Music Asia

The ‘SM Town Live Concert‘ which was held on October 23rd, turned New York City upside down as city dwellers witnessed first hand, the power of Kpop.  As if fans storming the ‘W’ hotel wasn’t enough, thousands of Kpop lovers were seen camping outside of Madison Square Garden at 4AM!  This massive movement had commoners turning their heads while drivers had a hard time passing through some streets, overcrowded with Kpop fans. 

It’s not surprising that Korean and American reporters alike were kept busy, taking notes on the special day. Even the popular news source, NYDailyNews joined in on the buzz to discuss about the extreme popularity of Kpop. Today, Billboard, who is recognized for their wide coverage of music news has stepped out to talk about this phenomenon.  Check out the article below.

If fans storming hotel rooms or camping out at 4:00 a.m. for their general admission seats wasn’t enough indication, K-Pop officially hit New York City this weekend.

 

October 23 marked the first performance of an Asian pop group in Madison Square Garden with the SMTown Live ’10 World Tour. In previous years SMTown, a South Korean entertainment company, has put on the popular tour but never ventured to America. This New York stop follows successful shows in Los Angeles, Paris, Toyko, Shanghai and Seoul as part of the 2010/2011 run. That L.A. performance at The Staples Center was a sell-out landing the show at No. 9 Billboard’s Boxscore Grosses that week with 15,015 tickets sold.

 

The sold-out showcase brought out some of Korea’s biggest pop acts, including solo stars BoA and Kangta, girl groups Girls’ Generation, f(x), male groups SHINee, Super Junior, and male duo TVXQ.

“We would like to have this opportunity, if there was any a wall between the West and East, to take this opportunity to squash this wall,” said Kangta via a translator at the start of a press conference that included all the performing artists. “Hopefully we could be much more famous in the United States, as well as all the other Western countries.”

“We’re simply very flattered to have so many fans around the world, not just us, but all the members of SM Town. They really appreciate all the fans,” said TVXQ’s U-Know via translator. “Since this is our first time in Madison Square Garden performing, we’re going to do our best and we hope everyone has a great time.”

If the massive roars of the sold-out show were any indication, everyone had a great time at the first — and most likely not last — major Korean pop show at Madison Square Garden.

You can read the full article at Billboard.

Source + Photos: Billboard

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MANILA, Philippines – With the holding of the first K-pop concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City recently, American newspaper New York Daily News ran a story on K-pop.

“Since the turn of the millennium South Korea has been pumping out dramas and music videos as a means of influencing the broader culture throughout Asia. South Korean president Lee Myung-bak ranked K-Pop as one of the country’s greatest achievements in an August speech celebrating Korea’s independence from Japan,” the widely circulated newspaper said.

NY Daily News picked the top 5 K-pop groups that “will help immerse you in the world of K-pop.”

They are 2NE1, Big Bang, Super Junior, TVXQ and 2PM.

NY Daily News said noted 2NE1 for their “anthems on girl power and boy bashing” and fashion sense.

“Unlike other Korean girl groups who capitalize on sex appeal or being saccharine and cutesy, this group rose to the top of the charts for their anthems on girl power and boy bashing,” it said.

The newspaper said 2NE1’s “fierce” fashion, wearing clothes by “Alexander McQueen, Gareth Pugh, Proenza Schouler, Balmain and Jeremy Scott, who has become one of the band’s biggest supporters.”

As for Big Bang, 2NE1’s big brothers at YG Entertainment, NY Daily News said the boy band “has since become one of Asia’s most recognizable acts.”

“It seems like Asia’s not the only place they’re receiving attention,” it said.

On the other hand, Super Junior was described as “one of South Korea’s biggest ‘hallyu’ groups.”

NY Daily News said, “How do you get attention from tween girls everywhere? Stick as many good-looking guys as possible on a stage. The 12-member Super Junior has already been deemed one of South Korea’s biggest ‘hallyu’ groups by the BBC and they have a far reach of fans from Slovenia to Peru, where they were named one of the 30 ‘Sexiest Men in the World.’”

Boy band 2PM was described by the newspaper as “Chippendale-like” because of their six-pack abs that the group displays during performances and acrobatics.

“While other boy bands captured attention through their pretty-boy images, this group capitalizes on their masculine look,” NY Daily News said of boy band 2PM.

It added, “The six-member group focuses on heavy acrobatics and intricate dance moves and has become almost Chippendale-like — without the cheesy bow ties.”

Duo TVXQ was noted for choreography and voices.

“With tight choreography and impressive pipes, this dynamic duo has become the epitome of K-Pop: slick dance moves, stellar musical productions and big voices to boot,” NY Daily News said.

On October 28th, girl group KARA performed the ending stage for ‘2011 K-POP Super Concert‘, which was held in the city of Busan. The girls performed their famous tracks, “Mister” and “Step“.

However, the audience was puzzled as to why only four members were present during the performance, as Park Gyuri was nowhere to be seen.  A DSP Media representative explained, “Gyuri was unable to attend the concert due to her Japanese musical, ‘200 Pounds Beauty‘.” Gyuri’s musical series kicked off with a bang recently, and has been doing very well in Japan as it’s sold out all of its shows.

