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![kangnam i can hear your voice kangnam i can hear your voice](https://thefangirlverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/i-hear-your-voice-206.png)
Like almost everything else in the Korean economy, the music industry desperately needs deconcentration and innovation. Instead, it’s hideous, so-repetitive-I-can’t-even-tell-the-difference-anymore, synth-pop even Duran Duran would be embarrassed to release, all controlled by corporate hacks with no interest in deviation and who are persistently rumored to sexually exploit their young charges. Korea desperately, desperately needs to de-MTV-ize/de-idol-ize its music scene and get some raging, slovenly, desperado-rockers like Meatloaf or Janis Joplin who care about music instead of bling. Huge props here go to Busan Haps magazine for promoting far more authentic Korean rock that goes unfortunately unnoticed. Mix Munedo and the Kardashians in the Korean language, and you get K-pop. None of them can play an instrument they are recruited solely because they’re hot, and the music-machine does the rest. The hair, the synched dance-moves, the gratingly cutesy presentations, the insipid teen love-story lyrics – it’s awful.
![kangnam i can hear your voice kangnam i can hear your voice](https://64.media.tumblr.com/ad1df6d31cfe4a08bebff4b5b65decf1/tumblr_inline_p9pgog0cSQ1sbyymn_500.png)
K-pop slavishly copies from the boy-band/girl-band model that began in the US 20 years ago and crossed-over to Japan. ( Try it yourself tell me how long before you cringe.) None of these carbon-copy bands like the Wonder Girls or Girls Generation or whatever would even get considered for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (I’m from Cleveland, so I thought I’d add that little plug). That alone is enough to value it, given how shallow, idiotic, and pre-packaged almost all Korean pop is otherwise. Thank god ‘Kangnam Style’ shows a level of irony, self-awareness, humor, and creativity that K-pop normally lacks. But I keep getting asked, and it is huge hit, so here a few thoughts:ġ. I try to avoid K-pop on my website, because I find far too many foreigner websites in Korea focus on the silliest, shallowest elements of what is around us – probably because the language is so hard, Korean pop culture is the easiest for us to understand. Yeah, it’s pretty hysterical, especially when you get the underlying social critique