GANGNAM POWER
It’s October 2012 and for the first time in history, the whole world seems to have a brand new catchphrase – Gangnam Style. The Korean rapper, Psy, has been catapulted to stardom by a YouTube clip that has spread to all corners of the globe. As of the very first day of October, the single Gangnam Style has soared to the number one position of the charts in Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Greece, Belgium, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Chile. It is currently in second position on the US charts and is a top five hit in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Finland, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland and Portugal. Within the next few weeks, the song will soon catch on in other countries and it is this week at number 25 in Germany, number 18 in France, number 6 in the Czech Republic, number 15 in Spain, number 11 in Argentina, number 14 in Thailand and number 28 in Taiwan. In other parts of the world, it has just debuted on the charts in Brazil, Croatia, Poland, Sri Lanka, Bolivia, Romania, Latvia, Slovakia and Lithuania. In a nutshell – the song is a worldwide hit.
Within the next few weeks it will most likely soar up the charts in Italy, Russia and Mexico as well as other parts of Latin America. As for Japan (the world’s largest music market – having overtaken the US two years ago) there’s no sign of anything Gangnam. Unsurprisingly, the dispute over the islands of Dokdo or Takeshima (depending on whose side of the Sea of Japan you’re in) have dampened any interest in all things Korean, or in this case K-Pop (Korean Pop). The K-Pop party has come to a temporary standstill in Japan, which is the world’s largest consumer of Korean pop music and as such, couldn’t have come at a worse time for the world’s latest celebrity. Oh well, I guess you can’t be everywhere at once. There’s still the rest of the world. China is so busy with its renewed hatred of Japan over another set of islands that they’ll be next on the Gangnam bandwagon – provided they don’t suddenly find a reason to divert their protests at Korea over something that happened centuries ago. All in the name of nationalistic pride. Ah – distractions, distractions.
The world works in funny ways. Actually, the world works in rather predictable ways as well. I’ve worked in the music industry and analysed music charts for years (mainly for clients) and in my experience, the domino effect that existed before the rise of social media on the Internet has changed course slightly. Slightly! In the old days, the aim was to try to become big in your own country and then aim for America. If, by means of a divine and miraculous intervention, you could become famous in America then you could pretty much sit back and relax. The domino effect of how music resonates from the United States was almost instantaneous. Sure, a lot of groundwork was needed by marketing professionals in record companies to ensure similar success in other territories, but if a single made its way into the US top ten on the Billboard charts, it wasn’t just a case of someone in another part of the world buying your record. It was more a case of everyone in every other part of the world buying your record. Very rarely would a song enter the American charts and disappear from view without international sales as a spin-off effect. The domino theory demanded that if you were number one in the US, you’d be at least in the top 10 all over the rest of the free world. That said, there are other strategies that lead to a formula of somehow bypassing the United States and when I was based in London, I made it my mission to consult bands and solo performers on how to go about that.
Language dictates musical trends so it’s not rocket science to discover that if a German song becomes big in Germany, it soon finds its way to neighbouring Austria and Switzerland where the language is also spoken and therefore the lyrics are equally appreciated. More intricately, the old empires of Europe still have their fingers in many pies. Many old colonial pies, that is. A band that is based in London and has a moderate hit in the UK, has as much a chance of duplicating that success in Canada, New Zealand, South Africa or Australia in the same way that someone has if they were to be based in Los Angeles. When you consider that the United Kingdom is not made up of fifty states and where the whole country is about the same size as Michigan or Oregon, imagine which country is easier to break into. Not to mention the fact that those ex-colonies are more receptive to what comes out of the United Kingdom or out of other competitive European markets. Britain is a more of a useful springboard for launching a musical career with a genre that might not be so easy to categorise in the United States. After all, if it’s not rock, country, R&B, rap, Christian or Latin – how does it chart? How is it pigeon-holed? Which radio stations would give it airplay?
For this main reason, I used to avoid the United States as a potential market for bands which I considered great musicians by my standards, but who were realistically not capable of making it big in the world’s most dominant music market at that time. Firstly – they were foreign (none of them were American and therefore without a solid base in America), they would have required extensive airplay all over the country (in the music industry, fifty American states equals fifty different countries) and besides, their genre of music was not quite commercial enough to even make it past the A&R desk of a record company in a place like New York or Los Angeles. My advice? Go to Japan instead. You can sing in Greek, for all they care. They’d be none the wiser. As long as they like your music, you’re in. There exists none of the linguistic snobbery that is found around the English speaking world, where an act from Russia might be looked at with reservation. And in the United States, gone are the days when a British band could release a fart and expect to have a top 40 hit there. The early eighties are over. Gone too are the days when Australians and New Zealanders could ride on the wave of the British Invasion by thinking they could break into the US market simply by being from an English speaking country. That might be a different story for Hollywood – but not in music.
