Does K-Pop Really That ‘Eclectic’?
sebuah respon dari kontennya WBJ
First of all, you need to read the content first. I don’t find the article, I think it’s just an Instagram content, so here it is.
Apparently in previous year, I wanted to write about how the K-Pop current releases are sound more ‘experimental’ than before. No, you cannot compare K-Pop to that real contemporary music, but you may notice some new releases are more unique, weird, and quirky. I even talked to my friend about how we find so many ‘unique’ sounds on 2022 pop music, and it’s not only K-Pop, it’s around the globe. I already wrote a draft about Blackpink’s Pink Venom which to me sounds like a collage-like pop song, and in Indonesian the bridge part sounds like ‘Metal vs Dugem’ from Project Pop, an Indonesian comedy pop group. But after I read that content above, I scrapped that idea because WBJ is more interesting to roast.
The content is in Indonesian, so TL;DR it’s about how K-Pop is unique because the genre ‘is not bounded by it’s “pop” essentials’, they say. They mention New Jeans’ Get Up EP which incorporates 90s trends aesthethic and other music genres like liquid drum’n bass, 2-step, and Jersey Club (in which to be honest I feel both insightful and dumb at the same time. How could they notice these sub- or microgenre?).
(pauseeeee, here’s some comment about the New Jeans’ Get Up visuals: It’s funny to me that WBJ prefer to bring Japanese fashion magazine FRUitS rather to Y2K trend which I think more colourful and globally impactful(?). Why FRUitS tho? Personally I feel that even though they are colourful, New Jeans’ outfits are pretty normal compared to Harajuku FRUitS fashion. It’s make more sense if they bring PowerPuff Girls for that 90s trends, since PPG is first aired on 1998. The Y2K style is more suitable to describe New Jeans’ visual style rather than 90s and even FRUitS. The worse thing is they cover this style in just 1 slide and the next slides are about music. I’m not good at fashion but I could talk this much because I wear lolita fashion and it’s often covered in FRUitS. Besides, this is one of the reason why this content is make me confused.)
Then they brought the SMTown artists: how Red Velvet sampled Bach’s Air from Orchestral Suite no. 3 for Feel My Rhythm, the polyrhythm in f(x)’s Rum Pum Pum Pum, and finally SNSD’s most eclectic song, I Got A Boy. WBJ didn’t explicitly mentioned this, but the red thread which weaves between New Jeans and these SM’s selected tracks is the creative director: Min Heejin.
I don’t want to talk about Min Heejin or analysing if their opinion is legit or not, but my first impression of the content is: I’m confused. K-Pop nowadays is all about bringing the whole experience, so the concept consist of the song, visuals, choreography, products, promotions…. they are in a whole package and it’s kinda difficult if you just pick one of them to review; all of them are related. However, the way WBJ presented this is very jumpy to me. They begin with WBJ, their visual concept, their ‘genre palette’, and suddenly each slides belongs to Red Velvet, f(X), and SNSD. I need to read the netizens’ comments to understand that actually Min Heejin is the red thread. They don’t even write the article or make video essay (and they don’t share who write the content!) to help them present their opinion, so I feel that this content is ‘sok iye’ to me.
However, the main reason I decide to write this is for discussing if K-Pop is really that eclectic as WBJ presented. Pop music does have some room for unique, eclectic, and experimental things, from Kate Bush (which is really recognised as an eclectic artist) to Katy Perry, and it doesn’t matter wherever you are. The choice to bring up New Jeans and some SM artists rather than the Min Heejin herself also makes me assume that the writer(s) of this content is already a fan of someone.
They don’t bring NMIXX, which as I’ve remembered their earlier songs are weird to the point that the fans questioned what the heck JYP’s thinking. In every part of the globe, not all eclectic music and artwork can be popular or accepted by the audiences, it can be flop in market too. I also believe many artists, producers, or creative workers in K-Pop scene also have their own ‘eclecticness’, so as a student who prefer to research in qualitative and prefer particular issue, it’s kinda unfair to claim that ‘K-Pop is eclectic’ just because of one person Min Heejin.
Even though WBJ claim that K-Pop is eclectic, I personally think that since I’m a weeb and a lolita fashion enthusiast, J-Pop is much more eclectic than K-Pop (and that’s the reason J-Pop is more difficult to be accepted by global audience. But their domestic market is better than K-Pop tho). ALI Project, Sound Horizon, Queen Bee, and Official Hige Dandism are much more eclectic than New Jeans and SMTown. Then we have Bjork, Kate Bush, David Bowie, Billie Eilish, and so much more when it comes to eclectic music and aesthetic. So again, I find that WBJ articles is very biased and clearly fangirling/fanboying to someone — which is okay and very natural since we have our own preferred artist — but it’s unfair to use this to justify the big claim about K-Pop.
I copy-paste this, and anyway, when they said this: ‘K-pop, meski merupakan terma yang digunakan untuk suatu jenis musik, tapi sebetulnya mereka tidak mendefinisikan suatu “suara”, tapi lebih ke letak “geografis” kelahiran musik-musik ini.’ I think the discussion is closed. So why they bother to tell us that K-Pop is eclectic, which is…. apa hubungannya? What’s the relations between those paragraph to the description of K-Pop eclecticness?
Or maybe they just want to be eclectic by making jumpy contents? Lol!
Shit, even my post today is going eclectic too.
Anyway, I don’t want to end this post right here right now. I would like to compare the three songs: SNSD’s I Got A Boy, Blackpink’s Pink Venom, and NMIXX’s Dice (or do you prefer O.O which is more ‘eclectic’?) to show that although K-Pop is considered eclectic by WBJ, they actually still retains some pop elements, so they are actually less edgy than ‘more eclectic’ songs around the globe. However, the comparation may be heavy with music theory which you guys need to be more serious. I even planned to make a drawing for better understanding. Please let me know by comment or message me.
Update [14/8/23]: When I showered yesterday, I remembered than Min Heejin is actually more of a designer rather than a music producer. When I googled her to write this post on August 12, there is an article that explains that she was responsible for making K-Pop industry more concept-driven. That may be an answer of why you get so many freebies inside most premium K-Pop album nowadays, and they are honestly very tempting to get: photobooks, photocards, postcards, Season Greetings’ merch, you name it. I think it is interesting to cover that design/visual-based thinking in music industry turns out can improve product sales rather than relying on live performances to get more income.
Anyway, WBJ still fanning over New Jeans, so on August 11 they (finally) release an article about Erika de Casier who wrote most New Jeans’ songs on Get Up EP. It’s really simple though, just telling about who is she, but not as hyperbole as the previous content. This is not an important news and you can ignore it for some of you, but I’m just too gatel not to do this because it’s so “tell me you are a Bunnies without telling me that you are a Bunnies”.
Asli aku pengen beli truk.
