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Have you ever seen the Rain ? And who’ll stop the Rain ?: the globalizing project of Korean pop (K‐pop)

2009; Routledge; Volume: 10; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14649370903166150

1469-8447

Shin Hyunjoon,

Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy

Abstract Abstract This paper explores the globalizing project of Korean pop, focusing on the case of pop star Rain, who attempted to make inroads into the US market around the mid‐ to late 2000s. As the background of the project, the ‘system’ (or ‘cultures of production’) of the Korean music industry will be examined, including why and how it transforms itself into multi‐purpose star management and how it has been making de‐nationalized transnational stars. Then, the different reactions from the media and fans to Korean pop stars who crossed the border into a different geocultural market are critically assessed. By doing so, this paper tries to engage in debates about the interrelations between globalization and regionalization in the case of recent Asian popular music. Keywords: K‐popKorean WaveAsian popglobalizationregionalization Acknowledgement This work was supported by the Korea Research Foundation Grant Fund by the Korean Government (MEST) (KRF‐2007‐361‐AM0005). I also thank Chua Beng Huat for his generous support during my stay as a research fellow at ARI (Asian Research Institute) at the National University of Singapore from December 2006 to March 2007. Notes 1. Here ‘Asia’ is a discursive construction rather than geographical entity. Basically it connotes East Asia, but recently the category is itself unsettling as the cultural borders of the region are constantly shifting along with the cultural flows. Sometimes East Asia includes not only ‘Northeast Asia’ but also ‘Southeast Asia.’ 2. Although I dislike the phonetic notation, Hallyu (Han‐liu might be more correct), it seems that the English transliteration has become commonly used. The Korean Wave is defined as ‘the diffusion and consumption of Korean pop cultural products and pop stars by (East) Asian audiences.’ For a journalistic account of the Korean Wave, see Onishi (2005 Onishi, Noromitsu. 2005. ‘Roll over, Godzilla: Korea rules’. The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/international/asia/28wave.html, accessed 1 March 2008 [Google Scholar]), and for academic research (mainly about Korean drama), see Chua and Iwabuchi (2008 Chua, Beng Huat and Iwabuchi, Koichi, eds. 2008. East Asian Pop Culture: The Korean Wave, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. [Google Scholar]). 3. About the transnational consumption of Rain focused on Singaproean fans, see Sun Jung’s analysis (Jung 2008 Jung, Sun. 2008. “‘Globalized masculinities in South Korean popular culture and transcultural consumption: Bae Yong‐Joon, Rain and Oldboy’”. University of Melbourne. PhD dissertation [Google Scholar]: 113–154). 4. I have dealt with this point elsewhere (Shin 2007 Shin, Hyunjoon. 2007. ‘K‐pop (music) in the emerging cultural economy of Asian pop’. Journal of Communication Arts (Thailand), 25(4): 1–11. [Google Scholar]); the Korean version of ‘pop Asianism’ is not merely an exaggerated rhetoric by commercial media. The production organization of pop culture, especially pop music production, is restructuring, which concerns much of the Asian market. Now those who cannot speak either Chinese or Japanese cannot get a job in big entertainment companies, which was unimaginable before the 1990s. This might be one of the characteristics of the ‘cultures of production’ in the current Korean music industry. About the concept of ‘pop Asianism,’ I borrowed the concept from Leo Ching (2000 Ching, Leo. 2000. ‘Globalizing the regional, regionalizing the global: mass culture and Asianism in the age of late capital’. Public Culture, 12(1): 233–257. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). However, as his focus is about pop Asianism in Japan, I have had to rearticulate it in my own way. I will return to this point at the end of this paper. 5. This view reminds me of pop cosmopolitanism by Henry Jenkins (Jenkins 2004 Jenkins, Henry. 2004. “‘Pop cosmopolitanism: mapping cultural flows in an age of media convergence’”. In Globalization: Culture and Education in the New Millennium, Edited by: Suarez‐Orozco, Marcelo M. and Baolian Qin‐Hillard, Desiree. 