[2020 KF Korea Workshop: 김영대]

YouTube 링크 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXnTi_SkqJc

EAI는 한국국제교류재단(Korea Foundation: KF)과 함께 주한 외국인을 대상으로 한국에 대한 이해 증진과 공감대 형성을 확대하고자 [2020 KF 코리아 워크숍]을 진행합니다. [2020 KF 코리아 워크숍]은 다음과 같은 세 개의 클러스터로 이루어져 있습니다: 클러스터 E (External & Domestic Affairs), 클러스터 A (Arts & Culture), 클러스터 I (Industry & IT).

[2020 KF 코리아 워크숍] 클러스터 A의 세 번째 순서로는 "한국의 음악"에 대한 김영대 평론가의 강연을 진행했습니다. 강연 후에 질의응답 시간은 K-pop의 역사와 미래, 한국의 소프트파워 등에 대한 다양한 질의와 토론이 활발히 이루어지는 유익한 시간이었습니다.

영상 스크립트

hi good afternoon what a beautiful um fall afternoon it is um wow the visual i mean the backdrop it feels like i'm performing actually you know it feels like i'm in the middle of like bts concert or um super m or nct you know online concert um yeah i'm glad you i'm glad you're here you're not actually here in the in this room but i uh i can see your faces so yeah uh nice to meet you guys um let me just uh briefly introduce myself because it uh would remind uh you and me of you know what what i'm how i feel

right now um what i've been uh in the music journalism in general like for um for two decades actually um i started to write when i was 20 uh my freshman year and i so i witnessed uh everything you know from the from the first event of modern k-pop to the all the way to the latest um you know phenomenon of bts but when when i was a when i was young i mean younger when i was a little kid in an elementary school i my one of my favorite hobby was to watch afkn which is american forces korean network

it is a tv and radio channel uh for um us soldiers but you what if you're uh lucky uh to have a tv set and a uhf or vhf antenna and you're uh you you have a us army base nearby uh you can you can catch a signal and this afk is really awesome channel this is what just one channel but you have a a lot of like almost every popular show in just one channel yeah it's kind of uh you know favorite shows in one just just one channel so i used to watch you know all the all the different kinds of morning show

general hospital soap opera um you name it i mean uh guiding light and even even uh your favorite night shows like jay leno show you know david letterman and everything so for me um for me someone who uh considered myself as a kind of person who baptized with american pop and american you know entertainment this kind of opportunity you know to to talk about my culture my popular you know music industry and in a culture too to foreign audiences just feels amazing you know feels unreal so i hope you um uh you can feel my

excitement here and and also you know hope you can uh enjoy the the lecture the talk um first of all i want to talk about uh dynamite it is bts latest number one song and it is just historic you know um achievement and not only it is because the first k-pop number one song on billboard but also it is first modern asian pop uh it hit the number one since the kyu sakamoto the japanese artist uh sukiyaki but it that song was 1960 so i think uh well it's safe to say this is kind of first really substantial pop

modern pop hit in the in the globalization era so it is that important and and also this song and the the the fact that it um charted on number one spot for for um you know multiple weeks would answer the the question of a lot of people who've been asking um is it possible that k-pop would become a number one on mainstream level you know not just like marginal hit or local hit or asian hit or pan asian hit you know whatever you call it but would it be possible k-pop would become a global hit not only just global but mainstream

hit in the us that is the uh biggest you know pop industry in the world and this song answered that this song um answered a lot of questions actually um because for um for last 10 years uh since the first like global uh k-pop music went abroad um k-pop's been considered a uh significant culture but not as a mainstream culture you know k-pop's al always been understood as a a part of american you know subculture or internet viral or social you know media movement or something like that um in the us in the western world

especially asian culture has traditionally been stereotypically perceived it has no sexual appeal it has no real modern appeal it is not really modern or contemporary it is just asian um but bts now changed their perception with other kpop artists these days they are attractive youngsters they have amazing performance you know beautiful singing you know technical wise it is just just perfect and the music is very trendy and they're really cute i mean really cute so um you know in some it is very attractive

