By Marine Caillault on March 5, 2009
PARIS (Herald de Paris) -
Pop music. A short yet scary word. For women who grew up in the 90’s, Pop refers to those male bands negatively called Boy Bands. Their female counterparts were the Girl Bands. They were less popular than the solo female pop artists such as Miss Spears, miss Aguilera, and so on.
Back to the Boy Bands. They were made to be pleasing to the eye of every teenage female. There was in every band the cute one, the blonde one, the sexy one, and the plump-yet-endearing one. From a purely artistic perspective, not all of them knew how to sing. Their targets: 12 to 16 year old girls. And since they were not bad boys, the moms loved them and approved wholeheartedly.
According to MTV, who may be right every once in a while, Boy Bands are dead. The last generation was N’Sync if you believe what they say. Right?
Wrong. Boy Bands are still extremely popular and active in Asia. They are Japanese, South Korean, Chinese and Taiwanese, and they make indecent amounts of money. Just as a reminder, the CD industry is unprofitable in the entire world. All the world, except for Japan. Blame it on the Karaoke system and the group mentality pushing the youngsters to purchase what everybody has.
Money making idols
This industry is a cruel one and severely lacks a sense of humor (see article about Hiromichi Ugaya). And, very revealing fact, the pop stars are called Idols (using the local pronunciation of the English word). That word itself is a proof of the requirements for the job. Just be a pretty flower pot, and then we can teach you how to dance and dress and lipsynch. The best of you will even get to act in cheesy TV shows.
This world of Idols is even more fascinating in South Korea, where they dominate the music market. Their fans are of all age, but as expected, they are mostly female. H.O.T., Shinhwa, Dong Bang Shin Ki, and more recently Big Bang are the most popular acts.
They probably function so well because South Korea bases a lot of its pop culture on looks. Like for instance that generation of celebrities who grew over the Internet, starting in the 90’s. They are called Ulzzang. The word means roughly ‘perfect face’. Those youngsters (male or female) take pictures of themselves with their webcam and post them on their blog. After heavy photoshopping, of course, to make their skin whiter, their eyes bigger, their noses more protruding… The most popular will become models and have their own brand of clothes. Internet and image are intertwined in Korea. The Boy Bands are a living proof of that.
Luckily for the system, they have a strong sense of belonging towards the company which brings them up to their status. YG Family is one of the most efficient in Korea. It was founded by Yang Goon, who happened to be a former musician for the super famous rock star Seo Taiji. To give you an idea of what Seo Taiji represents: he fills stadiums without breaking a sweat – has been for ten years. Seo Taiji is far from a Boy Band type of musician, though. His sound is a skilled mixture of Hip Hop and Hard Rock.
How to make a musician
So how does Yang Goon proceed? Simple. He organizes constant auditions to recruit the kids. The youngest, the better. G-Dragon, leader of Big Band, has been a YG Family trainee since he was a child. He never went to school. He was taught how to dance, sing, behave on a stage, be funny on TV shows, dress, and please the ladies. After he was considered to be sufficiently knowledgeable in all these fields, he was selected amongst others, put together to form a new sensation.
Then, the company makes the new group live together, sometimes even share the same bed, as they prepare for their debut. And that’s when the real work begins. Photo shoots, practice, public appearances, recording sessions, real TV shows, they are overworked until the audience has moved on (ie. They are not financially interesting anymore). (1)
SM Entertainment also deals with Boy Bands. The company owns artists such as Shinhwa, Dong Bang Shin Ki, H.O.T., or Super Junior. This last band has a lot of members (thirteen), which gives opportunities for SM Entertainment to break them into sub-groups every once in a while and release new albums. The novelty never wears off – the formulae is perfect. Each of these acts are extremely popular, and therefore a source for controversies. That’s where the Internet becomes a problem.
Because the counterpart to the fan sites are the anti fan site.
When fans hate
Dong Bang Shin Ki, also called Tohoshiki, also called Tong Vfang Xien Qi, abbreviated either TVXQ or DBSK, is popular all over Asia. Hence the different names, created to suit the audience from all these countries. Let’s call them DBSK. The leader of the band is called Yunho (hence the stage name: U-Know). He is a professional dancer, clothes hanger, and singer. As such, he gets attention and some people do not like it.
In the fall of 2006, Yunho was poisoned with a drink laced with super-glue. The anti-fan who was responsible for that attack wrote heinous letters to him: « Do you know your limit? Only little kids like you! I really want to kill you. » Yunho, being either a clever man or having a really talented manager, said he didn’t want to press charges against the criminal, because he had a younger sister the same age.
Meanwhile, Super Junior’s Heechul, a very good friend of DBSK’s Yunho, though it was clever to post on his personal website about his disgust for such an attack. The anti fans decided to turn against Heechul. Only, there was a problem. Heechul was also in a difficult situation, for he had been part of a car accident involving other members of Super Junior as well. As a result, the fans stated they would attack his Super Junior valid friends.
Hopefully, two years later, no one was harmed because of that story. Super Junior memebrs are safe, as far as we know, as well as DBSK members. Both bands are releasing new albums these days.
All this is more funny than dangerous, you may think. That is, if no one dies. Only, some people have ended in a hospital bed, wich is the proof that things have gotten quite too far. And actually, people have died.
When rumour kills
October 2008, Choi Jinsil is found dead. She was a popular actress, but she committed suicide. Why? One month before, another actor, called Ahn Jaehwan, also killed himself. The female actress was rumoured to be the cause of her peer’s suicide – because she would have lent money to Ahn Jaehwan, and was supposedly pressuring him to give it back.
After both actors are dead, people began to realize in other countries how dangerous were the rumors. Those on the public stage in Korea have this constant deer-in-the-headlight look when they appear somewhere. Websites are fed with all sorts of information, concerning the fact that they might’ have been spotted holding a female’s hand. Or that possibly they have performed for an Adult Video. Or that they are going to split. Or that they have connections to the mafia, are gay, married to billionnaires, etc.
Jeong Dabin, Yuni, U-Nee and Lee Eun-joo are other female entertainers who killed themselves, more ofthen than not following a cyber rumor. To fight this habit, South Korea has created the Cyber Terror Response Center.
So, who is at fault? The entertainment companies, who sell every aspect of their artists’ private life? The fans and bloggers, who take possession of those lives as if the entertainers belonged to them? Or the stars themselves, who accept this kind of life in order to become famous? It is probably a bit of everything, but from all this a fact remains: entertainers in Asia make a lot of money.
(1/ To be fair, one should also look at their own bellybutton too. In Europe, the Underground Rock is probably worse than the Asian Boy Bands: it pretends to be underground and choose the musicians based on skills alone, rather than on their appearance. Well all know that it’s much harder to become a musician if you are overweight. The trend also incorporates the numerous actors who release an album. The confusion of trades is an international habit. Singers, actors, composers, songwriters, dancers, and models are all thought to be having the same job. It is a lack of respect for every single one of those professions)
Source : http://www.heralddeparis.com/boy-bands-are-not-dead-in-pacific-rim/26229
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