Q3: How did American music influence Korean music of the past and of the present? Are the influences of the past still prominent in Kpop today?
Korean popular cultural production was strictly manipulated against communism by the Park administration during the era of the dictatorship (Son 2006, 58). The direct musical impact of this action was the unprecedented popularity of American pop songs, inventing a new Korean identity formed with American musical culture around the 1950s through the 1970s (Ibid.). Although part of early Korean music history was associated with American music, the influence of American music is gradually decreased by the growing orientation toward localization by Korean.
In the past, the Korean music was developed with the aim to appeal the American soldiers stationed in Korea (Son 2006, 59). Women were selected and trained based on the preferences and requirements of American soldiers. Only a small amount of women with outstanding singing or dancing abilities were allowed to perform for the American army. For instance, Korean musical troupes which are called Mi-8-gun shodan usually invited to perform the Mipalgunshow, which is a show influenced by various American pop elements at American military campus or on specific occasions. In that time, many American song styles were introduced to the Korean market, and jazz music even became a national hit. In addition, there was a popular trend to portray America as a wonderland in the lyrics of songs published in that era (Ibid.). An example was Kim Chong-Ae’s “Nilliri Mampo” (Nilliri Mambo) in 1952.
Nowadays, there is no doubt that the trace of American music influences still exists in current Korean music industry. Songs produced by Korean singers and idols usually involve English lyrics mixed with Korean lyrics. Examples can be easily found in the released albums of Korean idol groups like Bigbang, Girls’ generation, and BTS. Also, Korean pop music still has the strong influence of American music, in particular, the song styles. Hip-hop and rap style of music is still prominent in Korean pop music market. The songs produced in the Mnet hip-hop TV show named Show Me The Money consistently hit the top music charts in Korea. However, without the interference of the complex political issues, Korean music has a healthier and free environment to grow by themselves. Within the music field, locally produced popular music in Korea starts to account for the majority of the market. Korean insist on the development of Korean music by growing orientation toward localization. For example, major TV channels in Korea like MBC, SBS, and KBS have their programmes which provide Korean idols or singers a platform to promote their new songs. To sum up, part of Korean music culture has been affected by American music from old times to the present. In the meanwhile, the dominance of America music has been weakened due to Korea’s strong sense of nationalism and cultural homogeneity.
References
Son, Min-Jung. “Regulating and Negotiating in Teuroteu, a Korean Popular Song Style.” Asian Music 37, no. 1 (2006): 51-74.
Junwei Sun
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Asia327 Dean 
Interestingly enough, in the present a decent number of the biggest kpop hits are in part written by American song writers. From around 2009, major American R&B songwriters have been writing for big name groups like Girls Generation, Jay Park, EXO, and SHINee amongst many others. It would seem that American influence may still play an integral part in Korean music, though it drives tastes much more subtly than it did in the days of the Mipalgunshows. Although, some of the American R&B songwriters have noted that the Korean music that they are writing requires a more complex level of musicality due to the tastes of Korean audiences. I’m not very familiar with Kpop at all but from what little I have seen there does seem to be an added level of complexity though I suspect that this likely due to the nature of having a large group of singers that need to shine in their own ways in each song. These American song writers have also expressed that they find this demand for complexity liberating while American R&B is restricting due to American tastes. Going off the presence of American writers I think that, like the music that followed the Mipalgunshows, there is a very strong American root in modern Kpop music but I also believe that this new system of hiring writers shows a much higher level of Korean agency than expressed in the past.
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American music definitely has less influence than before but I’ve seen a lot of Hallyu stars doing covers of big American pop songs but I never really wondered why until now. TTS & EXO did Usher’s “DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love”, Taeyeon did Rihanna’s “Take a Bow”, BEAST did John Legend’s “Ordinary People”, the list goes on. American (and or western) pop stars do covers of other pop songs and old classics every now and then but it’s no big deal, but when I watch foreign TV programs it would seem that doing these American pop songs in English warrants a certain respect to pros and amateurs alike.
