Everything About the Fashion and Style of Korean Pop Music Step up and join the K-Pop revolution now! K-Pop, Korea’s infectious and high-energy pop music scene, features fashionable and talented singers and eye-popping visuals. Now you too can learn to dress and style yourself just like the top K-pop artists you love! In this beautiful, photo-filled book, you can read about the influence and inspiration behind a variety of K-Pop artists’ clothing and makeup styles from both their street styles and their most popular music videos and concert tours. Study the full-color photos to get the look and street styles of your favorite K-Pop solo artists and groups, both female and male, including: BTS G-Dragon (GD) Rain Jessica Jung EXO CL (Chaerin Lee) BLACKPINK Red Velvet TWICE And MANY More!! With K-POP Style, you’ll discover how to achieve the best outfits and makeup styles of your favorite K-Pop performers and turn heads wherever you go!
Explore the Heartbeat of a Global Phenomenon Enter a world that pulsates with rhythm, color, and unstoppable energy. "Behind the K-Pop Mania: Unveiling the Global Sensation" is your all-access pass into the heart of a culture that has conquered the globe. This book peels back the layers of a universe that, until now, has only been glimpsed from the outside. Dive into the rich history of Korean pop music, beginning with its roots and tracing its meteoric rise to global fame. You'll journey through the decades, from the formation of the earliest idol groups to the worldwide spread of Hallyu–the Korean Wave. Discover how K-Pop has evolved, adapting and innovating to become a leading force in the global music industry. Imagine understanding the inner workings of top entertainment agencies and the creation of idols who would go on to captivate millions. Discover the secrets behind the grueling path to stardom and the innovative trainee systems that have produced some of the world's biggest music sensations. From Big Bang to BTS, learn how groups are formed and what makes the dynamics within K-Pop groups so unique. But it's not just about the music. K-Pop is a visual feast, and this book delves into the aesthetics that define the genre–from fashion and choreography to the groundbreaking storytelling found in music videos. You'll see how these elements combine to create a multisensory experience that transcends language barriers, drawing fans from every corner of the globe. Join us on a voyage to understand the magnitude of K-Pop's global impact, both culturally and economically. Explore the digital fan cultures that have sprung up on a foundation of social media, supporting their idols with a passion and fervor that is unmatched. Learn about the controversies and challenges that have rocked the K-Pop world and how the industry is adapting to address these issues head-on. Looking forward, "Behind the K-Pop Mania: Unveiling the Global Sensation" casts an eye on the future of the genre, exploring emerging trends, technological innovations, and the exciting prospects for K-Pop's influence on global music culture. This book is more than an exploration; it's an invitation to experience the unstoppable force of K-Pop. Whether you're a lifelong fan or a curious newcomer, prepare to be enthralled by the stories, the struggles, and the spectacle of one of the world's most dynamic cultural exports.
K-Pop: Popular Music, Cultural Amnesia, and Economic Innovation in South Korea seeks at once to describe and explain the emergence of export-oriented South Korean popular music and to make sense of larger South Korean economic and cultural transformations. John Lie provides not only a history of South Korean popular music—the premodern background, Japanese colonial influence, post-Liberation American impact, and recent globalization—but also a description of K-pop as a system of economic innovation and cultural production. In doing so, he delves into the broader background of South Korea in this wonderfully informed history and analysis of a pop culture phenomenon sweeping the globe.
Featuring quirky horse-riding dance moves and an infectious electronic beat, an unlikely music video and its leading man made history in 2012. In December of that year, "Gangnam Style" reached one billion hits on YouTube?the most views ever. Seemingly overnight, the South Korean pop star behind the hit?Psy (Park Jae-sang)?became a household name. But Psy is just part of the story. Other South Korean pop sensations such as Girls' Generation, 2NE1, and BigBang are part of a global sensation called Hallyu, or the Korean Wave. South Korean bands are performing to sold out arenas all over the world, and fans can't get enough of South Korean music, films, television, food, and manhwa (cartoons). K-Pop: Korea's Musical Explosion traces the journey of South Korean pop music, from the early influences of American rock 'n' roll in the 1950s to the success of a tiger-eyed sensation called Rain, who wowed American audiences in the early 2000s. Discover how this Korean Justin Timberlake, and those who came after him, rose through South Korea?s star-making system through grueling hard work to seduce international audiences with their tight choreographies, irresistible beats, outrageous outfits, and exciting stage shows. You'll become part of the K-Pop fandom world too!