There existed a formula that I’d experimented with several bands and while the genre of their music always differed from the next band, the analytics behind their progress was always fairly similar. The plan was to leave the nest. Leave England behind and go and perform somewhere different, but choose another region carefully and stick with it. In some examples, the country of choice was Germany, in others it was Japan or Italy. Wherever it was, it required determination to be exposed to new audiences which would hopefully lead to more record sales. Obviously some were successful and others were not. It’s always a gamble. It’s never assured that by relocating to the other side of the world, there would be instant success. That comes with endurance, patience and lots of hard work. Now and again, the bands would come back to perform in local venues around the UK. The important thing was to leave the nest but never forget your original fan base. Record deals don’t often come to performers who float around the world aimlessly. Wherever the bands spent time to promote themselves, there was a hidden formula at play that would, if the band were likeable enough, spread to other parts of the region.
I suspect that the soft power approach of the three main Korean conglomerates of performers – SM Entertainment, YG Entertainment and JYP Entertainment have long been aware of the trade links that have existed ever since ships were sturdy enough to sail the oceans. Just like the formidable chaebols (a Korean word to describe the multinational enterprises such as Hyundai and Samsung), these three companies are fortresses of power and are responsible for almost all that is Korean music entertainment. It is almost impossible to survive without one of them. After years and years of trying fruitlessly at penetrating the American market, it must have made sense to them that are easier avenues. By following the charts. After careful analysis – or quite possibly by sheer luck – the path to Latin America was paved.
An interesting example of how music gains momentum around Latin America is with the genre of reggaeton. Puerto Rico is considered to be the epicentre of this upbeat version of electronic reggae that had its origins in Panama and is now the most widely accepted genre of youth across the Spanish speaking region. No sooner does a song become a hit in Puerto Rico than it is almost immediately picked up
in Colombia and simultaneously in Argentina – two major population centres compared to their neighbouring countries. From Argentina the song bounces around the region, from Chile to Uruguay and Bolivia. At the same time, the Colombian effect is felt in nearby Ecuador and Peru. There is no predictable series of events in the same way that a bonfire sets off sparks in different directions, but eventually – and in no particular order – the song becomes a hit in Mexico, in Venezuela and all over Central America. Sometimes the success is a direct result of Puerto Rico, sometimes it is a domino effect of neighbouring countries. Ultimately, with a different pattern each time, the end result is the same. No country in Spanish speaking Latin America is immune from what I like to refer to as the reggaeton effect. It’s a pandemic that sweeps across the whole region and it preys on the one main weakness of its target market – the fact that their mindset is altogether similar. I make that sound like it’s an evil thing and really it’s not. It’s fascinating. In fact, the pandemic doesn’t stop there.
While the reggaeton song is enjoying enormous success across a population that shares a common language (Spanish), the bonfire continues to shoot off sparks in other directions. This effect is not merely satisfied with consuming everything within its path in its own traditional region. Sparks fly off towards Brazil which doesn’t share a language but shares a similar interest in Latin music and also borders many of the affected countries. Further sparks fly off from the affected areas (mainly Puerto Rico, Mexico and Colombia) towards the United States, where an additional fifty million speakers of Spanish are in tune with what goes on down south. At a similar time, when we begin to wonder if this bonfire will ever die out, a spark flies off towards Spain in the hope of regenerating its viral effect on the European continent and within time, millions of Europeans who are connected with Spain are also a part of the pandemic. The sparks are sporadic and have different degrees of potency. A spark that hits Spain might not have any effect at all and could die out as a single ember. Like all pandemics though, the proliferation has already begun and while the spark from Puerto Rico to Spain died across the Atlantic, another spark shot from Colombia hits Spain at the same time as a spark from Mexico and the flame burns uncontrollably. Sparks then start to emerge from the Spanish bonfire towards Germany, France and Britain.
