Thank you for writing such a great piece! I have always been confused at the criticism of Korean artists releasing songs in English.
As you mentioned, from a business perspective it makes perfect sense. In the business world, TAM (Total Addressable Market) is one of the largest factors when deciding the value of a product. The larger the TAM, the greater the value. As you pointed out, I’ve never seen such criticism on European artists that put out an English discography.
But even putting the business reasons to the side, the reality is that JK has a massive global fan base, a large portion of which do not speak Korean. While ARMY is always willing and happy to look up lyric translations, I can’t help but speculate that part of his reasoning comes out of his love for his fans and his wish to make his songs even more easily accessible.
I was also watching the D-Day documentary by Suga and thought of his conversation with the late (brilliant) Ryuichi Sakamoto. He mentioned the quote by Sakamoto “The world is full of sounds. We just don’t usually hear them as music.” That quote and their whole conversation in the doc made me think about how I want to approach art (and the world) in the same way they do: with curiosity. Instead of criticism, if we can approach what is new and different with curiosity, we can learn to appreciate the sounds of the world that we might not understand at first.
As someone who only recently got into Korean music, dramas etc, I always appreciate seeing your tweets and different pieces on K-culture that give me context I can miss with my western world view! Appreciate you!
Rex, thank you for this comment. I had forgotten Sakamoto's quote, and it is profound. I know that JK had said he wanted to release a pop album and be a pop star. I do think he (and they) are well aware of the West places limitations on what K-pop is and who its creators should be. It will be interesting to watch this all play out and more Korean artists (and others!) branch out and explore the sounds they want to. Have a great day!
in my mid 30s, as a korean adoptee (with white parents in a white town) BTS was absolutely the gateway to “reclaiming” my korean identity. and that led to my watching and obsessing over k-dramas, following korean adoptees on instagram and tiktok etc. i wouldn’t be the same without them! (and im not even “BTS Army” but their worldwide takeover really effected me positively just watching them be loved and adored by all!)
I'm so glad! 💜 I think it was really important for so many people to see them embraced ... and to have this representation that so many of us didn't have.
Ha, I wish I would could limit myself to under 1,700 words most times! But then I am not a working journalist, just pretending to be one. :D
Very good points as always, Jae-ha. As I said in my note on part 1, music has long ceased to be "pure"—everything is bound to get mixed together. I, a Filipino, listen to K-pop and J-pop and French pop; and a lot of pop coming from here is very much inspired by either K-pop or indie bedroom pop, alongside the ballads and love songs we have always gravitated towards. And over there, the Filipino group SB19—very much inspired by the K-pop system—is getting fans from 'white' audiences as well as the Filipino diaspora.
"It's the merging," as Paul Shaffer once said.
But then, all this mixing up makes radio programming and music criticism and generally talking about music, and so it's easier for lazy folk to strictly silo everything, defend their existence, and fight against anyone daring to attempt to chip away at it...
This was such a good read, hearing from the adoptees was very touching and I'm glad so many people have managed to find something that helps them feel proud of their heritage and is helping to build a connection, it's nice to hear- thanks for writing about it! I'm definitely going to check out your other stories
I love the point you make about Asian transracial adoptees and how important it is that they have gateways to their heritage. It's one of the reasons why I chose Siobhan O'Brien as my detective in my two mystery novels (Korean born, adopted by Irish father and Norwegian mother - brother, who is Black, is named Sven)!
I applaud you writing about this again, and I hope you unabashedly keep writing about it (though I wish you didn't have to...sigh...it's the world we live in). :(
Thank you, Sung! It's been spotty enough as Asian Americans, but Asian transracial adoptees have to live in a society that doesn't do much to understand them and all that they have gone through. I think it's slowly getting better, but it's a work in progress...
And I love that about your character choice. Refreshing, indeed!
First it was "you can't expect Americans to listen to a Korean artist if they're singing in Korean – how will the audience understand?" Now it's "you can't expect Americans to listen to a Korean artist if they're singing in English – it's not Korean enough." Seems like the problem isn't the artist or the songs, people are just looking for excuses to not give the music a fair listen.
I am an ExYu kid living in US and it was through music and tv shows that I learned english - we had british forces stationed in our town after the war and we had their television.
English language, thanks to colonisation amd to Holiwood and MTV has become.probably most studied language in the world, so artist using it are not doing so just to reach America but also to reach global audiences.
Personally, I wish some of the exYU artist sang in english so the beauty of the music could be shared with english speaking diaspora and globaly.
All this to say - another fabulous article my friend (not sure when we became friends, but it just came.out) 🤷♀️
Hey bestie... 🤗 I was going to get into colonization and English being the de facto universal language, but ran out of steam (and time). But one of the reasons I concentrated on the U.S. is because that's where the majority of Korean adoptees were adopted to. And separately, it's also the world's largest music market (and one that most groups/management care dearly about breaking). But, yeah, there are so many layers to all of this.
And...thank you for your kind words and taking the time to read this lengthy behemoth!
Really makes me think about "Latin" artists releasing English songs/albums, e.g. Ricky Martin, Shakira, or artist of the NDW (Neue Deutsche Welle/New German Wave), probably best known from Nena's "99 Luftfballons" which, surprise, had an English version "99 Red Balloons". I don't know anything about criticism concerning language in these cases. Is there?
Thank you for writing such a great piece! I have always been confused at the criticism of Korean artists releasing songs in English.
As you mentioned, from a business perspective it makes perfect sense. In the business world, TAM (Total Addressable Market) is one of the largest factors when deciding the value of a product. The larger the TAM, the greater the value. As you pointed out, I’ve never seen such criticism on European artists that put out an English discography.
