Chrissy's Korean Music Guide

We'll be using Blackpink as a template, but all of these rules are true for every group.

Group Dynamics

Before we get to anything performance related there are three distinct roles to know.

The Center

The leader of the group, called such because in the all important "line" (the positioning of each member on stage) this member is always placed in the center at the beggining or the end to both draw the eye and to visually assert their leadership. Blackpink, however, has no center. This was a decision that was made as inception and they stuck to it. All of them are the center. None of them are the center. It depends on who's got the live mic right this second.

The Unnie (uh-knee)

The oldest. In compliance with Korean culture, outside of work, the Unnie is in charge. What she says, goes. She's in charge of and responsible for all the younger members in the group, distributing the petty cash during outings, correcting them when they're not acting right, settling disputes between the other members. In Blackpink this is Jisoo. The younger members refer to her affectionately as Jisoonie (Jissoo-Unnie)

The Maknae (mang-nay)

The youngest. The heiarchy of every group is based on age, the maknae is the youngest and every other member is typically fiercely protective of this member, more so than they are of each other. In Blackpink this is Lisa.

Roles

Every member MUST be able to sing, dance and rap, but each member is designated as the lead in each specific role and they are responsible for the entire group in this area. In addition to the three performance categories, one member is designated as the "visual"; the face of the group.

Jisoo (2nd from Left): Visual, backup vocalist, backup dancer

Of course she's the visual; there are rumors around the internet that cameras are incapable of capturing what this woman actually looks like. I saw her in person, from about 11 feet away. It's true. Looking from my phone screen while filming her and then looking at the actual person looked completely different. I can't explain this, only vouch for it.

Jennie(2nd from right): Main Rapper, Backup Vocalist, backup dancer.

Lisa (Far left): Main Dancer, Backup Rapper, backup vocalist.

Rose (Far right) Main vocalist, backup dancer.

It's important to note that niether the group nor the fans make these designations, the label is in charge of deciding who is who and that agenda is pushed. The label absolutely knows what they're doing in this regard, they watch 800-1000 aspiring idols a year which brings us to......

Training

Idols audition and begin training typically around 14-16 (they'll take you as young as 10 if they see a star in you, see Rose and Jisoo above with Ella Gross.) You attend classes to learn how to be a world class performer, on top of that you are expected to be able to speak Korean, English and Japanese well enough to conduct interviews so you have to do media training and language classes as well.

As you train, they divide you into different practice groups and attempt to find a magical, standout chemistry. There is no maximum training length; they bake you until you're ready to serve and you'll be shuffled around different groups until they find what they're looking for. The shortest training period I've ever heard of was 3 years, the longest, 7. Once they're fairly sure they're going to get a high ROI on you, your group "debuts". You release your first couple of singles, film your videos and hope to God that everyone loves you.

Even getting to the debut point is a herculean task. It is much more likely that you'll throw away a large portion of your life so you can be the best damn singer and dancer down at the Starbucks. Of course, debuting comes with no guarantees. Maybe you're just not as good as other groups. Maybe people don't like your visuals. Maybe your producer sucks. If any of these things or a multitude of others are true, you will fail after throwing away a large portion of your life and will probably be the best damn dancer and singer down at the Starbucks.

Case in point, Blackpink was a 6 member group. 4 of them went to global stardom, the other two get to watch this happen from the sidelines and probably throw stuff at their TV.

Interesting Idol Trivia

Your Visuals Are Everything

If they don't like your nose or the way your eyes look they'll change it. You put on weight and you go on a mandatory diet. You lose too much weight and you go on a mandatory diet. You will look like the person that everyone fell in love with or it will be corrected.

No Dating

Your fans needs to be able to pretend that THEY are your significant other. They can't very well do that if you have a boyfriend. Any dating brought to light in idols 20-28 is automatically classified as a scandal and people will stop listening to you because of it, particularly if it's confirmed.

The Show Will Go On

This is becoming a bit of an outdated practice now but at one point no one cared about your health. No one cared that you hadn't seen your family in ten months. There's shows to do, there's money to be made. There is no better demonstration of this than the video above. G-Dragon has a heat stroke in the middle of a show and falls over back stage. They fan him off for a few seconds, change his wardrobe, give him a bottle of water and push his barely conscious body back out on stage. The part you don't see: His body automatically performs the choreography, he stumbles off stage and immediately falls over unconscious. While they are trying to revive him you hear the other 4 members just doing the next song. I think they realized what bad business this is, at the Babymonster show there were huge buckets of water bottles hidden behind every spotlight and the girls were drinking like camels the whole time, plus if you're having health issues modern day they'll put you on sabbatical until you're better.

Crazy Access

Korean artists are accessible in a way that American artists would never dream of being. If and when you start to gain momentum your label will launch a reality show for you. This means on top of your crazy schedule and pretty much non-stop performances you have to film the other part of your life too. Going to eat dinner, going sledding, taking archery lessons, making dinner at home, nothing is off limits. They will show you their dance practices, recording of their songs, meetings with the label. The only time they won't film you is when you're sleeping. Scratch that. There's a 20 minute video of Babymonster taking a nap. That's all it is. There is no more content to it than that and yet there's an audience for it. While this may seem like overkill, this accessibility is the true secret of KPop Success. I liked Rose as I listened to her music (she's my bias) but I kind of fell in love with her while watching her wake up early to make toast and then running around like a squirrel distributing it to the other girls. Stupid, certainly but you start to view them as actual people and that's the key to selling you their stuff. Like a lot of their stuff. An embarrassing amount of stuff.