By this time the damage has already been done across Latin America while the rest of the world starts to burn. The United States and the United Kingdom are tinderboxes and any spark that hits their shores can have devastating effects. British sparks fly off towards Canada and Australia at the same time that the American bonfire starts firing indiscriminately in all directions, hitting Canada which is already taking a beating from the British onslaught. Australia and New Zealand manage to fight off some of the sparks from Britain but are soon bombarded by American sparks that fly across the Pacific Ocean at lightning speed. Britain too, spits out its embers indiscriminately and some minor damage is done in Asia but at the same time, American sparks across the Pacific hit Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and the Philippines with such a tremendous force that it’s almost impossible to act in defence. The rest of Asia feels relieved to have avoided the crossfire and while the flames start to wither away, a few weeks later sparks fly out of Japan, buried and uninterrupted until aggravated. Most of the sparks don’t hit the ground but minor damage seems to have been made in Thailand, Hong Kong and South Korea (for a second time round) and so the spread continues.
Obviously this is an exaggeration of what could occur. This would only be the effect of one hell of a good reggaeton track to have spread itself across the planet. Normally there are immunities across the world that would prevent such a spread. Africa might not have been affected by the reggaeton song because of cultural reasons. A song in Spanish might not appeal to an average Kenyan or Senegalese despite the influences (or sparks) shot across from imperial Britain or France. The separation of distance and ties would render a Latin dance tune useless in urban Africa. Likewise, an average person in Russia might not consider a tune from Puerto Rico to be of any cultural relevance unless there was reason enough to believe that because it’s so popular elsewhere there could be no harm in listening. The fact that something is so viral in other parts of the world automatically arouse curiosity and it’s that one little spark that then lands in yet another part of the world.
So could it be the same for K-Pop? Is it accurate to compare the tentacle effects of Latin American music with the marketing efforts of one small country in Asia? Let’s take a closer look at a similar effect that could emerge from the recording studios of Seoul. Let’s imagine that a song is chosen based on its originality, sung only in Korean and without the added support of any dance craze or parody in its song content or visual message. The bonfire is lit and the sparks start to fly in the direction of Japan and the United States – the two most predictable directions from Korea. However, the United States is so immune to sparks from Asia that of the one hundred sparks that hit American territory, only one has any real impact and it’s in a small part of Los Angeles which is home to a fairly sizeable Korean community. For one thing, they’re direct sparks shot at a great distance whereas the reggaeton sparks were pelting the US from all directions. The Korean sparks fail to make any impact on their target audience and the one small spark that hits the suburbs of Los Angeles is soon contained and dies a natural death. There just wanted enough bang in that spark to recreate another bonfire. The world’s a busy place and there are far bigger bonfires being lit.
Before launching any further sparks in vain, a certain degree of damage control needs to occur. Bright young Korean pop stars had their hopes set on becoming big in America and the news that all those sparks amounted to next to nothing is demotivating. The next plan is to attack from the sides. Study the impact that Latin American music has had in the United States and try to work out a strategy to enter from the side door. To do that, a period of incubation needs to take place in a location where it is more accessible to enter. But firstly, we need to look at where the plan went wrong by directly hitting the States.
While it may be true that over fifty million Americans speak Spanish (most of whom are actually Hispanic) there is also a Korean diaspora that calls America its home. There are over two million Korean Americans as well as another million Koreans in Japan. That should make those two countries the most likely recipients of Korean pop culture. But isn’t that the reason those sparks burn out so quickly? Migrant communities are not exactly the best promoters of music and though they may be able to help spread the word of a catchy tune amongst friends and family of the same ethnicity, that probably explains why the fire burns out so quickly. Where can it go from there? Latin American music may start from the fast-moving traffic that is a result of mass migration but if it decides to rest in a secluded suburb of Miami, it’ll soon die out. It’s the multiple flow of traffic that pounds the population until they sit up and listen. That’s where K-Pop has taken the avenue of getting cozy with Latin America while working on a plan to force its way into the American market.
The soft power of K-Pop in Latin America only took a few years to evolve and whether it was an intentional strategy by marketing executives or a freak accident, Korean performers can now add thousands of Latin Americans to their fan base. In the same way that a good reggaeton tune makes its way from one part of the region to another, receptive audiences in Peru were duplicated in Chile, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Brazil. Influencing the locals has proven successful in places like Chile where local K-Pop band Blue Boys (that’s right – local K-Pop) was able to further enhance an interest in the genre. When local bands are copying your look, you know you’re onto something big. Colombia even has its own K-Pop talent show where the winner receives a trip to Korea to meet some of the stars.
