K-Pop Idols

Converging theory and practice, this book provides a unique analysis of Korean youth’s attempts to become global celebrities within the growing K-pop phenomenon, which is rapidly becoming part of global media systems and culture. K-pop has become one of the most popular cultural forms in the global music markets, despite having a relatively new global presence. Its recent spread around the world suggests that K-pop exists as a local-based genre of music in global markets, including Western markets.Unlike other existing books on K-pop, which mainly focus solely on academic analyses or industrial perspectives, K-Pop Idols: Popular Culture and the Emergence of Korean Music Industry combines theory with industry and musical aesthetics. Following the idol group Nine Muses through a year-long chronicle, the authors portray the everyday lives of young girls relentlessly pursuing happiness, satisfaction, and the achievement of their dreams in the K-pop world.

This book’s close observation and analysis of the inside of K-pop industry and its idol system offer insightful understanding of how the K-pop industry operates and K-pop idols engage with the factory-like star system. This engaging book, which presents a gripping story and examination of the underside of K-pop, is not only a timely addition to the growing number of studies on K-pop, but also an invaluable contribution to the studies of popular culture, music industries, celebrities, and cultural globalization. The book is highly recommended for anyone interested in popular music industries and celebrity culture in general and the recent K-pop phenomenon in particular., The two co-authors of this volume have in recent years garnered considerable reputations, Hark Joon Lee as a filmmaker and journalist known particularly for his work with North Korean refugees and for the film `Nine Muses of Star Empire’, and Dal Yong Jin as the author of a well-received series of books about K-pop and Korea’s media and gaming industries. This volume provides the back story for the Nine Muses film, bringing the talents of the two to document how the K-pop idol group of the same name was created. Where many previous accounts of K-pop have been largely descriptive, and a few try to be far too theoretical, this account moves between a documentary and an academic text. It brings our knowledge up to date, shining a spotlight on Korea’s entertainment mega-agencies, and the dreams and realities faced by those who succeed or fail in becoming stars. The agencies impose harsh training regimes as they create plastic surgery-enhanced robotic idols, demanding conformity, requiring sexy dancing and pouting, and casting aside those who fail to be perfectly compliant (or, in one case documented here, who want to fall in love). This, then, is the hidden story behind K-pop, a story that we deserve to know now that K-pop has become such a massive international phenomenon.

Hark Joon Lee is a journalist and film maker.Dal Yong Jin is professor of communication at Simon Fraser University.