114–140. Berkeley: University of California Press. [Google Scholar]). Actually Jenkins’s argument was quoted in the article about Rain before his concert at Madison Square Garden. There, he commented that ‘new pop cosmopolitanism’ was based on ‘multidirectional flow of cultural goods around the world’ and added that ‘younger Americans are distinguishing themselves from their parents’ culture through their consumption of Japanese anime and manga, Bollywood films and bhangra, and Hong Kong action movies’ (Sontag 2006 Sontag, Deborah. 2006. ‘The ambassador’. The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/arts/music/29sont.html, accessed 1 March 2008 [Google Scholar]). 6. Coco Lee, a pop diva from Hong Kong who has lived in San Francisco, released two ‘stateside’ albums, Just No Other Way (Epic/Sony, 2000) and Exposed (SonyBMG, 2005), and Hikaru Utada, princess of J‐pop who was born in New York, released Exodus (Island/Universal, 2004) and recently This Is The One (Island/Universal, 2009). Utada released one more English album, Precious (Toshiba/EMI, 1998), which was recorded before her debut in Japan. But the cases of Coco Lee and Hikaru Utada are different from that of Rain, because both female artists from Asia have American roots. Aside from the issue of gender, ‘language barriers’ did not matter to them, unlike the case of Rain. In spite of that, the record sales were relatively poor. 7. In 1998, the value size of Korean record industry was about US$400 million. But after 10 years, it has become less than $100 million due to the failure to adjust to the new ‘ubiquitous’ media environment. 8. In that sense, the western concept of ‘major’ (major recording corporations) is insufficient or inappropriate when we explain the Korean case. If major means multi‐divisional companies with divisions such as distribution, financing and publishing, a Korean ‘major’ is far from that kind of complicated organization. But it cannot be regarded as an ‘independent’ or ‘minor’ company. This characteristic is different from the Western model as well as the Japanese model in which the ‘record company’ still has great power. Other small countries in Asia (for example, Taiwan and Hong Kong) share similar characteristics. 9. Further research is needed about the culture of production. Although it is ‘manufacturing’ in the literal sense, it is not without in‐house conflicts. Various conflicts in the industry have become a good subject of recent Korean drama and film. For example, Over the Rainbow (2006) described the process of star making with various tensions between the staff in the music industry and various levels of star aspirants. The film 200 Pound Beauty (2006) is a black comedy about a girl who became a star after plastic surgery. In both works, the process of making the star‐as‐commodity itself is commodified. 10. Culture technology (CT) is a dubious term that was coined by Korean Professor Won Kwang‐yun, dean of the Graduate School of Culture Technology (GSCT) at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). According to the theories of this school, ‘“culture technology” covers a broad field of research on digital media and related technologies, interaction, design and theory, that are becoming more and more important in forming our surroundings and culture’ (KAIST 2006 KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology). 2006. “‘Young investigators’ forum in culture technology 2006’”. http://ct.kaist.ac.kr/yct2006/, accessed 1 March 2008 [Google Scholar]). It already became an official term and the Korean government selected CT as one of the ‘five next generation promising technologies for economic growth’, along with IT (information technology), BT (bio‐technology), NT (nano‐technology), and ET (environment technology). The term explains the ‘culture of production’ in Korean cultural industries or industries in general. 11. About the evolution of the idol system and its crisis in the Japanese music industry, see Brasor and Tsubuku (1997 Brasor, Philip and Tsubuku, Masako. 1997. ‘Idol chatter: the evolution of J‐pop’. Japan Quarterly, 44(2): 55–65. April‐June: [Google Scholar]). ‘According to publicist Uetake Takayuki, the artist management company he works for, Amuse Inc., doesn’t handle idols, which he defines as a multi‐purpose product. “They sing, do TV commercials, dramas‐whatever. They’re easy to handle, but it’s gotten very risky. Just because an actress is a hit in a TV drama, it doesn’t mean people are going to buy her record. We manage about 20 female artists right now. All of them released records at one time, and none sold enough to justify the investment. But they’re all successful actresses”’ (Brasor and Tsubuku 1997 Brasor, Philip and Tsubuku, Masako. 