But even putting the business reasons to the side, the reality is that JK has a massive global fan base, a large portion of which do not speak Korean. While ARMY is always willing and happy to look up lyric translations, I can’t help but speculate that part of his reasoning comes out of his love for his fans and his wish to make his songs even more easily accessible.
I was also watching the D-Day documentary by Suga and thought of his conversation with the late (brilliant) Ryuichi Sakamoto. He mentioned the quote by Sakamoto “The world is full of sounds. We just don’t usually hear them as music.” That quote and their whole conversation in the doc made me think about how I want to approach art (and the world) in the same way they do: with curiosity. Instead of criticism, if we can approach what is new and different with curiosity, we can learn to appreciate the sounds of the world that we might not understand at first.
As someone who only recently got into Korean music, dramas etc, I always appreciate seeing your tweets and different pieces on K-culture that give me context I can miss with my western world view! Appreciate you!
Rex, thank you for this comment. I had forgotten Sakamoto's quote, and it is profound. I know that JK had said he wanted to release a pop album and be a pop star. I do think he (and they) are well aware of the West places limitations on what K-pop is and who its creators should be. It will be interesting to watch this all play out and more Korean artists (and others!) branch out and explore the sounds they want to. Have a great day!
in my mid 30s, as a korean adoptee (with white parents in a white town) BTS was absolutely the gateway to “reclaiming” my korean identity. and that led to my watching and obsessing over k-dramas, following korean adoptees on instagram and tiktok etc. i wouldn’t be the same without them! (and im not even “BTS Army” but their worldwide takeover really effected me positively just watching them be loved and adored by all!)
I'm so glad! 💜 I think it was really important for so many people to see them embraced ... and to have this representation that so many of us didn't have.
Ha, I wish I would could limit myself to under 1,700 words most times! But then I am not a working journalist, just pretending to be one. :D
Very good points as always, Jae-ha. As I said in my note on part 1, music has long ceased to be "pure"—everything is bound to get mixed together. I, a Filipino, listen to K-pop and J-pop and French pop; and a lot of pop coming from here is very much inspired by either K-pop or indie bedroom pop, alongside the ballads and love songs we have always gravitated towards. And over there, the Filipino group SB19—very much inspired by the K-pop system—is getting fans from 'white' audiences as well as the Filipino diaspora.
"It's the merging," as Paul Shaffer once said.
But then, all this mixing up makes radio programming and music criticism and generally talking about music, and so it's easier for lazy folk to strictly silo everything, defend their existence, and fight against anyone daring to attempt to chip away at it...
Love your views, Niko. Thank you for sharing!
That's it's almost 2024 and we're still dealing with this ish is just ridiculous!
I suppose we shouldn't be surprised, considering all this talk of closing borders and limiting immigration... or should I not have gone there? :D
This was such a good read, hearing from the adoptees was very touching and I'm glad so many people have managed to find something that helps them feel proud of their heritage and is helping to build a connection, it's nice to hear- thanks for writing about it! I'm definitely going to check out your other stories
Thank you so much, Jonkqui! I appreciate your input so much. Wishing you a wonderful new year!
I love the point you make about Asian transracial adoptees and how important it is that they have gateways to their heritage. It's one of the reasons why I chose Siobhan O'Brien as my detective in my two mystery novels (Korean born, adopted by Irish father and Norwegian mother - brother, who is Black, is named Sven)!
I applaud you writing about this again, and I hope you unabashedly keep writing about it (though I wish you didn't have to...sigh...it's the world we live in). :(
Thank you, Sung! It's been spotty enough as Asian Americans, but Asian transracial adoptees have to live in a society that doesn't do much to understand them and all that they have gone through. I think it's slowly getting better, but it's a work in progress...
And I love that about your character choice. Refreshing, indeed!
Have a great weekend!
First it was "you can't expect Americans to listen to a Korean artist if they're singing in Korean – how will the audience understand?" Now it's "you can't expect Americans to listen to a Korean artist if they're singing in English – it's not Korean enough." Seems like the problem isn't the artist or the songs, people are just looking for excuses to not give the music a fair listen.
They want to move the bar with each step, it seems...
I am an ExYu kid living in US and it was through music and tv shows that I learned english - we had british forces stationed in our town after the war and we had their television.
English language, thanks to colonisation amd to Holiwood and MTV has become.probably most studied language in the world, so artist using it are not doing so just to reach America but also to reach global audiences.
Personally, I wish some of the exYU artist sang in english so the beauty of the music could be shared with english speaking diaspora and globaly.
All this to say - another fabulous article my friend (not sure when we became friends, but it just came.out) 🤷♀️
Hey bestie... 🤗 I was going to get into colonization and English being the de facto universal language, but ran out of steam (and time). But one of the reasons I concentrated on the U.S. is because that's where the majority of Korean adoptees were adopted to. And separately, it's also the world's largest music market (and one that most groups/management care dearly about breaking). But, yeah, there are so many layers to all of this.
And...thank you for your kind words and taking the time to read this lengthy behemoth!
I enjoy your work, so probably will read it regardless how long it is 🤷♀️
Really makes me think about "Latin" artists releasing English songs/albums, e.g. Ricky Martin, Shakira, or artist of the NDW (Neue Deutsche Welle/New German Wave), probably best known from Nena's "99 Luftfballons" which, surprise, had an English version "99 Red Balloons". I don't know anything about criticism concerning language in these cases. Is there?