modern pop music not just exotic novelty asian culture i think that's that makes huge difference um another another thing another contribution bts and dynamite made is that it's changing the pre-existing conception toward k-pop k-pop the whole discourse and narrative around surrounding k-pop has been predominantly um defined by the by the article number of articles but but but the the the article that's been written by new yorker back in 2012 which is called factory girls so i mean uh to some it k-pop is good it's it's good

looking it is trendy but it is very artificial it has no soul the latex is just garbage it has no really deep philosophical or cultural impact uh that's been that's been the the narrative surrounding k-pop for many many years but bts changing that cons you know conception all of a sudden they have really beautiful lyrics that they can you know it's about the youth i mean not just korean youth it's very universal i mean it it it represents how you feel as a as a youngster you know how you react to the

all the different circumstances like social injustice racial injustice discrimination and everything it it is just a beautiful narrative of youth in this moment so i think it it is probably the biggest chapter accomplishment of bts that k-pop would actually be able to speak able to talk about something fundamentally significant culturally important not just a great pop with conventional manners and sound um so let us back to the song dynamite um when i listen to the song every time i i see i see history

i see a lot of different aspects and you know characteristics and features that that k-pop has been consistently pursued so i would call today's talk as three different origins of dynamite because i don't i don't think dynamite's just just one shot it's it's a kind of like exceptional you know case well it's an exceptional hit song but i don't think it's exceptional you know so in nature because it has probably everything that k-pop has been pursuing for last two decades probably last three decades or more than

more than that so um let me i know you watch this video a lot a lot of time so i just played briefly briefly okay anyway i met these guys in 2018 actually uh in billboard music award um i had a kind of exclusive like 40 minutes interview with them um but what what what uh makes me really happy what makes me really excited about meeting with them was they're they're real i mean they're legit uh that means you know that the person i i saw from from what while i'm like listening from their music is exactly the same

person that i was talking to at that site at that moment so i think you you could call it like authenticity you know they're real it is what the song the lyrics the narrative of youth is what they're actually saying and what they're thinking i think it's a really important thing anyway um this is just this is k-pop i mean you you you definitely characterize this song as k-pop but this is song just as pop it is a it's a powerful global audience um this is made by you know transnational collaboration

between a lot of like international composers and elitists and this this song you know as you've seen as you as you've seen from the music video it is triple threat it has you know dance rap singing you know performance um i i said more than three but anyway um but it is it is just whole experience it's not just singing it's not just dancing it is not just visual images but it is like you know the experience as a whole and um again this is a song targeted for global audience and uh this song originated in the elaborate

in a production system by um that's been you know developed by k-pop agencies so um so if if we can call this song k-pop it that is definitely k-pop we can we can you know trace three different types of origins of k-pop based on this song okay if we call if we define k-pop as a kind of intention you know not just music but kind of mindset for for the global appeal global audience or or global market i can i can suggest one origin and it is released in 1988 um this the song is official theme of 1988 seoul olympic ioc

solo olympic games and the song is called hand in hand by koreana handyman um across the land handyman breaking down the wall actually the the song was released uh the year before the um the breaking down the berlin wall so it kind of gives you a premonition or something like that it's it's just amazing song i give a little backstory about this song um the song is composed by georgio morother italian american guy who's been known as a disco king you know because he wrote a lot of songs for donna summer and he he's

he he was um amazing songwriter he he's probably the one of the greatest songwriters in in the in the 80s and uh the ioc seoul office commissioned the song to him and he composed this song and this guy these guys koreana is a european korean uh they're uh they were based on switzerland um and the thing is the reason why they sang this song was because they they're the only internationally known pop singers at the time you know it was 1988 south korea in music scene was was not on the entire map you know nobody knew south korea would

even exist at the time you know the abidi by the early 1990s well actually right after korean war south korea was technically the poorest country in the world and uh south korea um go through a lot of like different types of turmoil like politically economically but by the uh by the 1988 south uh south korea's income economics has been skyrocketing and they're not the poorest country in the whole war and they are um they were able to host this you know global show global event uh olympic so think about the situation

