Bi Curious

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

CALLING ALL K-POP-O-PHILES! I need to know - for work purposes (no honest) - about the Korean pop sensation Bi aka Rain. I don't really need to know if he's any good or not (though curiosity makes me want to hear an MP3 or two) - what I would like is a take on why young men might admire him or name him as a role model.

All speculation gratefully received!

Comments

[cis.livejournal.com]

He was in the TIME 100 most influential people, wasn't he! good on you, Rain.

My general sense of South Korea is that its international identity is something like "North Korea's neighbour", "place producing less-shonky goods that is not Japan", "the country where people game so hard they die" - not much of a profile, really (if you ranked the east asian countries in terms of 'how many facs people know about them', it would probably come last). For a long time, it exported the least cultural product of any capitalist east asian nation - had a culture indutry that basically looked inward as far as its own productions went, while undergoing japan's soft-power onslaught (though i did read the other day that some ban on one kind of cultural imports from japan had been lifted in 2000? can't remember which, is the problem. anyway, black markets. korean kids definitely grow up on manga as well as manhwa). And then, in about 2001, you had the first korea boom, with k-pop shifting units in japan of all places, exporting korean artists to the (huge, lucrative) japanese market (BoA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoA) is the original case in point - they all sing in japanese obv); then the k-drama boom (e.g. winter sonata (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Sonata)) across Asia (also south america perhaps); then the k-film boom in international markets, if mostly focused on body horror. This, some five years after the height of Korea's economic boom (it did the same trick as japan had, in half the time, as far as I remember). I think there's a lot of national pride invested in the export of Korean pop culture. And Rain's the current best example of this - he's doing well in Japan (as BoA has, and a couple of serious young men with pianos, and not that many besides), and not only that, he's done concerts at Madison Square Gardens, which seems to suggest that he'll break America, which is unimaginable, the stuff of dreams. No Japanese artist has managed to do well in the US! Just imagine if a Korean one got there first! American success would be the ultimate legitimation of Korean cultural product. Being named in TIME is pretty legitimating: he is putting Korea on the cultural map, making Korea known (or so it feels) for something positive, for its talent and its youth and its success.

Also, he's a good dancer.

music is pretty standard AZN rnb; if you can youtube, some of his japanese singles:
move on (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5A7dX7YJMM) (ballad)
sad tango (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIGnY3Jt-V8) (i quite like this one!)
free way (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2NPVly5xVs) (why u copy 'rock yr body' video?)
& i think this one was a korean single: it's raining (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMZbf6B24Lw)

From genie22

[(Anonymous)]

Rain is wicked - he's like a Natural-era Peter Andre who can dance to the beat. His fast songs are befitting of any good boyband and his slow ones befitting of a crap one.

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

What kind of job involves researching Korean pop stars? Can I be your apprentice?