Yi Fan was overwhelmed with pride as she sat in the Air Canada Centre. It was packed with thousands of fans of the South Korean boy band Big Bang. Fan felt connected with everyone singing along and cheering for the band. It was Big Bang’s first time in Canada, and Fan didn’t it want it to end.
“I would like to see more K-pop artists visit Canada for sure,” said Fan.
Korean pop music, or K-pop, is a musical genre that covers different types of music like pop-ballad, rock, dance-pop, electronic, metal, hip-hop and R&B. K-pop is different than North American pop because of its difficult choreography, audiovisual content, intense training for its singers and the fashion that surrounds it. All performers in South Korea have to go through rigorous training for at least two years to become perfectly fit before they can make their debut in the music franchise.
Although K-pop is not widely known in Fredericton, there are still a few devoted fans here. Third year St. Thomas University student Samantha Thibodeau also attended Big Bang’s Oct. 13 concert in Toronto.
“It was something I never thought would happen to me personally. Korean groups never come to Canada. They always go to the states. This was the biggest Korean concert in Canada,” said Thibodeau.
Thibodeau’s favourite group is EXO, with her EXO ‘bias’ being the member Xiumin. A bias is the term fans use to refer to their favourite member of a group. Thibodeau says she even prefers K-pop over North American pop music.
“It’s just something that connected with me the first time I listened to it, and from that point on I was hooked,” said Thibodeau.
Some of the best choreographed K-pop songs are by BTS, a seven-member South Korean group. BTS will post not only their music videos on YouTube, but will sometimes dance versions of their songs so fans can learn the moves.
One video that has gone viral is that of a 6-year-old girl named Na Haeun, who did a dance cover for the song Shake It by the group SISTAR. Haeun is considered a K-pop star in the making, as she has already been on TV and made an appearance on the show K-pop Star 4 where she auditioned and danced to the song Touch My Body by SISTAR.
Another big difference that makes K-pop groups stand out is the number of people in some of their groups. Some groups like Girls’ Generation has eight members, with others like EXO at nine members and Super Junior with 11.
With so many members, it makes the choreography that much more appealing to fans and curious viewers. Each member ends up with a different hair style or colour, as well as a different fashion style for each music video.
STU professor Rodger Wilkie moved to South Korea in 1998 and taught there for four years at Suwon University. He saw various rising K-pop performers in concert at the university. Although he wasn’t well-immersed in K-pop itself, Wilkie has a theory as to why it is becoming popular here now. He believes, at least in part, it is because Korea is one of the few places that North America hasn’t yet turned to for “musical inspiration.”
“We’ve done Europe, much of Africa, a whole lot of South America and the Carribean, and during the 80s had a pretty intense fling with Japan,” said Wilkie. “We’re running out of places to look, and with the East Asian economies looking pretty strong, it makes sense that, for both of these reasons, we’d be looking there.”
Thanks to social media platforms like YouTube, Twitter and Instagram, fans across the globe can watch their favourite groups perform. Times magazine called K-pop “South Korea’s Greatest Export” in 2012 after the country saw a total gross of $4.5 billion in the first six months of the year.
Thibodeau believes more K-pop groups should come to Canada because the fanbase is bigger than they would expect.
“Korean groups don’t tend to realize how many fans that they really have here, but if they did it would be incredible. There is what they call the ‘Hallyu Wave’ in Korea, it’s sweeping over the world,” said Thibodeau.
Hallyu Wave, or Korean Wave, is the increase in popularity of South Korean Culture since the 1990s. This Korean Wave is all thanks to K-pop. South Korea has become a major exporter of pop culture, right next to the United States and the United Kingdom.
K-pop’s wave brings South Korean culture, people, and its economy along with it. Canadian fans like Thibodeau and Fan are ready to ride this wave, as well as Professor Wilkie; who looks back on his time in South Korea with fond memories.
“My experiences with the Korean people were rewarding, and I still maintain friendships with former students, so regardless of personal musical tastes, I’ll be happy to see some part of what was once my second home come here,” said Wilkie.
