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- Behind the music: What is K-Pop and why are the Swedish getting involved?
South Korea's music industry is thriving – and Sweden's biggest hitmakers are keen to learn the tricks of their trade
For decades, songwriters have focused on getting their work covered by British and American artists. The three biggest music markets in the world have traditionally been the US, Japan and the UK (last year the UK was overtaken by Germany), and while British and American artists have traditionally had a hard time breaking Japan, they can usually count on selling in the rest of the world once they break their home territories. But for the past few years, major songwriters and producers such as Will.I.Am and Sean Garrett have been shuttling back and forth to South Korea – and it's all because of the K-Pop phenomenon.
K-Pop is a genre that sounds a bit like the Black Eyed Peas – only in Korean. A few English words are added to create meaningless song titles: Chocolate Love or Hurricane Venus, for example. Sometimes they even make up their own words, like Mirotic. Chances are you've never heard of BoA, Girls' Generation and TVXQ, yet they've outsold many major-label acts in the UK and US.
Universal Music Publishing's European A&R executive, Pelle Lidell, started working with SM Entertainment (SME), one of the larger Korean indie labels, three years ago. He says pretty much every song he's delivered to the company – usually one or two a month – has become a hit. Lidell, who supervised the rise of Swedish pop factory Merlin in the 90s and early-00s, and has masterminded hits for Britney Spears, J-Lo and Jessica Simpson, says SME has taken the pop-factory concept to a whole new level. The company has buses travelling the country scouting for talent. Young teenagers who are deemed gifted and attractive enough are admitted to SME's talent academy, where they get regular education as well as singing and dancing lessons, and are trained in how to be an artist.
After a couple of years, some of them form groups and are launched into superstardom with the help of songs that are often written by Lidell's roster of British and Scandinavian writers. Every group represents one particular demographic. Girl bands rarely have only three or four members. SME's Girls' Generation have nine, Super Junior 12 – each with his or her own fan club. Minutes after Girls' Generation released their single Hoot, it was No 1 on all the country's downloading sites. Meanwhile, the video clocked up 2m hits on YouTube within 24 hours (it now has over 11m hits).
SME's biggest artist, BoA, has sold over 24m albums so far. She often sings in English, as seen here in her video I'll Eat You Up (written by Scandinavians Remee and Thomas Troelsen) and has even toured the US.
"They're in a Lady Gaga class of artists," says Lidell. "Meanwhile, artists like Gaga can't compete over there; they've got no relevance. I went to Seoul's Olympic stadium watching an SM Entertainment extravaganza – seven hours of their hit acts. The place was packed. It was like the Beatles, with young girls screaming consistently. The show itself was of the standard you see when Justin Timberlake or Madonna play live, when it came to the production. They even flew over the crowd from the top of the stadium on to the stage."
Part of the reason acts such as BoA and Girls' Generation, unlike most western artists, have managed to break the Japanese market is that they learned the language before going there. They often release a Japanese version of their singles, with new videos too. They also work hard. When Girls' Generation launched in Japan they did three shows in one day at a 12,000-capacity venue – 2pm, 5pm and 8pm – and all sold out.
Last year, Lidell organised an SME writing camp in Sweden called Camp Fantasia, which housed six studios and included some of Universal's best writers. One of SME's most senior bosses and the head of A&R joined the writers for a week, going into the studios and making suggestions like "skip the pre-chorus", says Lidell.
Though having a hit with a K-Pop act may not rate as high in the cred-department as getting a cut with, say, Rihanna, the royalty payments more than make up for it. Chinese royalties are terrible, due to rampant piracy and bad collection, but Japan still pays 25% more in mechanical royalties (for sales) than the UK. In Korea it's 20% less, as the PPD price for records is lower. "But if you add it all up you're usually on a 103-104% mechanical royalty, compared to Europe," says Lidell.