you know the south korean people you know their cultural pride you know they're just just graduated from from this political injustice and economic you know the you know bad economic situation like poverty to put it simply so at the top of at the apex of that um situation the the only globally known korean singer koryana sing the song hand in hand by the uh international composer georgio morother this is k-pop this is k-pop is all about you know it gives you a pride it has international collaboration

it has transnational korean you know diaspora korean and the song is for the global audience the song was actually the probably the biggest hit in 1988 except for billboard actually but it is it has um marked two different diamond records in in european market and the song is definitely some of the year in um in the world um so this is k-pop i think this is one of three origins of dynamite or bts so when so if we define k-pop as more developed modern production or modern type of performance something that is definitely

distinguished from the previous era like 80s and 70s i have one other origins one other progenitors of k-pop uh i i think you would be familiar familiarized with this group already this is uh easily con considered as a sort of like godfather of k-pop or godfather of modern k-pop band this is sauteing the boys and the song that i want to play today is i know i'm going to play this song this is called new jack swing do you know the term new jack swing you know when i was kid this kind of song was considered

as new jack swing i think the john is coming back uh by by modern artist um these guys are amazing and really different um that guy with glasses is sateiji former heavy metal bassist just you know changed his music style into african-american sound and his prolific composer and a really talented young man and this due to two got two other guys boys or the best underground b-boys at the time so that's so guy that sataji recruited two underground b-boys to to form this group which is considered as a first modern

k-pop dance band k-pop boy band at the time still um the important thing is they were based on hip-hop they're they were not based on typical boy band bubble gum sound i think it would that the fact that the first k-pop modern k-pop was based on hip-hop would tell you uh imply many things and tell you many different things in understanding k-pop they're not just good singer who can who can sing like sweet tunes but they're actually composer and choreographer and they're really well at the time they're really good

rappers too and they're from underground too it's not factory forged idle but they just introduced young cool sound to the audience and you this is really important you have to remember that the first i mean the original k-pop the first boy band boy band was actually not really a boy band typically but another important important thing is they suggested new type of performance for this song and for a lot of other hits of satellite well the music was important but actually the whole set of performance including the

choreography music video visuals even even you know hat and caps and you know hooties and you know big trousers or the part of performance it's really that important feature that actually attracted a lot of youngsters at the time including myself and this kind of formula was still valid in modern kpop business in the success of bts and other boy band nct 127 the super m you name it monster x still valid really valid in this uh in this current state of kpop their message was really strong rough it just attracted a lot of young

youngsters who really wanted a new sound that would be compatible with other trendy you know k-pop in the western world and that was the second origins of bts dynamite okay we have one more example if we consider bts as a part of system part of idle culture pyro k-pop industry so in other words if we consider the success of bts and or dynamite or other songs as uh consequences of the efforts that k-pop has been pursuing k-pop has been doing for last two decades or three decades i should trace um the origin back to the

1996 first substantial idol k-pop idols in in korean korean pop music business that is hot the group is called hot high five of teenager i know this stupid name but anyway hots uh the song i don't know what the the title english title um anyway cheonsai the descendant of warriors i guess let me play the song just briefly hot high five of teenagers not a good name but but again if you you know look at the video and uh pay attention to the sound you you can find a lot of similarity between the these guys

and satay and the boys because sartaj and the boys satisfy the pave the way and they suggested the new model so for for k-pop for a lot of producers in k-pop they have to follow the model success model which is sorted either they had to be based on the sound of hip-hop which was the new hip sound by the time and they have to be based on this like performance kind of model you know they well hot didn't have a composure at the time uh you know among the members but they're really trained as really good dancers and

singers and some of the members were already popular among among the students community local community as a as a local boy band so they exactly follow the model except for the fact that they're heavily trained as a singer and the performer actually this was the first successful not just successful but first boy band probably the first band that sm entertainment made in 196 1996 well the ceo uh suman li uh the the head producer of sm entertainment he he was he was really um innovator you know he was he he had