K-pop, described by Time Magazine in 2012 as "South Korea’s greatest export", has rapidly achieved a large worldwide audience of devoted fans largely through distribution over the Internet. This book examines the phenomenon, and discusses the reasons for its success. It considers the national and transnational conditions that have played a role in K-pop’s ascendancy, and explores how they relate to post-colonial modernisation, post-Cold War politics in East Asia, connections with the Korean diaspora, and the state-initiated campaign to accumulate soft power. As it is particularly concerned with fandom and cultural agency, it analyses fan practices, discourses, and underlying psychologies within their local habitus as well as in expanding topographies of online networks. Overall, the book addresses the question of how far "Asian culture" can be global in a truly meaningful way, and how popular culture from a "marginal" nation has become a global phenomenon.
Featuring quirky horse-riding dance moves and an infectious electronic beat, an unlikely music video and its leading man made history in 2012. In December of that year, "Gangnam Style" reached one billion hits on YouTube—the most views ever. Seemingly overnight, the South Korean pop star behind the hit—Psy (Park Jae-sang)—became a household name. But Psy is just part of the story. Other South Korean pop sensations such as Girls' Generation, 2NE1, and BigBang are part of a global sensation called Hallyu, or the Korean Wave. South Korean bands are performing to sold out arenas all over the world, and fans can't get enough of South Korean music, films, television, food, and manhwa (cartoons). K-Pop: Korea's Musical Explosion traces the journey of South Korean pop music, from the early influences of American rock 'n' roll in the 1950s to the success of a tiger-eyed sensation called Rain, who wowed American audiences in the early 2000s. Discover how this Korean Justin Timberlake, and those who came after him, rose through South Korea’s star-making system through grueling hard work to seduce international audiences with their tight choreographies, irresistible beats, outrageous outfits, and exciting stage shows. You'll become part of the K-Pop fandom world too!
This new textbook is a timely and interdisciplinary resource for students looking for an introduction to Korean popular culture, exploring the multifaceted meaning of Korean popular culture at micro and macro levels and the process of cultural production, representation, circulation and consumption in a global context. Drawing on perspectives from the humanities and social sciences, including media and communications, film studies, musicology, cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, history and literature, this book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of Korean popular culture and its historical underpinnings, changing roles and dynamic meanings in the present moment of the digital social media age. The book’s sections include: K-pop Music Popular Cinema Television Web Drama, Webtoon and Animation Digital Games and Esports Lifestyle Media, Fashion and Food Nation Branding An accessible, comprehensive and thought-provoking work, providing historical and contemporary contexts, key issues and debates, this textbook will appeal to students of and providers of courses on popular culture, media studies and Korean culture and society more broadly.
Join BTS’s ARMY and learn the history of the international K-POP sensation! BTS (aka Bangtan Sonyeondan) has become one of K-POP’s most well-known singing groups. The seven-member Korean boy band formed in 2013 and has slowly grown to worldwide fame through their music. Despite slow beginnings, the K-POP group now has millions of listeners around the world. They led the Korean Wave of music into the United States in 2017, and as of 2019, they are the only Korean group to top the US Billboard 200, and the first group since the Beatles to have three number-one albums in less than a year. BTS is also known for breaking the mold of K-POP, including social topics such as mental health, individualism, and social commentary in their hip-hop lyrics. TIME Magazine named the Korean Pop group as one of the 25 most influential people on the internet and named them as one of TIME's 100 most influential people of 2019. In the BTS Bible, you’ll learn everything you could want to know about the sensational singing group, including: Individual member profiles Band concept and style History of their six-year rise to fame Chart-topping songs and videos Interviews with worldwide fans and music experts And more! Don’t get left behind in the wake of the BTS success. Read all about the K-POP group that is changing the face of international music in the Unofficial BTS Bible.
