How pop groups are manufactured, reports Asia Sentinel
As carefully as Korea, Inc. manufactures cars, televisions, containerships and washing machines, it is using those techniques to manufacture pop stars, according to a research paper by Ahn Shin-Hyun for the Samsung Economic Research Institute.
The focus of Ahn’s paper is Girls’ Generation, a group of nine young women who are in large part responsible for spreading demand for K-pop, as it is known, beyond Japan and Southeast Asia to include North and South America, Europe, and the Middle East.
Since Girls’ Generation made its debut four years ago, the singing group, who aren’t rock musicians, grabbed the audience with striking black outfits and boots and tight choreography.
South Korean girl group Girls Generation perform during the Korean Music Wave concert in Incheon, South Korea, in August. Pic: AP.
In fact, the strong reception for Girls’ Generation in Tokyo should come as no surprise. It was built on training as rigorous as the country’s notorious hagwon, or cram schools, that have students studying so deep into the night that the country recently passed a law making it illegal to do so after 11 p.m.
The nine members of Girls’ Generation were groomed carefully for three to seven years at SM Entertainment, Korea’s largest talent agency and its principal star maker, before they ever hit the stage, according to Ahn. In grooming its potential stars this way, Korea is following in well-worn footsteps going back to at least the UK’s Spice Girls, who were regarded as having been created out of opinion surveys and careful merchandising rather than arising from their artistic talent. So-called Cantopop singers are developed in the same way in Hong Kong
Korea pays more relentless attention to such details.
“In the case of Girls’ Generation, rumors were already afoot that this new group would be ‘super girls’ even before they appeared in public,” Ahn writes. “The group released a debut single, ‘Into the New World,’ sporting wardrobes that ranged from school uniforms to roller skates.”
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