한국의 뜨거운 수출품 K-Pop - London Evening Standard on 05 Oct 2011

[홍종덕]

London is going K-Pop crazy

by Victoria Stewart

5 Oct 2011

 Snaking around the edge of the Korean Cultural Centre on the Strand is a queue of about 600 teenagers. Every few minutes, a video camera zooms in on the action.

"Facebook … I got invited as I go to K-Pop nights all the time," says one, when asked by the interviewer how she found out about it. "We've been here about an hour now so we're quite excited," cries a young male voice through the noise. "Big Bang, yeaaah. 2NE1, ahhh," two girls then shriek at the camera, each hoping to get a place inside the tiny venue.

This was the scene from one of the many new nights being held in London, marking the city's newest fixation with K-Pop. Not pop as we know it, this is a fresh brand of commercial contemporary music from South Korea and, because of sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, thousands of teens in Asia, America and now Europe are buying into it.

K-Pop's three biggest groups - Big Bang, boy group Super Junior and girl pop rappers 2NE1 - have generated more than 45 million YouTube hits between them for their recent singles.

Another one, by nine-piece electropop group Girls Generation, entitled Gee, has been viewed by more than 53 million, despite being sung in Korean and dotted with exclamations in English.

Since June, London fans have organised monthly flash mobs, re-enacting moves by their K-Pop idols in Trafalgar Square, while at an event held during the Mayor's Thames Festival last month, 100,000 teens turned up to take part in K-Pop competitions and watch music videos together over one weekend.

Another night, Ultimate Cube, is planned for November 19 at Wimbledon Arena.

But while music constitutes one part of Korea's latest export, K-Pop is more than just about singing. Like a Korean equivalent of a manufactured X Factor band, teen K-Poppers dressed in identikit rainbow-coloured outfits make peace signs and dance about in music videos, squeaking about teenage love.

"The age group really hooking onto K-Pop is 15-20," says Paul Wadey from the Korean Cultural Centre.

"Our nights have been incredibly successful. We organised them on a first-come first-served basis but there were hundreds queuing. We didn't advertise or anything and about 95 per cent were non-Koreans. It started with the style, not just the sound and the lyrics. It's very, very slick and very attractive but at the same time, it's different. It's not mainstream Britpop music, it feeds into lots like rap, hip-hop, cinema. And lots of money and time goes into making those music videos," he says.

Another team contributing to the K-Pop frenzy here are London-based Chinese brothers Jon and Jeremy Bock, who together run Kpopteam.com, a website which gathers 60,000 monthly hits from uploading details of London's regular K-Pop club nights.

This Saturday sees a "sexy and glamorous" night, showcasing music by top K-Pop DJs and plans for a K-Pop themed Halloween are under way.

"At the moment K-Pop is marketable as the music is similar to R&B and hip hop," says 30-year-old Jon Bock, "so the transition to the mainstream market is easier than other Asian music. When we play it at our club nights it fits in and even Westerners enjoy it. It's different but at the same time not too different as they can still relate to the music."