1997. ‘Idol chatter: the evolution of J‐pop’. Japan Quarterly, 44(2): 55–65. April‐June: [Google Scholar]: 62). Everybody will agree that the situation that the authors depicted was exactly the same in Korea with a bit of a ‘time gap.’ 12. His career before the debut is associated with the (sub)culture of ‘underground dancers’ which flourished since the 1990s. Over the Rainbow, mentioned before, depicts the life of the culture. Interestingly, dancers looked down on ‘singers’ or ‘dance singers,’ because singers sold out the ethos of dancers and became puppets of entertainment companies. Rain spent his high school days as a member of the dancer community. 13. JYPE was set up in 2001, with Daum Communication hosting the investment. Daum was one of the highly successful dot.com venture companies at that time. JYPE has now become one of the ‘big 3’ music entertainment companies in Korea, along with SM entertainment and YG entertainment, which are also eager to globalize or Asianize. Except for SME, which was directed by charismatic owner Lee Soo‐man, JYPE and YGE were run like a kind of community where a young ex‐musician president of the company genially collaborated with other young staff. This is another characteristic of the culture of production of these emerging music production organizations. 14. The Christian Ethics Movement of Korea requested the banning of Park’s records to the state censorship organization, Korea Media Rating, but the request was rejected on 23 July, 2001. On that day, Park participated in a discussion forum ‘How to regard the freedom of expression in popular music’ which was organized by a progressive‐minded cultural NGO called Citizen’s Network for Cultural Reforms. 15. Sun Jung explains Rain’s sexuality as ‘the hybridization of Confucian yangban masculinity with regional and global masculinities as exemplified respectively by the figure of the cute (Japanese kawaii) boy and by such American stars as Justin Timberlake and Usher’ (Jung 2008 Jung, Sun. 2008. “‘Globalized masculinities in South Korean popular culture and transcultural consumption: Bae Yong‐Joon, Rain and Oldboy’”. University of Melbourne. PhD dissertation [Google Scholar]: 98). This type of sexuality worked well on an international level. The headline of a local newspaper in Singapore before his concert was ‘Hot on Stage, Icy in person’ (Chang 2007a Chang, May Choon. 2007a. ‘Hot on stage, icy in person’. The New Paper, : 12 [Google Scholar]: 12). Was his sexuality ‘scandalous’ in Singapore or any other Asian country? In the case of Rain’s concert in Singapore, a local newspaper reported, ‘Korean hunk sexes it up on Stage: But some S’poreans say it’s too much’ (Chang 2007b Chang, May Choon. 2007b. ‘Korean hunk sexes it up on stage: But some S’poreans say it’s too much’. The New Paper, : 1 [Google Scholar]: 1). Chua Beng Huat analyzed the confrontation between pop cultural space (which is ‘transnational’) and public space (which is ‘national’) and one of the cases was ‘anti‐Korean sentiments’ (Chua 2006 Chua, Beng Huat. . ‘East Asian pop culture: consumer communities and politics of the national’. paper presented at the International Conference ‘Cultural Space and Public Sphere in Asia’ at Hallym University. March2006, Seoul, Korea. pp.15–16. [Google Scholar]). 16. In the cover of his fourth full‐length album Rain’s World (released in December 2006), the upper part of his body is naked with angel wings and military trousers. 17. When I interviewed Singaporean fans of Rain, one of them said ‘I like Rain, because he works hard. I used to like F4 (Taiwanese boygroup) before Rain, but they did not work hard. So I kicked them out.’ Another female fan described Rain’s identity thus: ‘his stage performance is very American, but his work ethic and discipline is Korean [Asian]’. 18. In the Japanese market, the strategy of the Korean music industry was quite different from that of the Chinese or Southeast Asian markets. In short, non‐Japanese artists should be ‘Japanized’ and ‘Japanese singing’ was necessary if they want to break into the Japanese music market. In the case of Rain, he released a Japanese language album, Eternal Rain, in August 2008, which sounds very different from his Korean language albums. Most of the songs were written by a Japanese songwriter and the sound itself was J‐pop‐ish. 19. g.o.d. (pronounced ‘Ji‐o‐di’), the five‐person boy group with two Korean‐American members, which had been very popular in the late 1990s and the early 2000s, never made the breakthrough to the overseas market. The group was also artistically supported and controlled by Park but the management of the group was under another big management company, Sidus, which has put more emphasis on the management of actors/actresses and the production of Korean films. Aside from this, the music by g.o.d. is typical K‐pop, which does not find it so easy to have cross‐border appeal. Even among the world of K‐pop, which has just begun to cross borders, a difference between ‘domestic’ and ‘international’ taste has emerged. 