The future of kpop
The “Oricon Comet” Younha
The Korean pop music industry, like the recording industry worldwide, has been in a constant downward slide in recent years. The reasons for that are all the usual suspects: General sales slump for the CD market, rise of digital media, and, oh yeah, suckiness of the product.
Personally, I think kpop is both worse and better now than it’s been in years. It all depends on how you define “kpop,” I guess. What’s typically seen as kpop is the stuff you see on those live music shows, the girl- and boy-band pop groups, the idol stars, the overchoreographed dances, the lip-synching Barbie dolls. But the industry has diversified — there are so many niches now, subgenres, pockets of creativity — and while “mainstream pop” used to be all there was, now there are alternatives. So does kpop suck these days? Some of it really, really does. But some of it really, really doesn’t.
The following takes a look at the mainstream market and finds hope for the future of popular music.
2007 showed a different side than what the music industry has seen for the past few years. Up through last year, the state of affairs looked dark as things declined with no bottom in sight, but this year, there were singers whose successful hits shined a bit of light. Here, we take a look at a few of the praiseworthy singers who’ve enabled the pop music industry to look once more to a hopeful future. …
SONG OF THE DAY
Younha - “한 우산 아래” (under one umbrella) [ zShare download ]
Tags: Big Bang, JYP, kpop, Lim Jeong-hee, Younha