Hallyu, which is the term used for the Korean wave of soap operas, music – in fact, all things Korean, is now a maturing presence in other parts of Asia. It is almost parallel that wherever Korean drama has first appea
red on international television screens (or K-Drama as it is unsurprisingly referred to), K-Pop is never too far behind. Every country in East Asia has been influenced by the rising presence of Hallyu, starting with the obvious example of Japan. Television ratings are sky high all across Asia though. The Philippines and Hong Kong are amongst the most avid viewers of Korean drama but no part of the region has been left unscathed. Even in far flung countries like Cambodia and Mongolia, fans of Korean soap wait impatiently for the next new release to hit their TV screens. Based on this pattern of Korean television impact, it made perfect sense for K-Pop promoters to focus on these markets to a receptive audience who would most likely make a natural progression from Korean drama to Korean pop music – and it worked.
Latin America shares a common interest in compelling television drama, having been used to decades of imports from around their own region. Mexico and Brazil were (and still are) world leaders in soap operas, or telenovelas as they’re called locally and even export their programmes to Europe and Asia. It became time for Hallyu to test the waters across the Pacific and offer its own style of drama to Latin American waters. There is always the fear that local markets could become saturated with too much choice between Brazilian, Mexican, American and now Korean TV drama but so far it has been met with applause. Back in Asia, where the Korean television presence is much older, there are already signs of dissatisfaction from governments in Singapore and Hong Kong related to what they consider to be an avalanche of Korean soap operas. It’s still early days but it seems that the timing was right to branch out and look beyond Asia. Just like the reggaeton effect with successful hit singles, the same domino theory was taking place across the board in Latin America as one by one, from Peru to Colombia to Panama, markets were being opened up and it has all been with open arms.
Based on this strategy of moving where Korean drama has already made inroads, the next frontier appears to be the Middle East. Already in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel there have been dozens of Korean TV drama programmes screened. Once again, this is a region where English is not the native tongue and that elimination of linguistic superiority proved hugely successful where in Latin America (although Spanish is an immensely powerful language) other languages are not treated as inferior. The TV shows are dubbed in order to make them intelligible but they’re not frowned upon as they might be in the United States, for example. Of course, there’s no possibility of dubbing the songs of Korean pop stars but again, that’s irrelevant because in the same way that Latin American TV viewers don’t mind if a television drama comes from Korea, they’re also fine with the fact that a song comes from Korea.
Gangnam Style has not had to take a detour by staying put in Latin America until the timing is right. The comical nature of the video clip, the catchy tune and most importantly, the dance moves associated with the song have all enabled Psy to bypass slower markets and go straight for the jugular. Of the hundreds of millions of viewers who have seen the YouTube clip, around 47% of those are based in the United States, which is no surprise given the size of its Internet population. Interestingly though, 53% of them are not from the United States and that’s a healthy figure for any marketing expert. Of course, we’re talking about a product which relies on sales of music to generate any revenue so if 90% of those viewers were in mainland China, for example, (a country notorious for illegal downloading) then that would be a dismal outcome. In a time when it is increasingly hard for any artist to make money from their music, half a billion views in a country that doesn’t pay up would be pointless. At least if the majority of those viewers are in parts of the world where there is some potential to capitalise, there should be a positive income. Ideally, those viewers should come from the world’s largest music markets which are (in order) Japan, the USA, Germany, the UK, France, Australia, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands and Brazil.
So that’s where Gangnam Style stands in terms of its own country’s soft power and how it inevitably leads the way for Korean performers to go forth and expand. Finally, let’s assume that instead of Gangnam Style, a rapper in Thailand decides to upload a rather professionally choreographed video clip on YouTube called Silom Style (an area of Bangkok where young people hang out) with similar jests about an urban lifestyle in Bangkok. Firstly, the clip has to be seen by someone who can hopefully spread the word through Facebook or Twitter. Let’s say that person is a well-known celebrity based in the United States. An actor or singer, for example. Assuming that occurs (and I guess it could occur) then the spark created from that person’s endorsement would need to be strong enough to arouse interest. My initial question would be “how likely is it that that person came across a video clip from a Thai rapper?” apart from the fact that it’s a funny video. At a time when the Western world has its eye on the blossoming of Hallyu with intense curiosity and is tapped in to the local trends coming out of Korea right now, wouldn’t it be far more believable that a celebrity comes across a Korean rapper instead?