British songwriter Alex James, who has had successes with Jason Derülo and Alexandra Burke, among others, has had mega-hits in Korea, including Hoot and Run Devil Run (which sounds a lot like his Burke hit Bad Boys). The latter has had 21m hits on YouTube. Lidell's Norwegian writing team DSign make hundreds of thousands of pounds from K-Pop each year. "Even streaming pays in Korea" he adds.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - New music: Michael Kiwanuka – Tell Me a Tale
Vintage soul from a 23-year-old Londoner? No wonder this guy's on tour with Adele
London-based Michael Kiwanuka is currently on tour with Adele, which makes sense as he too has a soulful voice that belies his tender age (he's only 23). Tell Me a Tale – all delicate flute flourishes and rich brass tones – is the title track of his debut EP and, though his influences are obvious, there's something fresh about his approach to 60s soul, with a reliance on authenticity as opposed to posturing or role playing.The video has a semi-opaque look that lends itself so well to nostalgia, looking both contemporary and vintage. It's a rare case of visuals and music matching perfectly, with Kiwanuka's beautiful voice never overshadowed.
Tell Me a Tale is out on 13 June via Communion Records
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - The Lady Gaga backlash begins
The self-appointed queen of gay culture has offended fans she claims to represent. Is it a sign that her star is on the wane?
Have we reached a tipping point in the Lady Gaga saga? In the week that the singer graces the cover of NME for the first time, a backlash has already gathered steam in the gay community.
Among her supposed heartland of gay men, there's growing evidence of fans starting to turn on her – many of whom feel she has no right to declare herself as the ambassador of "queer culture".
Gaga, to be fair, didn't have to try hard to be accepted as a "gay icon". There's a certain mainstream gay sensibility that tends to adopt blonde female pop stars as their own, and her relentless tweeting about gay rights, the impassioned stance against Don't Ask Don't Tell in the US military and yes, I suppose the dresses too, earned her a place as a credible advocate. But recently, the wheels seem to be falling off, and sadly not from that ridiculous motorbike.
It started with the release of Born This Way. Any song built up with such a torrent of pre-publicity (my favourite tweet from that week: "Can't wait for tomorrow's exclusive reveal of the barcode!") has to be pretty incredible to not get crushed under the weight of its own expectation. And it misfired on all levels.
The gay blogosphere soon exploded into a flurry of backlash and counter-backlash, based mainly on a sense of disappointment with the song. At least that's how it started.
But as the world lived with Born This Way, a deeper disquiet began to emerge, and the heavy-handed way that the song assumed stewardship of an entire portion of humanity began to breed real resentment, from the forums to the dancefloor to the word on the street. Fact of matter: most gay people don't consider themselves to be freaks and outsiders, as is suggested in the lyrics, but perfectly normal people whose sexual orientation just happens to be wired a certain way. And they won't thank you for attempting to lead a Pied Piper march back into the ghetto with all the subtlety of a diamond-encrusted sledgehammer.
Of course, when there are still gay teen suicides, same-sex couples being ejected from the John Snow, and Proposition 8 then we clearly haven't won all of the battles against homophobia. But we're a lot closer to the dream where sexual orientation doesn't define a person, but is a quality of their personality no more or less significant than their political affiliation or the colour of their hair. As we march towards true equality, the whole idea of a "gay culture" becomes more and more meaningless as the world accepts the truth that gay people aren't all the same. In the face of that, Born This Way was at best a backward step, in the middle a touch cynical and, at worst, downright offensive.
It's a shame because it was the first real misstep in an otherwise faultlessly judged career. But if Gaga really has alienated her most loyal fans, she may yet have more to worry about than a few religious zealots picketing her shows.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Is that you gurning in Friendly Fires' new video?
Are you one of the old ravers chewing off your face in Live Those Days Tonight (Back to '89 Rave Montage)? If so, get in touch!
There's quite a thing for hardcore nostalgia in the music video world right now. Chase and Status made old ravers weep with their Blind Faith video – an affectionate recreation of an, er, "enhanced" night out with your bezzies. Now Friendly Fires have been combing YouTube for old rave footage – lots of people dancing wildly while biting their own cheeks and managing to rotate their eyeballs back into their skull. Live Those Days Tonight (Back to '89 Rave Montage) is a collage of their favourite clips and is both touching, hilarious and a little scary.
So consider this a shout out to all the ageing ravers out there – are you dancing in this video? Is that you looking unfit to be driving the motor vehicle you're sat in? And if so, how are you still alive? Do tell us, but, er, probably don't tell your boss.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать
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