really different mindset about korean pop music and the industry and the future of industry he still has different different types of mindset uh back in the late 80s he um he retired from singing he used to be a really good folk music musician singer-songwriter he retired from singing and uh and from from other jobs like such as radio dj he went abroad he went to united states to study in a graduate school uh it's an engineering i guess but instead of like pursuing academic career he saw a lot he saw a lot of changes

that's been made by the time in the pop industry so what struck him at the time most was the success of boy band the success of new performance oriented pop group such as new edition new kids on the block you know those like first generation of boy band and their music was based on a new cosmopolitan african-american sound like new jack swing pop rap and and other like black culture that's been a huge part of american society at the time like late 80s and early 1990s so he came back with a new like with a revelation about the future

of k-pop so he established the agency sm entertainment and he uh recruited he started to recruit a lot of talented youngsters and he those guys hot were the some of the oldest trainees in k-pop and they're really successful and the model and the model he made he suggested at the time was still really valid you know all the way to the success of other idle bands in sm entertainment yg jyp and bts so i played three different examples to um to example exemplify my point today as i read some of the articles been

written by western media or the academic paper by western scholars or even korean scholars i sometimes i'm often upset um about how they consider the success of bts or look or other like k-pop groups the success of k-pop is not you know did not come out of blue it is not just one shot it's not just the result of government supported like big plan or something like that it will always corporate based it is is always musician based not not the government and the the phenomenon was huge definitely the whole bts and

current state of kpop is exceptional but it is still based on this effort this continuation of the development of k-pop and a modern revolution of korean pop music that started in 1988 with korean and other like all the k-pop artist that we forgot and the the latest success of k-pop idol band and and their um global globally compatible music should be considered as a as a part of the process part of the i would say compulsive um effort of korean people and not just government not just you know company agency

it is part of our psyche is a part of korean psyche again we were the poorest we were south korea has been always devastated in the modern history always devastated by all different kinds of struggles econ you know economic struggles political injustice dictatorship authoritative you know the administration but you know based on this the hollywood success korean wave and the k-pop and the success of bts especially in the american mainstream pop scene would would give us a totally different type of mindset these days you know it

is like first kind of moment in the in the korean society that many koreans feel that south korea is a center of something big whether we call it hallyu or whether it call the k-pop scene or whatever we're actually at the center finally so i think you you um when you you know talk about k-pop or successful bts or whatever whatever you have to you might want to remember that this is part of like continuation is part of long process of korean modernization and korean koreans globalization and their

obsessive effort for cosmopolitan culture and industry um yeah that's about it and uh i hope you enjoyed the um the lecture and i um you don't have any questions yet feel free feel free to ask me anything you can you can ask me uh kind of personal question like who was the who was the cutest among bts when i when i had an opportunity to uh interview them anything anything would be uh amazing yeah christina uh what about female representative female singers who helped k-pop become what it is now yeah i introduced a boy band um

today for today's lecture because i just wanted to make it more simple and more like intuitive because bts is boy band and uh so i kind of traced back to the to the kind of early earlier boy bands and male pop stars but um but in uh in the history of k-pop female artists has always been a part of this uh industry like scs s-e-s they uh they made a debut in 1997 i think a year later that um the year later that um hot made a debut so they're they're being a part of this whole process whole like development of modern k-pop

and uh another um innovative girl group at the time was finkel pinkel pinker the the one of the leaders of the group um was who is still uh popular and a you know great great um performer still and um probably the in the modern era i think the two two important groups should be mentioned girls generation obviously who kind of paved the way for the later girl groups especially more uh more you know pretty cute more um typically asian kind of gold groups but but they're not they have you know kind of multiple images so i i don't

want to kind of oversimplify the the image and the style but anyway ghost generation and the other girl group that uh should remember it was 21 21 actually paved the way for different types of gold group you can call it gold crush or powerful like females alphago or something like that you know they're based on hip-hop they're based on like african-american swagger and all the more more aggressive images i think is it so in that uh regard 21 uh paved the way i mean you you you can see a lot of influences

