Essay On Korean Culture

1266 Words6 Pages
The year is 2012. Korean pop star PSY’s song “Gangnam Style” has topped the music charts of more than 30 countries across the seven continents. World leaders like Barack Obama have attempted the horseriding dance of the ubiquitous hit. It has become the most-watched music video of its time, hitting over one billion views on Youtube within a few months. Yet, the song is almost sung entirely in the Korean language. South Korea is a small country, with around 50 million people inhabiting the region. Yet, within the past decade, its popular culture has swept across a majority of Asia and invaded varying parts of the Western hemisphere. This tsunami-like spread of Korean entertainment culture at the turn of the twenty-first century has become known…show more content…
Companies recruit hundreds of producers and buy thousands of compositions in order to maximize the outcome of a hit song. SM Entertainment, the biggest company in the industry, receives an average of 100 songs every week from composers in Korea and around the world, with only a handful of songs released to the public within a year. The explanation of this method is simple; the probability of finding a profitable song is higher when there is a larger sample of music to pick from (장). Entertainment companies shape young teenagers to become superstars by instilling both talent and physical attractiveness in them. After all, who wouldn’t like someone who can sing, dance, act, speak in multiple languages, and is pretty? Once an idol group has been trained to perfection, the studios generate pop songs for them, market them, broadcast them on TV, and churn out hit after hit in a fashion similar to an assembly line. As I mentioned before, the quality of the performance serves as a major factor in the success of a song and group. To achieve maximum profitability, the industry had to learn how to make people want to watch their product. The choreography, the stage outfits, the camera angles and the concept all serve to sell the group. Songs are chosen to produce a good

More about Essay On Korean Culture

Open Document