Powerpoint:
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Summary:
The Korean Wave or Hallyu refers to the spread of South Korean pop culture around the world. The term came from China in mid-1999 by Beijing journalists who were fascinated by the fast growing popularity of Korean entertainment and culture in China. The Korean wave is responsible for the $4.2 billion dollars of revenue in 2011 for South Korea through cultural exports.
Before, the trot genre dominated Korea. Trot is similar to what we know as oldies music. After the Korean War, which started on June 25, 1950 and lasted for 3 years, U.S. troops remained in South Korea for protection. With the continued presence of the U.S. military, American and world culture began to make its way into South Korea. During this time, Western music became more accepted to a wider crowd of young adults.
Improvements in the recording systems encouraged the production of LP records in the 1960s. More radio stations started playing popular songs.
In the 1970s, the new career of DJs became popular, significantly impacting teenagers.
In 1980s, the Asia Music Forum was launched. National singers from five different Asian countries competed in the event. Yong-pil Cho won first place and earned a high reputation as a Korean singer in Japan.
K-pop or Korean pop music really took off in the 1990s after SM Entertainment, one of the biggest music companies in South Korea, opened in 1995. Influence from boy/girl bands in America and SM Entertainment's opening led to the formation of Korean girl/boy bands, typically called idol groups.
Today, SM Entertainment has 250 employees and has sold more than 59 million records in the last year alone.
The other two prominent companies in Korea at this time are JYP Entertainment and YG Entertainment.
JYP Entertainment has connections with Hollywood. A lot of songwriters from the U.S. go and work with Korean acts.
Though 55% of Korean music sales are digital, the company makes sure that physical CDs are attractive enough for the fans to purchase. Typically, companies don't sell ordinary CD cases; they're all in glossy, luxury packaging. Sometimes they're released in up to five different packages.
Some critics think that K-pop will ever become as big in countries like the US and UK because music fans in those markets would just be too critical about the lyrics and the artists' accents when singing in English. However, others argue that it doesn't seem problematic considering that while UK revenue from record sales shrunk by more than 11% in 2010, Korean overall sales were up 11.7%.
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Sources:
http://www.monocle.com/sections/culture/Web-Articles/Korean-Music-Industry/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/organgrinder/2011/apr/20/k-pop-south-korea-music-market
http://seoulbeats.com/2012/04/exploring-the-lack-of-divergency-in-koreas-music-industry/
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/03/hallyu-back-obama-catches-the-korean-wave-.html
http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/8700-to-anyone-the-rise-of-korean-wave/
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/22/korean-hip-hop-k-hop-goes-global.html
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