The song was catapulted to the top position on the Korean charts a few months ago, which would make sense. Home grown music usually becomes a hit on its own turf first. In the same way that a rapper might go to number one in Thailand, wouldn’t it be more likely that the country whose very own government is making leaps and bounds to propel its performers into new territories would attract more attention? K-Pop is hot news right now. Anything that makes it to number one in its own territory and stands out from the crowd is going to become an eye catcher. Multiply that by the fact that a whole army of Korean pop singers is out there promoting themselves all over the world, I see more of an interest in what comes out of South Korea right now. I think Psy is right on the ball by appealing to a worldwide audience that has more time for a funny interpretation of a horse dance than it would have for a band of seriously androgynous band dancers who sing exactly the same as the last band. That doesn’t stand out. Gangnam Style does. The West is still not ready for anime creatures that come to life and sing in broken English.
Psy would be wise to ride the wave of Hallyu and focus on other markets instead of the United States for now. That may sound like I’m incredibly anti-American, given my experience in deterring artists away from the lures and the bright lights of American mega-stardom. No – I say this because unless he can have an absolute say in how he wants to manage his creativity he is going to be forced to succumb to a career of compromises. His next single will be in English, whether he chooses that path or not, and that will be a sad compromise to have to make. The Korean language needs an ambassador like Psy who is not afraid to sing in his own language. He is an excellent and proficient speaker of English and this linguistic skill will result in him having to abandon his Korean lyrics in order to please a new audience. Another parody video will be the death of his career but if he chooses the more creative path of doing what he loves (making music) he will have to conform to the rules of making it in the American music industry. I fear that this could be a classic case of jumping ship – turning his back on the country that made his exposure possible in the first place. The soft power of Hallyu could really do with a strong spokesperson right now who can finally convince the Western World that it’s time for K-Pop.
GANGNAM BRAND
The English speaking world has been no stranger to foreign language music and while it may seem like something occasional that breaks a drought when a song is sung in an unfamiliar tongue, there have been several examples throughout the ages of music recorded in other languages that make their way to the top of the charts. Back in the 1930’s, music charts in the United States were first published by Billboard which was later consolidated into the Billboard Top 100 by the late 1950’s to reflect a diversification of genres and more widely available music technology. This involved a calculation of sales and radio airplay to more accuratel
y determine a song’s level of success and also meant that sales were unlikely if they weren’t being broadcast by radio stations. This formula continued throughout the decades and was undeterred by changing trends in how music was exposed to the public. Prior to the proliferation of social media sites on the Internet, the reality was always the same. If it wasn’t on the radio, it probably wasn’t on the music store shelves.
Not all music in the United Sates that was fortunate to have been given airplay was sung in English though. The growing popularity of television in the 1950’s gave rise to a number of singers and actors who were quite fluent in Italian, whether they were of Italian ancestry in the United States or directly from Italy. Famous crooners, as they were known, such as Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra were successful in putting Italy on the map due to their heritage, but more importantly, because they managed to romanticise the Italian language in their songs and in their own image. Songs like Volare and Mambo Italiano were sung in a mixture of English and Italian on television networks that by the 1950’s were powerful enough to influence the decisions of radio stations and determine which songs would be played. So if film and television were in agreement that all things Italian would attract an audience, the radios inevitably followed. With the endorsement of well-known celebrities singing in Italian on TV screens, a wave had begun.
It wasn’t long before the American media approval of music in Italian opened up opportunities for Italians to make their way across the Atlantic. By 1961, Americans had already been used to Italian chart sensations like Renato Carosone, Domenico Modugno and Emilio Pericoli. Some of their chart toppers became hits for other performers as well. By this time, the English speaking world had also become more inter-connected as American television programmes were frequently sold to other parts of the world, so that a major hit sung in Italian in the United States would eventually find its way to the top of the charts in the United Kingdom or Australia, via its publicity through taped music shows or variety shows. If we look back at how millions of people in these countries were compelled to buy music sung in Italian, we should probably consider three main attributes.
Firstly, the American population in the 1950’s was already a melting pot of many ethnicities and Italian Americans were starting to make inroads into many fields of American popular culture. They were mainly second and third generation Americans of Italian ancestry and were able to forge a niche in films that usually had an Italian theme, whether it was about the life of a famous tenor or a gangster. Typecasting was the norm but it helped propel the careers of many an actor. Projecting this Italian image onto the big screen, whether it was in a positive or negative light, was beneficial in promoting the Italian language as romantic and exotic. Its natural transgression from film to music enabled its popularity across the airwaves and eventually into the living rooms of families across the country.