So my TOTALLY LEGIT hypothesis is that Koreans and Hallyu stars still see American pop songs as somewhat prestigious music and or an opportunity to show off talents in language and globalness.
I don’t know what do you all think? How do Koreans react to their starts going global?
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Hi Junwei. I liked this essay, esp. your argument that localization today reduces the influence of the US. I wish you’d said more about localization in the essay, though. Like at the end of paragraph 2, you could explain that this is an example of localization (mambo + traditional song) but you don’t actually make that point (I think you had that point in your mind, you just forgot to make it explicit). You’ve also got some weird use of the 6 as in ‘Ch6ng’ — I don’t understand what’s going on there, can you fix it? Also, in the bibliography you need to include proper romanization in the title (use RR, or use M-R, but fix what you’ve got), and you’re also missing any italics, which you def. need in your biblio.
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As Junwei already explained well to us, American music used to have a prominent impact on Korean music and this kind of influence gradually make how K-pop is today. However, as far as I’m concerned, with the acceleration of globalization, this kind of influence may not be as prominent as it used to be.
I personally believed that the most persistent influence is about the system of K-pop idol groups, from the Mipalgunshow. The camp show helped created a standardized trainee system in Korea, we all know that today many trainees are also going to be trained for several years even ten years like TWICE‘s Jihyo until the agency believed they are enough to debut, which seems to go even further than before. And these trainees will be ranked by the agency according to many aspects. They are asked to be all-around. They might even get kicked out if they didn’t satisfy the agency. This kind of ranking system even became the core of a recent hit program produce101 (or 48). Also, competition among performers never ends, it even grows much more intense than before.
However, I doubt whether American MUSIC is still that influential. It is true that K-pop agencies hired American songwriters to produce music for their artists and a lot of Hallyu stars are covering songs by American artists like Aeron said above. But I do not think the reason they are doing these is that they are from AMERICA; instead, I believed that K-pop is only chasing the GLOBAL trends and trying to make itself more international. For example, Latin pop song Havana from Cuban artist Camila Cabello becomes a hit recently. Then we can see MAMAMOO doing Latin pop song Egotistic; hash swan includes a song with Latin style beat called Francesca in his recent album. We can also see triple-h doing Retro Future and many music videos making some kind of retro-style shooting under the trend of vaporwave music. We can definitely say that Western Music got a prominent influence on K-pop, but it doesn’t have to be American. In fact, even American songwriters won’t produce completely American music. Nowadays artists are absorbing multi-culture, trying to break the limits present something new. K-pop, the same, chasing this kind of trend.
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Junwei have explicitly showing the inseverable American influence to the trend of Korean amusement. However, I also found that no matter in the every week song ranking or tv competition like show me the money, they still really attach important to their localization. For example, in show me the money, there was a really good rapper backing form U.S. and really have talent at rapping, however, he was weeded out in first two episode，and the reason was that they want to find the top Korean rapper, not other country, which can show that they still really keep on their own culture. And also there are famous solo singer Hong Jin-young, whose song tend to Korean traditional song, she was unknown until she change style into the tranditional one, she become unique and really famous in the public.
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Hi Junwei! Your Post was really enlightening for me because I can now clearly understand that Korean music has been influenced quite heavily by American music in the past. Especially because Korean music went from traditional Pansori (Korean Opera) to Jazz, Rock n Roll, Hip Hop, Rap and more. That’s a big change in genre of music, particularly Jazz and Rock n Roll in a span of 10-20 years. Not only that, but Korean performances changed along with the genre like the dance moves, the clothing, and even the lyrics. The American Military Base shows was definitely one of, if not the only start to the change of Korean music that is still continuous and doesn’t seem to have ended. Also it wasn’t just the American’s that influenced them, American colonies like the Philippines also influenced Korea in general. Currently, Korean music is still influenced by “Western” music as stated by Zhou. There is now the use of English words mixed with Korean and the change of genres again; hip-hop and rap music. Even more, the influence from the Americans have given Hallyu stars opportunities to collaborate with American idols like BTS and Nicki Minaj in the song IDOL. So the influences are still prominent today but still I feel like that Korean’s have maintained the integrity of their culture and nationalism in their music which segregates them at the same time. So to answer Aaron’s question, I don’t think Korean fans are outraged at their Hallyu stars for indulging in another country’s language and taste of music. To see them rise to such fame for their twist of work but as KOREAN’S who achieved this soothes that rage. Because it’s definitely not easy to cover the song of a FAMOUS American idol, so having the courage to do it and being successful is a huge plus for Korean nationalists.