20. In the TV drama, he got over his real name, Jihoon Jung. His real name became another persona when he was acting in the TV drama and, later, movie films. However, the ‘tie‐in’ strategy was not always successful. For example, the much‐hyped TV drama A Love to Kill (Autumn 2006) and the movie film I’m a Cyborg but it’s OK (Winter 2006) were not as commercially viable as expected. The latter was directed by Park Chan‐wook who received the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival with Old Boy (2003). Also Sangdoo, Let’s Go to School (2003), his first TV drama, did not record good ratings despite critical acclaim by some. 21. When Rain went beyond (North)east Asia, Hong Kong, Singapore and other ‘English speaking Chinese regions/communities’ were especially important. Jimmy Jeong told me ‘most of the staff in the music industry in Southeast Asia including Hong Kong and Singapore were Chinese who can speak English fluently. It was relatively easy for me to do business with them. But in Japan and mainland China, it was not so easy because of the language barrier’ (personal interview with Jimmy Jeong, 8 June 2005). 22. In the interview, Jimmy Jeong, the manager of Rain explicitly said, ‘Rain also could go “easily” [means as a ‘K‐pop’ star], but we took a different road. His music cannot be called “K‐pop”. We targeted more than that’ (personal interview with Jimmy Jeong, 8 June 2005). In that sense, Rain is different from Taiwanese superstar Jay Chou who was hailed as ‘King of Asian Pop’ by Time (Drake 2003 Drake, Kate. 2003. ‘Cool Jay’. Time, http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/501030303/, accessed 1 March 2008 [Google Scholar]). He also borrowed American R&B but digested it in a different way than Jay. According to Anthony Fung’s analysis, Jay Chou seems to be concentrating on breaking through to the emerging pop market in China (Fung 2005 Fung, Anthony. . ‘Marketing a pop artist in China: the case study of Jay Chow’. paper presented at the International Conference ‘Culture Industry and Cultural Capital: Transnational Media Consumption and the Korean Wave in East Asia’, Hallym University. February282005, Seoul, Korea. [Google Scholar]). 23. Rain’s third album was distributed by different record companies in different parts in Asia: in Japan by Victor/King, in Thailand GMM‐Grammy, in China Guangdong Starwin, and in Hong Kong and Singapore by Universal. So there exist different ‘versions’ of the same record and also different language versions of the same song. I want to add that a ‘regional bloc’ in pop music (Toynbee 2002 Toynbee, Jason. 2002. “‘Mainstreaming, from hegemonic centre to global networks’”. In Popular Music Studies, Edited by: Negus, Keith and Hesmondhalgh, David. 149–163. Arnold: London. [Google Scholar]) does not exclude a global network, because some of the corporations/companies listed above are already sufficiently globalized. According to a report by JYPE, It’s Raining topped the charts in all of the following countries as of 29 December, 2005: Japan (100,000 copies), China (500,000 copies), Taiwan (70,000 copies), Thailand (150,000 copies), Indonesia (50,000 copies), and South Korea (154,000 copies), for a combined total of 1,074,000 units sold. One thing we can see is that the record sales in Korea are relatively small. 24. In 2004, ‘The Love You Need,’ a song written by Jinyoung Park, was recorded by Mase in her album Welcome Back, and the other song ‘I Wish I Made That’ was recorded by Will Smith in his album Lost and Found. 25. In the short interview with Park in Taipei, he said that his songs were ‘more lyrical’ than American pop and he related the ‘lyrical character’ of his songwriting with ‘Asianness’. He also said that he, as a music producer, was different from African‐American producers in that he was ‘musically trained and educated.’ He also said that one of the reasons for his ‘success’ in the R&B music business was that he hid his identity as an ‘Asian from Asia,’ so that everybody thought that he was an ‘Asian‐American’ (personal interview with Jinyoung Park, 29 December 2005). 26. After the bad review in the New York Times, Korean journalists were busy finding the ‘barriers’ to border‐crossing of Korean pop music. Jim Faber’s remarks were cited from one of them. See Park (2006 Park, Soo‐mee. 2006. ‘Making It in the big time’. JoongAng Daily, http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200602/16/200602162049029039900091009101.html, accessed 1 March 2008 [Google Scholar]). 