Why I listen to K-Pop

In my previous post (which you can read here!!), I mentioned that I will be doing a series of posts contributing to my post about K-Pop success in Western countries. I’m sorry that this wasn’t posted on the same day as my previous post. As you all know my mother is ill (If you didn’t know then click here), so I have a lot of family members coming round and I have to put my life on hold to be with them. Without further-a-due, here is:

The first in the series of posts:

Why I listen to K-Pop.

Korean artists are versatile. I know some bands go through a stage in the beginning of their career where they have to do songs which are slightly cheesy and a bit commercial, but once they pass this stage and have a big loyal fan base, they tend to move into their own and have songs which are more unique. Take BigBang as an example. BigBang have now got songs which fit in to several types of Genres. In their solo careers, they have songs which fit in to different genres and this has come together in their album ‘Alive’.

I am going to do something a bit strange and compare BigBang to One Direction. Now I am well aware that they are completely different groups and they have different fan-bases, but they are the only western Pop band that I can think of at the moment!

Now, One Direction are talented! They are cute, they can sing and they have catchy songs. The one up that I think BigBang have, (and this is the reason why I listen to K-Pop), is that, One Directions songs all are classed as Pop or maybe even Rock-Pop. They only sing one type of Genre. JLS is also an example similar to One Direction and even artists such as Kanye West and Taylor Swift. BigBang have songs which fall under Rock (“Wings
(날개)” by Daesung and “Oh Mom” by T.O.P), Hip-Hop (“Bad Boy” by BigBang and “One of a Kind” from G-Dragons album “One of a Kind” and R’n’B as well as Pop.

But aside from BigBang, Jay Park (박재범), also shows versatility and uniqueness by blending songs of different Genres into one album. Although I listen to a lot of different artists, Korean and Western, it makes it interesting and exciting to see how one artist (or a group) can switch singing styles and can compose different genres of music.

That is the main reason for why I listen to K-Pop! Also, I am hopefully that it will expand my Korean vocabulary! Plus, there are several hotties in the K-Pop world!! =P