Aside from KARA, other well-known idols attended the event including U-KISS, T-ara, Jay Park, ZE:A, SISTAR, AA, Kim Hyun Joong, Big Bang, Se7en, SHINee, and Psy.

Source + Photos: Osen via Naver

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(THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) – Heavy metal band X Japan has gone through many painful experiences including the deaths of two former members but its rock ‘n roll spirit will survive, said the group’s leader, drummer and pianist Yoshiki Hayashi on Wednesday

Speaking to reporters in Seoul, Yoshiki said he loves K-pop and hear a lot of K-pop songs in Los Angeles which he has been frequenting for more than 15 years.

After X Japan attended the Summer Sonic Festival in Tokyo a few months ago, Yoshiki said he felt very sorry to miss the chance to see Girls’ Generation.

X Japan has been on a world tour in 2011 and the first leg of its Asia tour will be in Seoul on Friday at the Olympic Park Gymnasium.

Have you ever wondered about the relations between sunbaes and hoobaes, when girl groups and singers were complaining about hoobaes not treating them with respect recently?

“Hold on. I don’t get it! What are sunbaes and hoobaes?”

• Sunbae(선배, 先輩) is a word that refers to people with more experience (at work, school, etc), and hoobae(후배, 後輩) refers to people with less experience. Generally, hoobaes have to use jondaetmal(존댓말, honorific language) to sunbaes, meaning they have to speak very politely and treat them with respect.

This might be kind of confusing for people of American culture, since there’s no such thing as honorific language or the whole sunbae and hoobae ideas in any of the industry. At work, there’s a boss, and there are your co-workers.  At school, we generally treat each other similarly, older and younger alike. Kim Kardashian and Justin Beiber might get alike friendly in America, but that kind of situation rarely occurs in Korea.

In the work world and entertainment world the whole honorific system becomes a bit confusing.

Kara debuted 5 years before some of the newer groups, so Kara is a sunbae to the younger girl groups. Sunbaes are treated with respect, and usually have more social power. However, if Kara’s hoobae girl group consisted of 30 year-old people, it might become a bit confusing. Do the 30 year-olds have to use honorific form to girls that are around 10 years younger than them? Yes. It might seem a bit confusing, but in the work industry, the sunbae and ideas become a bit different. However, just because Kara is a “Sunbae” does not mean they should not use polite honorific language and not bow their head when they greet their 30 year-old hoobaes.

When Kara said that their hoobaes did not greet them, the system became confusing to many. Also, when singer Mose said T-ara never greets them, it also gained a lot of bad attention for T-ara.

He previously tweeted, “This one girl group that was always on the news for attitude problems I knew it. They’re notorious for not saying ‘hi’ or greeting anyone. The girl that said it was a misunderstanding? She never said hi to me. Even before their debut, when I saw them in the recording room several times… my neck felt stiff (In Korea, you lower your head to greet, meaning his neck stayed stiff).  Ha. Especially when seeing each other on stage, lightly saying ‘hi’ is common etiquette, but they all just watched me said ‘hi.’ Wow~ They’re so big ,eh? I usually don’t say this, but people that don’t know how to properly say ‘hi,’ regardless of celebrities or elders, do not deserve proper treatment from anyone.”

Regarding the Seo Taiji and Ki Kwang incident: Seo Taiji is a sunbae to Gi Kwang, because he pioneered the modern K-Pop industry and debuted way before Gi Kwang. But Gi Kwang was put under fire for calling Seo Taiji “Seo-ssi (Mr. Seo)” during a TV show.

An entertainment company official stated about this matter, “In fact, there would be no problem if we drew a clear line between sunbae and hoobae relations, but recently since the idol groups became more competitive, that distinction is becoming less apparent and it is beginning to cause problems.”

So when should you use honorific language? You should use honorific language to people that you have never met before, your teachers, your sunbaes or hoobaes (if you do not know them personally), and generally everyone that is older than you. Honorific languages have their own idiomatic words, but usually, putting a “-yo” or “-hasaeyo” after any phrase works. For example, “Annyung” is informal, but “annyunghasaeyo” is formal. In terms of addressing people, “-nim,” or if you are referring to your sunbaes, “-Sunbae-nim” should be used. You can address your sunbae with just “Seo Taiji Sunbae,” but that is a privilege reserved for close and friendly people. In Japanese manga, people usually refer to each other with their last name, and first name only if they are friendly together. It’s like that, except with honorific language.

American fans have come back with “Netizens are so unreasonable and stupid, get over it,” but it’s a situation far more serious than just “misaddressing” someone. It’s a sign of respect, and not properly addressing your sunbaenims is more than worthy of criticism. Not following any of the honorific sunbae/hoobae rules above is considered as an extremely rude behavior, and not addressing your elders properly would definitely result in getting fired from a job, or public humiliation and of course, bad rumors. Also, the word “netizen” is a word to generally describe people on the Net, not just specifically enclosed to Korean users.

Korea and other Asian countries generally have the rule: “The older you are, the more respect you deserve.” When younger people do not treat older people with respect, they will be lashed upon with not having been raised or brought up properly.

Still don’t understand this confusing “respect culture” and “honorific language”? Leave any questions or comments below!