modern k-pop girl groups you know itsy definitely and uh blackpink another example of the influence of 21. okay ben do you think the k-pop still has some of the same aspect from the first generation or did it change a lot during these past couple of years um yeah half and half i mean again there they followed a lot of models that's been made since the earlier days but i think they introduced a lot of different aspects in modern k-pop industry for instance like i said bts sort of introduced a new type of boy

band who put narrative or story over the you know over the sound i would say well the the whole music and the performance is probably the one of the biggest factors of the success of bts but i think the the thing the one thing that would distinguish bts from other a typical k-pop group is is their message and they're really a authentic um kind of raw type of narrative of youth yeah uh may from malaysia bts is not the first korean act to try to break into the u.s many said is the power of sns to help them to break

through into u.s what do you think what really set bts apart from yeah i already talked a little bit about that well speaking of sns or social media i i should tell you this social media is the new platform definitely it is a new media that helped to boost the success the popularity of bts but it is not the main reason for their success they just help to disseminate their their music and culture you know you in a lot of different situation easily but sns is not social media isn't not itself is not a fundamental reason

behind their success because everyone had the same platform so why only bts i mean it's it's just so obvious yep no la it is right pronunciation i'm sorry i love k-pop and a fan of them but in my opinion there's a problem with it in a interference of their personal life if there is any scandal they should leave kpop industry what do you think about that this is really sensitive and really tricky um type of question i think because k-pop is already gone global i think that there are two different

types of reaction to that kind of scandal from global fans perspective from local fan perspective from local fan um i had to say this but many people many music fans and you know public in general tends to consider kpop bands is just just passing fed i mean because they always had this multiple groups in in this k-pop agency so for them this is just one group that had that would have a you know peak of popularity and and gone you know that not really important for for for a lot of you know general audience

because it's just just a part of the industry but for the global fans who love k-pop it is really significant you know it's not just always easy to say someone should leave the group right away or sometimes you should stay because for international fans k-pop is what they intentionally chose to listen to you know what i mean you know the difference for korean people it is just background music you know it's everyday music you know when you uh you know turn up the volume of the radio you would automatically

listen to the to the k-pop every day every every single moment so it it is just not that important and significant uh in their lives but for uh international fan hallyu fan for someone like you would be super interested in korean culture in general k-pop artists there is every single moment and performance of them are really uh valuable so oh yeah i yeah that's that's all i can say you know at this moment there's a slightly not slightly there's a significantly different type of mindset between international fans and korean local fans

yup may trot is gaining a lot of popularity lately among koreans what do you think of the possibility of this genre being accepted by international audience as well yeah this is really amazing uh situation because you know trust being trot trot has been a part of music korean pop music forever i mean it is not just a new uh kind of apex of the popularity because the genes are trot the dna of trust being always part of the the industry so it is not surprising to see the trout is coming back in style but the the important thing is

this global implication for instance i i um i can give you this kind of com comparison when i was a little kid country was pop music for korean fans like me garth brooks you know those guys country you know the music um that exclu probably exclusively appealing to the american audiences or southern audiences you know had a chance to appeal to international audience including including myself so trod even though it is um intended for a korean local audience especially older audience but now has a

different type of status because it is global already you can find any clips of korean music globally anyways anytime using youtube and other you know social media platform so the music is not fundamentally different the trout is not the the current trout is not fundamentally different from uh from the past but it has totally different implication and the possibility in the in the globalization era okay pakistan we see k-pop idols including individuals from north east asian countries china japan when do

you think we will be able to see further diversity with within k-pop groups interesting question um many years ago the ceo of sm entertainment suman li introduced this idea called cultural technology and the part of curtin cultural technology and the latest evolution of cultural technology is the kpop that is targeted exclusively for local audience so for instance we we have a boy group called weive asian v it is exclusively pan chinese group no koreans no korean americans only chinese or pan chinese