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Hi Junwei, there is no doubt that American music influence was very big in Korea back in the day. To this day, it can still be seen that American music still influences Korean pop music through the many collaborations happening between American singer/songwriters and Korean artists. I think part of the reason why American music was so big back then was because the more American a song was, the less communist it was, which meant less censorship. So American music was used to avoid censorship in a way. Nowadays, the government is not as strict as it was before, since modern Korean pop music do not sing about communist and other sensitive topics. American music influence has certainly declined in Korea, but it does not mean that they play a small role in Korean pop music. As I have stated before, there are many collaborations happening between American and Korean artists. Some examples are BTS and Steve Aoki, Taemin and Bruno Mars, and G-Dragon and Missy Elliott. These collaborations were extremely successful and was a win win situation for both the American and Korean artists since the Korean fans would take notice of the American artist and vice versa. This is a very easy way for both artists to become more internationally recognised and gain popularity. Since these collaborations have proven to become highly successful, American and Korean artists continue to collaborate with each other. A future collaboration that may be happening is the collaboration between BTS and Shawn Mendes and many fans have expressed their excitement towards this collaboration.
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I feel like current Korean pop music videos has allowed for more local expression in both its production and consumption. From my experience in watching Korean pop music videos, I think Koreans are making the music videos more Korean and less American by adding more Korean culture and nationalism in the production. This helps display Korean nationalism to the local fans, and at the same time, the locally produced Korean pop music will gain immense popularity due to major television channels in Korea like MBC, SBS, and KBS, who allow Korean artists to sing their song on their platform, and to promote and advertise their new song just like what you have stated. American influence still plays a big part in today’s Korean pop music, but it has undoubtedly diminished compared to the past since Korean music now includes many examples of Korean culture and nationalism.
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Hey Junwei! I thought you made some greats points in your essay especially with how Koreans have reduced the influence of American culture due to their strong sense of nationalism. I definitely agree with you on that the US still influences Korean music but now Koreans are taking those different styles of music and making their own versions of it. Whenever I listen to Kpop I notice that there is almost always a use of english words and also the title is usually in english. In addition, I think that the Americans have influenced Korea in many other factors as well. For example, language, in an average Korean conversation you can always hear at least a couple english words, it is to the point where if you told a Korean to speak only using Hangul they wouldn’t be able to have a proper conversation. If you search it up in youtube you can actually find videos where someone will ask a Korean to speak using only hangul but then once they start talking they realize their unable to express what they want without using english words. I think this language influence is one of the big reasons why Kpop songs tends to have english titles and lyrics. Although I do realize english is not an American language it is the official language of the US. Also I think that Kpop tends to follow global, mainstream trends which is one of the reasons why it has been able to gain popularity all over the world. Being that most of these trends come from the states, it is almost inevitable to have a certain level of American influence in popular culture, this goes for the entire world. As we are in an era of globalization, popular culture tends to have many similar aspects globally. I think Kpop has taken advantage of this and thus is able to gain recognition globally, and create profit for their country. I think Korea has the ability to make an already hot trend, even better and thus be profitable and popular.
Julia Zhou 68628361
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Hi everyone!
Thank you for your essay and responses. Everything has been marked and grades have been sent back to the appropriate people.
Have a great weekend!
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