You Better Just Say No

The guy above is T.O.P (The Official Pimp) of the universally revered group Big Bang. We're gonna go through this story quick, and it won't make it less horrible. Every Korean male is required to serve 2 years in the mililtary. Everyone. Idol or not. Your group goes on hiatus until you come back, or you break into what's called sub-units and release music sans the missing members. TOP got caught smoking weed while doing his service and was discharged, publically. You do not do drugs in Korea. Culturally they are more understanding of SA then they are of drug use. People found his address and sent funeral wreaths to his house en masse. There was an online petition with over 200,000 signatures for him to kill himself. So he tried to. Ended up in a coma for 3 weeks. When he woke up they still wouldn't leave him alone, took videos and photos of his distraught mother pushing him out of the hospital in a wheelchair and any news of a public appearance was peppered with "I can't believe you have the nerve to show your face after what you did" comments.

TOP eventually fled to the United States and took a long break from everything, most recently resurfacing in Squid Game as the character Thanos. And people still aren't leaving him alone. All because he (according to public court records) admitted to smoking two joints over the course of a year. If you are so inclined, search Youtube or "T.O.P Martha Stewart" for a hilarious Netflix commercial.

Oddly Retro American Flavor

If it isn't clear i've dug deep into this genre. I know and love a lot of it, but my favorite jams are the ones that sound like what can only be described as 199-Now. It's modern, and incorparates a lot of modern production elements to make it sound modern but underneath, you can hear classic 90's R & B, hip hop and Euro Trash dance vibes (Rhythym is a dancer, it's your sole companion) Occasionally all the way back to the 80' funk and synth pop. Kpop has single handedly revived a completely dead genre, New Jack Swing (Think Keith Sweat, Teddy Riley, Aaron Hall, those guys). Now to the big question. Why?

There's a simple answer. Blackpink, Babymonster, and Big Bang (along with the members individually) are undisputably the largest names in Kpop today and they are all under the company YG Entertainment. YG has two key producers responsible for all the retro feelgoods. Teddy Park and Choice37. Both Korean-Americans from New York, both our age. They are musical geniuses who grew up listening to the same records we did. Seeing as they produce for the most succesful groups, other producers at other labels follow suit and now the Korean soundscape as a whole sounds very Late 80's early 90's. Monkey see, monkey do, monkey pee all over you.

Fun Fact, Teddy hides something from the 90's in every big hit for Blackpink. Wrestling references, Movie references, TV references.

eg Middle finger up, FU pay me, 90's baby I Pump Up The Jam.

Light Sticks

When Big Bang first started getting ultra succesful, G-Dragon came up with a brilliant idea. The light stick. This was a way for the group to look out in at the audience during a show and identify their superfans. Now this is standard practice, every group has a specially designed light stick and they are available for purchase at concerts for $75. Blackpink's is a hammer with two hearts at the ends and it lights up purple. Babymonster's is a little white and red monster head with demon horns that lights up red. See the picture above. If we conservatively estimate there's 10,000 people holding them YG made $750,000 at this show just selling these things. At $75 for something that cost $4 at most to mass manufacture this couldn't be called anything else but a ripoff but it's part of the experience, arguably an essential one. The new ones come with a bluetooth module that links all of them together, track the location and blink on and off in concert with each other during a show in time with the music to create a dynamic lighting effect. So you can be part of the show (so they say). FUn fact: You never ever ever bring another group's light stick to a show. Someone broke out the Black Pink hammer at the Babymonster concert and was waving it around until they saw we were all staring at them with stern dissaprroval. Then they put it away.

Forever Young

In the music videos and on stage idols ooze of power and the many different facets of it. Grace, elegance, confidence, etc. It is so very convincing, but don't be fooled. Keep in mind that the majority of these men and women were completely robbed of any kind of normal childhood. When they're not actively doing what they've trained their whole lives to do they are... well for lack of a better term, complete dorks. They screw around in a way that you would expect unsupervised 12 year olds to. The girls will never end a shopping trip without buying some kind of toy. It is not uncommon for a 20 year old to still sleep with a stuffed animal, or several. The juxtopistion of their on stage personas and their real life personas is jarring, and at least to me, endearing. You can visually see the confidence drain out of them as soon as a performance is over.

Vocal Tones, West VS East

Something that really gives Kpop it's signature tone is how the trained Asian female singing voice is devoid of any warmth. This is not a race thing, it's a cultural thing. In the above video Minnie (the brunette, of G-Idle) and Lilly (the blonde, of N-Mixx) sing a duet. When Minnie (representing Thailand) sings, you get exactly the note she is hitting and nothing else. Hauntingly cold, precise singing. When Lilly, who is Austrasian (Dad is an Aussie, Mom is Korean. I just made that up don't use that term) and was raised in Australia sings, it's invitingly warm, more emotionally expressive and hits your ear in a completely different way. Put them together and bounce them off of each other and you get something amazing. Not a coincidence that there's Aussies and Kiwis in a lot of groups. If you are wondering why the guys in this clip are making such weird facial expressions, it's because this is actually part of a competition and they are getting their asses kicked.

The Future Queen (my self indulgent editorial)

Ahyeon Jung. She is the center of Babymonster and she's next for the throne. As far as raw vocal power no one in the game can step to Ahyeon. Charlie Puth watched her sing this cover of his song and immediately turned over a song he had written to Babymonster so she could sing some of it. She's also a frighteningly good rapper and dancer. The only reason she's not heralded as the queen right now is because she's too damn little. But when she gets bigger she will be a superstar. keep an eye on her. To toot my own horn for a second my bias always go big, I pick stars. I was a Rose superfan before anyone in North America was checking for her, now everyone knows who she is. Which is, quite frankly irritating as fuck.