"This is the book on K-pop everybody has been waiting for.…A must-read!" --Charlotte Naudin, PR Manager, Torpedo Productions K-Pop Now! examines Korea's high-energy pop music and is written for its growing legions of fans. Pop culture expert Mark Russell features the most famous groups and singers and takes an insider's look at how they have made it to the top. In 2012, Psy's song and music video "Gangnam Style" took the world by storm. But K-Pop, the music of Psy's homeland of Korea, has been winning fans with its infectious melodies and high-energy fun since long before that. Featuring talented singers and eye-catching visuals, K-Pop is the music of the moment. Although K-Pop is a relatively new phenomenon in the West, it is rapidly gaining traction and reaching much larger audiences --thanks in large part to social media like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram -- the Girls Generation single "Gee" has almost three hundred million views! K-Pop Now! includes: Profiles of current K-Pop artists and their hits. A look at Seoul's trendiest hangout spots. Interviews with top artists like Kevin from Ze:A and Brian Joo from Fly to the Sky. A look at the K-Pop idols of tomorrow. You'll meet the biggest record producers, the hosts of the insanely popular "Eat Your Kimchi" website, and K-Pop groups like Big Bang, TVXQ, 2NE1, Girls Generation, HOT, SES, FinKL Busker Busker, and The Koxx. The book also includes a guide for fans who plan to visit Seoul to explore K-Pop up close. Join the K-Pop revolution today!
Focusing on female idols’ proliferation in the South Korean popular music (K-pop) industry since the late 1990s, Gooyong Kim critically analyzes structural conditions of possibilities in contemporary popular music from production to consumption. Kim contextualizes the success of K-pop within Korea’s development trajectories, scrutinizing how a formula of developments from the country’ rapid industrial modernization (1960s-1980s) was updated and re-applied in the K-pop industry when the state had to implement a series of neoliberal reformations mandated by the IMF. To that end, applying Michel Foucault’s discussion on governmentality, a biopolitical dimension of neoliberalism, Kim argues how the regime of free market capitalism updates and reproduces itself by 1) forming a strategic alliance of interests with the state, and 2) using popular culture to facilitate individuals’ subjectification and subjectivation processes to become neoliberal agents. As to an importance of K-pop female idols, Kim indicates a sustained utility/legacy of the nation’s century-long patriarchy in a neoliberal development agenda. Young female talents have been mobilized and deployed in the neoliberal culture industry in a similar way to how un-wed, obedient female workers were exploited and disposed on the sweatshop factory floors to sustain the state’s export-oriented, labor-intensive manufacturing industry policy during its rapid developmental stage decades ago. In this respect, Kim maintains how a post-feminist, neoliberal discourse of girl power has marketed young, female talents as effective commodities, and how K-pop female idols exert biopolitical power as an active ideological apparatus that pleasurably perpetuates and legitimates neoliberal mantras in individuals’ everyday lives. Thus, Kim reveals there is a strategic convergence between Korea’s lingering legacies of patriarchy, developmentalism, and neoliberalism. While the current K-pop literature is micro-scopic and celebratory, Kim advances the scholarship by multi-perspectival, critical approaches. With a well-balanced perspective by micro-scopic textual analyses of music videos and macro-scopic examinations of historical and political economy backgrounds, Kim’s book provides a wealth of intriguing research agendas on the phenomenon, and will be a useful reference in International/ Intercultural Communication, Political Economy of the Media, Cultural/ Media Studies, Gender/ Sexuality Studies, Asian Studies, and Korean Studies.