members in this one group they're not active in korean local market not in u.s market they're exclusively popular and active in china you know china and chinese market so i think that would be uh the future of k-pop because that's been prepared by the uh by the industry for for a decade so why not vietnamese well at this point we should redefine the definition of k-pop but why not vietnamese k-pop why not taiwanese k-pop why not well actually someone i i i don't i don't know if this is a joke or not

but suman lee uh actually mentioned these words like nct hollywood nct europe but why not there's a possibility but and i strongly believe that um they're preparing for for that kind of moment already yeah anna do you think that one of the main reasons for k-pop success is the continuous discipline it requires sometimes even detrimental to the k-pop idol's health yep it is heavily trained heavily prepared by the agency and that's the something that a lot of industry insiders had had been ignoring

because all they wanted to do was to make a make a success out of it out of the system um yeah i think that's the really significant um questions about the future of k-pop um not just as idols but as an artist um one one of the thing that um what um anna mentioned was the how do you become how would k-pop artists become legitimately artists rather than idols i think that's another question that we ask you know bts pave the way bts is just the new model as an idol an artist as well but i hope more agencies more companies

would um not just train them but help them to express their artistic mindset through music not just through dance performance not just through variety shows or something like that but i hope they try to rediscover the artistic aspect of k-pop idols in the future because i believe that that's the future of k-pop leah when and why did k-pop start incorporating more and more english words yeah it um it it definitely um a trend after the first globalization global uh globalizing k-pop industry which is two early 2000

right after boa made a successful debut in uh in japan and not and after that a lot of because i'm the formula has been uh has been validated by the success of boa and other artists like rain and a lot a lot of uh international audiences and you know corporation started to be uh paying attention to the k-pop uh business so by the time k-pop has been uh pursuing more globally compatible music more globally compatible genres and as a part of that kind of effort and process they started to incorporate a lot of english

words because number one in that way the song is going to be really easily remembered and song by the international audience at the concert in the in in any way that you want to seeing the k-pop and the uh the other reason is that the use of english would help to um characterize k-pop as more i would say western or cosmopolitan rather than asian um it's kind of sad but that's that's how the industry goes because the the center the the hegemony of modern pop music has been held by westminster's western world american pop

uh music industry so and english is definitely the universal language at this point who knows but at this point tilak the last ques it will be the last question i guess um thank you for your informative session in your view what can the global music industry learn from k-pop what is the current oh okay um what can the global music industry learn from k-pop well many years ago not many years ago like four years ago i guess i had a chance to um to talk with global composers international composers

who's been a part of this this business for many years so i i asked them what what's the appeal what what's the you know what what's your motivation you know you've been active in american american music business and the european music business so why k-pop is it well paid and they say heck yeah but more important reason is that flexibility and kind of free mindset of uh when making music and this would surprise many many people i think in korea and uh in us as well many people still believe that k-pop is very

k-pop is not diverse it is not does not have a different type of appeal or perspective but for someone who's actually making music kpop is more kpop encourages composer to make more innovative free diverse music than any other pop industry because south korean people in general i mean in the in the globalization era they're not super obsessed with traditional korea you know what i mean traditional crew has been uh really big part of korean society right now but they're pretty they've been they've um

preserved that separately you you can imagine the scenery the old palace right in front of the like sky scraps that kind of mindset tradition is important but it is not part of this modern cosmopolitan k-pop so in k-pop everything is possible whatever goes whatever whatever sounds cool can be k-pop and it is uh something that not many uh pop industry has been doing these days for instance in united states it always ties with race groups local audience and and the and the kind of idea of you know

what songs what sounds for what kind of group but in in k-pop it is music for everyone it is it is not just for uh one ethnic groups or one uh national uh audience it is music for everyone so it has technical ultimate freedom in making music so probably that's something that um international in pop industry industry has been studying already to make a more compatible sound as k-pop and i think that that's the secret of the success of k-pop in general as well okay that's about it enjoy the session

thanks thanks a lot thank you