So while it made perfect sense that a popularised tune in a movie made its way onto vinyl, movie directors first needed to cast suitable actors and actresses to portray such characters and also to create plots for movies that would captivate an audience. Choosing Italy as a setting was a fairly obvious choice in a country where many people identified with that part of the world as their motherland and where others knew of it as a land rich in classical music, art, opera and cuisine. Also, America had already forged its own unique Italian culture in urban centres like New York City and Chicago, which added to the repertoire of Italian stories to tell. American born Italians often played these parts in highly commercialised movies that were exported across the globe, thus endorsing the language of their forefathers to a new audience of not exactly naïve moviegoers, but lukewarm nonetheless, for they had no doubt already been exposed to some form of Italian culture through any of the other media, from classical music to opera of generations before.
Secondly, these same successful celebrities in the 1950’s were starting to display their new found wealth through international travel. Whether they were of an Italian background or not, Italy became a part of the jet-setter’s itinerary and no stopover in Milan or Florence was complete without picking up the latest designs from Gucci or Ferragamo. A photo of a movie star stepping off a plane wearing anything Italian soon attracted the attention of paparazzi who would sell their pictures to magazines and in effect, turn those products into household names. Once again, the movie stars and singers of this era were in part responsible for further endorsing the Italian language through the glamour of their own lifestyles, aspired by millions of magazine readers who were now becoming exposed to the Italian language twofold – on the cinema screens and in shopping centres.
Finally, Italian as a language was able to make its way into chart topping singles by its own brand name, based on centuries of history that included the likes of famous inventors such as Leonardo da Vinci or artists such as Michelangelo. While trendsetters in the film and music industry were giving the language a boost via the clothes they were wearing and the characters they were portraying in movies, Italian as a culture was already well positioned as a frontrunner in being recorded in music simply by its track record as being a highly respected culture that pre-dated any English speaking empire. Despite the unfortunate circumstances that led to the Italian diaspora as a result of war and poverty, Italians who landed on foreign shores were always aware of their country’s proud history of innovation and creativity. In their eyes, they had been created from a civilization far superior to anything else in history. It’s not as if a brand name had to be created from scratch.
The relationship between the United States and Italy is a complementary one, so that while American actors were arriving in Italy with a thirst for Italian designer labels, there existed a deep fascination of all things American amongst Italians who had no doubt heard stories from relatives living there or from their already exposure via the cinema, without forgetting that only a decade or so earlier, Americans had arrived in their thousands to save Italy from the catastrophes of war. This fascination often resulted in a plethora of ideas, ranging from Spaghetti Westerns (a sub-genre of cowboy movies made in Italy on a budget) to the branching out of Italian fashion houses in New York City, thus firmly planting that city on the map of major fashion capitals. All this happened at the same time as the Italian wave of music in the late 1950’s and both countries have enjoyed a mutual bond ever since.
The end of the Second World War had also placed the United States in the enviable position of being the leader of the free world and the ever growing threat from the Soviet Union meant that both sides needed to come up with a plan to build better relationships with allies and potential foes. Diplomacy was not just political or military, it also involved cultural aspects. The introduction of music from that culture helped to persuade countries how to choose sides. It would have been difficult for a government to turn its back on the United States if half of its own population was busy listening to imported jazz records or lining up for a hot dog. While the Italian segment of America’s population may not necessarily be the majority, its descendants are definitely responsible for introducing Italian culture to the rest of the world. Whether through the introduction of pizza and pasta or the exposure of Italian crooners of the 1950’s – it was more likely that the Americans had more to do with a growing trend in pizzerias in Japan or a more acquired taste of Italian music in Taiwan than the influence that actually came from Italy, the motherland. Through no fault of its own, America has for long been a catapult of music and other forms of culture to the rest of the world from its diverse population that has ancestral roots all over the planet to its usage of soft power, as it is known, to maintain a global alliance.
