its discussion. Lie addresses the decline of traditional music and the subsequent rise of popular music in the early twentieth century, radical changes in music that accompanied South Korea’s transition from a colonial state to an independent nation, popular culture that emerged from the era of the military regime to the age of democracy, and finally the global success of K-pop in the twenty-first century. But what makes his work stand out is not the material he covers but the way in which he frames his cultural observations within a broader understanding of South Korean socioeconomic change.

In the chapter titled “How Did We Get Here,” he offers brief, yet thorough, insights on the earlier development of South Korean popular music from the birth of popular music to the rise of modern K-pop. The concise configuration of the book may not be able to capture more interesting themes and motivations in making music, such as identity, agency, gender, etc., but he strikes a balance between offering historical facts and inserting his own personal interpretations, which is not always easy to do. He successfully matches his survey of the modern history of South Korean popular music with corresponding insights on social and cultural infrastructures that have surfaced during each era. The musical examples, the list of musicians, and the works he cites are relevant and substantial enough even for the insiders who have listened to the music throughout their lives. The existing scholarship on South Korean popular music often draws upon limited musical resources or reflect an exceptional accomplishment of few individuals, which often prevents readers from exploring various facets of the history of Korean popular music.

Even though Lie’s work may not be a complete exception, he cleverly achieves a balanced perspective by refraining from emphasizing the accomplishments of certain individuals and instead examines the historical continuity as juxtaposing varieties of musical streams and movements that coexisted with the mainstream. For example, his acknowledgment of the accomplishments of Seo Tae-Ji (Sŏ T’aeji) as progenitor of the style that is nowadays considered as K-pop is typically exaggerated, but his treatment of the genre Trot, as it continued into the 1990s and 2000s, is thoughtful. Moreover, in the chapter titled “Seoul Calling,” he presents a full-fledged analysis of the nature of K-pop and delineates critical factors that contributed to its creation and evolution: the aesthetics of performance, the agency-based training system, and the emblematic boy/girl band. Again, Lie contextualizes these developments and strategies within a larger shift in sociopolitical and economic infrastructure during the turn of the century.

As enjoyable as Lie’s discussions are, especially regarding the cultural authenticity of South Korean popular music, and as relatively updated and balanced his account of K-pop productions is, there remain certain ideas that need a more careful elaboration. First...