K-pop; pre- and post-Psy

The scene: 8:59 a.m. in the headquarters of “Cool Corea” a music corporation set in darkest Gangnam. In a recording studio sits a spotty youth in torn jeans and a leather jacket, tuning an electric guitar. The door opens. In struts a smart, be-suited gent.

Gent: Are you Kool Kim? Congratulations on making it through the Cool Corea auditions! I am Mr. Lee. I will be guiding your career as of today.

KK (extending a hand): Yo, dawg! Put it there!

Mr. Lee (frowning): Dawg? I think you mean Mr. Lee…

KK (taken aback): Woah dude…er…Mr. Lee. Nice to, like, meet you.

Mr. Lee (ignoring the proffered paw): Charmed. Now, here’s your schedule. First, the gym: You need to work on your six-pack. Then, to the tailor! We are not big on jeans and leather jackets; you’ll look funkier in orange drainpipes and a sequined, red jacket. You’d better see our stylist, too: Fans don’t want long, lank hair, so she’ll give you a straight perm and an auburn dye. After lunch, you’re in the studio with our back dancers, then Chinese lessons, then…

KK (interjecting): But I just wanna hang out, jam with the boys and smoke weed…

Mr. Lee (apoplectic): What? This is the music business, young man! What the hell are you listening to?

KK: The Beatles, the Stones, Floyd, Zeppelin…

Mr. Lee: Never heard of ’em! Now, enough of your nonsense! I’m meeting the ad men in an hour and they want cute young hipsters as product endorsers, not drug-addled bad-asses! So button your lip and get diligent on the ab machine!

Slick idol-training processes and careful image crafting have won K-pop legions of fans across Asia, but it took an iconoclast to break through in the West. Psy is in many ways the antithesis of K-pop: His six packs are orally injected, rather than carved into his midsection; he writes his own material rather than import it from Scandinavian production houses and he sings catchy nonsense rather than sugary ballads or attitude-free rap. He is certainly neither a pretty boy nor a clothes horse.

Tellingly, he is less wholesome than the industry standard. He has been busted for marijuana, and recently confessed to the Oxford Union that repeated misdemeanors have forced him to make numerous public apologies. He lists his hobby as drinking, swills soju onstage and takes an un-Asian view of education: Asked why he did not graduate from music school, he dead-panned to a Western media outlet, “Classes were too early for me.”

Yet, following his explosive success, the Korean government is (predictably) showering the erstwhile bad boy with honors. Given this, might Korean producers, hungry for Western hits, re-calibrate their practices? If so, the future might look like this:

The scene: 4:50 p.m. in the headquarters of “Dark Seoul” a record company set deep in Gangbuk. A disheveled youth staggers into the office of Mr. Lee the PD and collapses into a seat.

PD: Dude! You look a bit off-color…

Kool Kim: Bro, it’s the mother of all hangovers. I was hammering the makgeolli last night, got totally wasted, then me and my drummer ended up in the sack with three hot chicks and a monster joint. Paternity suits are probably already in the mail.

PD: Sick! So a good time was had by all?

KK: You got that right. I’m already thinking of a song: Gangbang Style.

PD: Sounds catchy! Anyway, to work. We’ll start you off in the record library: We just got the new White Stripes album, and the Black Sabbath retrospective…

KK: Word! I’m inspired!

PD: Right on. But we can’t skimp on your training. How are you set for dope?

KK: Those chicks smoked me out last night. My stash is low, my man.

PD: No worries G, our dealer’s on the way! We know where artistes find inspiration.

KK: Class! You’re the daddy!

PD: No error. Any plans for tonight?

KK: The usual: A liquid dinner, hit the clubs; then chase down some groupies…

PD: Outstanding, but go easy on the booze, right? Let’s get your album out before you choke to death on your own vomit.

K-pop sells across Asia, and will continue to. But in the West, edginess and rebelliousness is in; corporate, pretty boys are not. Granted, Psy is saintly compared to (say) Jimi Hendrix, Ozzy Osbourne or Liam Gallagher, but is appealingly non-mainstream. Could his success pave the way for more iconoclastic Korean acts?

Perhaps. As Seoul’s hairiest foreign journalist, Daniel Tudor of The Economist writes in his book “Korea: The Impossible Nation,” Korea’s music scene in the protest-riven 1970s and ‘80s was rocking but today’s pop is bland pap, aimed exclusively at teens. Fortunately, an underground community of Korean indie bands is ripe for exposure.

K-pop has gone far. Fine. Now, let’s see the industry use Psy as a springboard, bring on the K-rock, and assault Western ears with a dose of K-attitude.

Andrew Salmon is a Seoul-based reporter and author. Reach him at andrewcsalmon@yahoo.co.uk. <The Korea Times/Andrew Salmon>