Music Programs - Backstage Driving Force

M Countdown - Feb. 26, 2015 - 4Minute performed Crazy

Like all brands around the world are dying for exposure, K-Pop relies on numerous exposures to gain awareness and fans. In the world of entertainment, the more performance opportunities you get, the more possibilities you’ll be seen, be known, and be loved.

Inkigayo - Mar. 1, 2015 - First Place Announcement

Music programs are unique tradition of K-Pop, and also an integral to the K-pop culture. There are three main broadcasting corporations in South Korea: Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), SeoulBroadcasting System (SBS), and Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), plus a music television: Music Network (Mnet). These four companies have their own music programs broadcast on different channels weekly, and they will announce number1 artist/song for the week. These music programs dominate the aired promotion of K-Pop from Korea to the world.

       1. Inkigayo

           - by SBS

       2. Music Bank

           - by KBS

       3. M Countdown

           - by Mnet

       4. Show! Music Core

           - by MBC

       5. Show Champion

           -  by MBC Music

       6. The Show

           -  by SBS MTV

Once a group or idol release a new song, they’ll be performing in these music programs every week for one to two months. Plus other public performances and variety shows, imagine how many stage shows they can create during a promotional period, and how much exposure they can get at home and abroad through video-sharing website such as YouTube and Dailymotion.

Music Bank - September 2013 - Istanbul, Turkey

According to a coverage from YAHOO!, music programs create a tripartite reciprocal relationship among producers, artistes and fans. For artistes, they get plenty of performance opportunities to increase exposure and attract fans. For fans, they get lots of sources to enjoy shows. Moreover, these shows allow them to meet their idols up close and cheer for them. For producers, they get a reach beyond Korea. These music programs are frequently exported overseas, and even conduct worldwide tour as live concert, which in turn means more markets for both producers and K-Pop entertainers to tap into.

Market Maximization – International Members

Alexandra Reid - K-Pop's first Africa American group member from RaNia

In the era of globalization, every industry is emphasizing internationalization, including K-Pop. When management companies choose their trainees to group and debut, they not only assess the entertainment abilities, but also consider their foreign language skills, or even find foreign members to join the group directly.

Nowadays, international group with non-Korean members is very common in K-Pop, and the nationalities of members determine a group’s regional targeting. By arousing national consciousness, they give you a reason to follow and support their groups, and also create an opportunity to expand their market.

Just like most international enterprises take China as the largest market in the world, China is a great temptation to K-Pop as well. As a result, Chinese is the most common international members in K-Pop idol groups, and more and more groups are releasing their title songs in Chinese version in order to own a place in this market. 

Miss A

With two Chinese out of four members, MissA is an obvious example that clearly targets China besides South Korea. They were active in China before their official debut in South Korea, and have been keeping a close relationship with China until now. From the beginning of their debut, all of their singles and title songs were released in two versions, Korean and Chinese. 

EXO-K

With four members born in China, EXO originally debuted with 12 members separated into two subgroups, EXO-K (Korean) and EXO-M (Mandarin). Also targets China apparently, they released all of their albums in two versions, Korean and Chinese. 

EXO-M

Title Song - One is stronger than Ten

If you’re a listener of Western pop music, you might be used to the “whole album” with at least 10 songs. However, the rule is totally different in K-Pop. In this market, creating one brilliant title song is much more vital than releasing a regular album. Therefore, “mini album” with around 3 to 6 songs and digital single are more common in the world of K-Pop.

A successful title song can catapult a group into fame, and many successful title songs can push a group onto A-list. As a result, management companies tend to devoted themselves to one song with full force. To create craze with these title songs, there are two key points most commonly used in K-Pop:

Brainwashing Melody

Just like PR practitioners creating the “hook” for pitching media, there’s a “hook” in the song as highlights, which keeps repeating and haunting your mind. Let’s take “Gee”, the first K-Pop MV reached 100 million views on YouTube, from Girls' Generation as an example:

Now, what's left in your mind?

“Gee Gee Gee Gee Baby Baby Baby”  “Gee Gee Gee Gee Gee~”

What on earth is the meaning of the lyrics? Why so many "Gee"?

It doesn’t matter. You’ll remember this song anyway!

English Lyrics

An important part to enjoy a song is to sing with the song, and people will love a song more if they are able to sing even just a little part of it. Since English is the universal language, you can always find some English words or sentences in K-Pop songs, and this is a big help for them to promote outside South Korea. Now, try “Fantastic Baby” from BIGBANG, which ranked on Billboard's WorldDigital Songs chart for 112 weeks and peaked as high as No. 3:

So, what did you focus on?

“Dance~ woo~~ I wanna dan dan dan dan dance” “WOW! FANTASTIC BABY!”

And also those catchy repeating words “Boom Shakalaka!”

What’s the meaning?

It doesn’t matter. You can sing some parts and enjoy anyway!