Riding the K-Wave

With Se7en, there was a whole different bag of mistakes. They took an Asian star, who was well known in Korea and Japan, and tried to bring him here without establishing his fan base here at all. BoA at least had held concerts and fan meets before, but Se7en just suddenly released his song Girls and then disappeared. With his transition to the U.S. market they focused on the hip-hop side of his style. But they put too much emphasis on just that. And they released the music video on BET, which is hardly the best place to reach the right audience. I’m not saying they should direct the Korean artists at purely Asian audiences, but find the right people who are interested in listening to pop music that has little urban influence. 

My hopes with YB is that their new manager and their new PR agent take them to places no Korean act has seen before. PSY’s fame in the United States was, let’s face it, accidental. It was great, but he never intended to suddenly be known in every household around the world. He then had to work to retain that level of attention, he had to turn accident into circumstance.

But YB have a chance to make a debut that means something. If they do it right, they can retain the devotion of their current fans as well as gain the support of new fans countrywide. If anyone can do it, it’s YB. Just as long as they stay true to their own musical style and don’t change just to fit into a mold that some American music exec thinks they should, they could actually make it all the way.

 

Jenna

Part-time student, full-time media whore, fan of all things Asian.

3 Responses

  1. amy says:

    BoA’s Eat You Up in the Cha Eun Taek version is the only BoA song that I like to listen from time to time. I think the choreography is rocking in it. In theory, I suppose… they thought Diane Martel is more known (she did Aguilera’s What a Girl Want… and possibly Genie in a Bottle… and may have directed Britney too) than Cha Eun Taek.

    • Jenna says:

      @amy, Yeah, it was a good theory, just didn’t pan out sadly. I think by the time this video came out the pop audience was ready for something completely different from Diane’s style.

      • amy says:

        @Jenna, I think it may have been a budget thing. I supposed $100K USD in Korea is a lot more than $100K in the US. I doubt Martel (at the time) was used to this type of tiny budget.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.