27. After departing with Rain, Jinyoung Park recollected that ‘the only regrettable thing about Rain is that he should have made a US debut after learning English just for a year’ (Choi 2007 Choi, Seunghyun. 2007. ‘I will produce global star who will make it big in the US market in two years’ . Chosun Ilbo, http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2007/07/01/2007070100457.html, accessed 25 September 2008 [Google Scholar]). However, on the language barrier and ‘English singing,’ Negus said, citing the words of the music industry staff: ‘In theory, as long as they fit the criteria, an “international” artist can be drawn from anyplace … Anyone can be prioritized as international repertoire “as long as they can sing in English without an accent”’ (Negus 1996 Negus, Keith. 1996. “‘Globalization and the music of the public sphere’”. In Globalization, Communication and the Transnational Public Sphere, Edited by: Braman, Sandra and Sreberny‐Mohammadi, Annabelle. 179–195. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. [Google Scholar]: 183). His argument shows that the so‐called ‘language barrier’ should be mentioned more concretely. 28. His second world tour ‘Rain’s Coming’ (2006–2007) was not as smooth as in the past, especially in the USA and China, where many shows were cancelled. The worst case happened when his show at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, which was supposed to be held on June 30, was cancelled just 1 hour 30 minutes before the show. Although Rain and JYPE are not the only ones responsible for canceling the show, the series of show cancellations aroused much anger and anxiety from the fans that flew to Los Angeles from different parts of Asia, and the official reason for canceling the show was not easily accepted. Rain seems to be less interested in recording an international album and scheduling a world tour. Rather, he acted in the Wachowski brothers’ film Speed Racer (2008) and Ninja Assassin (2009, forthcoming) by the same directors, which is being shot with Rain as the main hero. Meanwhile he parted with JYPE and set up a new entertainment company, J‐tune Entertainment, in May 2007. He has not totally given up his American dream, but it is pursued in a different way from that of a recording artist or live act. There was concert tour like before after his fifth full‐length album Rainism was released in October 2008. Two songs on the album, ‘Rainism’ and ‘Love Story 0912…after,’ had Japanese and Chinese versions as well as English and Korean ones. The release of an international record and promoting it by a world tour does not seem to be on his current agenda. 29. Anthony Fung and Michael Curtin indicated that pan‐Chinese stars, such as Faye Wong, are not exposed in the Western media, although they mobilize huge audiences. ‘Major Chinese stars such as Anita Mui and Faye Wong are almost completely unknown to Anglophone music fans. In fact, concert tours to cities such as Toronto, New York and Sydney regularly draw huge crowds of adoring fans, even though the local media and the general public seem completely unaware of these sold‐out performances’ (Fung and Curtin 2002 Fung, Anthony and Curtin, Michael. 2002. ‘The anomalies of being Faye (Wong): gender politics in Chinese popular music’. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 5(3): 263–290. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]: 266). Rain’s concerts in the US were not so different from those of Chinese stars, except they attracted other Asian audiences. Then, we can say that ‘regional bloc’ in pop music (Toynbee 2002 Toynbee, Jason. 2002. “‘Mainstreaming, from hegemonic centre to global networks’”. In Popular Music Studies, Edited by: Negus, Keith and Hesmondhalgh, David. 149–163. Arnold: London. [Google Scholar]) is not necessarily a ‘geographical’ one and is more a deterritorialized one. 30. She also mentioned that the reason why she was uninterested in Taiwanese pop was that they were ‘lazy’ (personal interview with Ling, 13 February 2007). My Japanese informant said that Rain was ‘[culturally] too Korean to be big in Japan.’ 31. Since 2008, JYPE‐USA tried making debuts of Min, J. Lim, G‐Soul and, more recently, Wonder Girls. Meanwhile, JYPE‐China produced a female solo singer, Liu Xin, and JYPE‐Korea recruited a Thai‐Chinese, Nic‐Khun, as a member of idol group 2PM. All these show that the agents of global networking are not only global major labels.