So does the Korean language fare well against the brand name of Italian as a language that fits comfortably into music? Let’s go back again to the same period when both languages had an equal chance of gaining an audience in the United States – the trendsetter of global music and the place where a number one hit could be resonated across the world. Let’s go ba
ck to the 1950’s which of course was a different place for Korea at that time, for it was a decade that is marked by a war that is still officially not at an end and the beginning of a period that drew a line in the history of Korea as a nation by dividing it into the communist North and the capitalist South. The start of the Korean War in 1950 was a proxy war fought mainly between the NATO allies headed by the United States and the Soviets (but later replaced by China when the Soviet Union took more of a back seat). As a result of American involvement in the war, Korean culture was suddenly introduced to Americans via the tales of returning military personnel. Sadly, the reasons for acquiring a taste of the Korean language were in total contrast to the majority of people who had been exposed to the Italian language through cinema and fashion.
The stalemate of the Korean War left both sides of the DMZ (Demilitarized Military Zone) in tatters. The South was in a better position to brush off its war torn image and it set about a path for its reconstruction. In the late 1950’s, while the war was still fresh in the minds of many Americans (particularly those who had served in Korea during the war), a singing trio by the name of The Kim Sisters left their homeland in search of a better future and arrived in Los Angeles in 1958, where they were then taken to Las Vegas to perform at the Thunderbird until their contract finished and were consequently signed up by another local establishment called the Stardust Hotel. Their initial success was no doubt supported by many Americans who had fond memories of bars on military bases in Korea where they would at times be exposed to local performers whose jobs were to entertain the troops. These performers always sang in English in a musical genre that suited American tastes. Not surprisingly, The Kim Sisters fell under this category of performers and by 1959 they were spotted by Ed Sullivan, who invited them to perform on his television show.
At around the same time, Patti Kim was performing at a US military base in South Korea and by 1963 she was also snapped up by Las Vegas to become yet another Korean recruit for American entrepreneurs who had heard her voice when they were deployed to Korea for duty. The exposure that these veterans had had with Korean singers opened a small gate for a selected few to break into a niche market in the world’s largest economy. However, their songs were all in English as there was no real demand for an emerging genre of Korean rock and roll or to that matter, any other type of music sung in Korean. This is contrary to the Italian chart toppers of the same decade – sung in a language that seemed to easily roll off the tongue, like a generous serving of lasagna or fettuccini. Unlike the Italian music of the same era, these new arrivals to America had no cultural back-up at all. No major fashion labels to set a trend, no movie coverage with the exception of the war as a theme and not much of a Korean community in America at the time. All in all, not a very positive start.
Despite the growing popularity of The Kim Sisters, who had become regulars on the Ed Sullivan Show – a variety show that attracted an average of twelve million viewers during their appearances – their songs were never to become huge hits in terms of record sales, though it was claimed that they were making around US$13,000 per episode. They appeared on the show no fewer than 22 times so that’s quite a hefty income, though not a huge breakthrough in paving the way for other Korean artists. By the early sixties, the memories of the Korean War were beginning to wane due to other compelling distractions in the Cold War and in 1963, out of nowhere, an unknown Japanese singer by the name of Kyu Sakamoto had his first number one hit outside Japan with a song titled Sukiyaki. Not only was it a miracle that someone could be plucked from Japan to have an instant hit in the United Kingdom, followed by continued success in the United States, it was sung entirely in Japanese. To this date it remains as the only Japanese song to appear in the Billboard Top 40 with the exception of a disco duo in 1979 called Pink Lady that released a song in English. Technically, there have been other Japanese artists to have infiltrated the charts of Anglophone countries but they too have been sung in English. Examples include Sandii and the Sunsetz (a top 20 hit in Australia in 1984) and Yellow Magic Orchestra, which had a top 20 hit in the United Kingdom in 1978. A more extensive list would include Yoko Ono, Ryuchi Sakamoto and Cibo Matto – all of which have had hits in English, not in Japanese.
Over the whole period since Billboard first started distributing its weekly charts reports, Asian acts haven’t made much of a mark on the American psyche. Still, a number one song in Japanese is enough to leave something of a linguistic legacy. Aficionados of the song will know Sukiyaki more by its Japanese name, Ue o Mite Aruko, and even those of us who were not around in 1963 and who might not be able to recall the tune, will instantly be reminded of it within seconds of hearing it. This song is unparalleled as being the unofficial Japanese anthem that has done more for the Japanese language outside Asia than anything released by the other aforementioned Japanese artists. Compare this with the impact of Korean music from a linguistic angle and it is clear that there is still some way to go before a Korean performer can claim to have influenced an audience to learn the Korean language.