Probably everyone notice recent nagging about that k-pop doesn’t sound the same like in the past. From what I notice generally there are two schools: one which claim it’s not truth and these opinions are effect of nostalgia of older fans and second which blame “westernization”.
I personally agree that something has started to change in the k-pop sound but I see reasons behind that somewhere else. Simply “western” sounding song show more clearly change in recording and production philosophy in k-pop. That’s why people think it’s because of “westernization”despite fact that foreign producers were working for k-pop companies pretty much from the beginning of genre.
I would start from good change: average quality of production rose. Thanks to k-pop boom in late 2010s (which probably peaked around 2022-2023) many smaller companies got investment letting them to work with good producers and music engineers. We can say that symbol of that should be Cupid’s success but already debutant EP of Fifty fifty was shockingly well produced what many people spotted before their song went viral.
But despite rise of quality there was something significant which started to disappear from k-pop productions. And that is artistic input of idols during recording. It’s pretty ironical because we hear non-stop about more deep involvement of idols into production. There are much more self-producing, being involved into writing lyrics by idols etc.,etc. But when you listen to groups albums, you hear something contrary: it’s very hard (especially to non fans) to distinguish who sing/rap what. Okay someone would say that it was always a thing of some groups. And that’s truth but still in the past even such groups had few pretty characteristic whatever artistic or tone wise members who were clearly core of their production and where reason behind their “sound”. Right now many younger groups don’t have it and some seniors group sound like they lost it this characteristic element.
So what caused this change? Well, simple answer is shortcuts on many levels of producting.
Longer:
Frstly change in planning group. In recent years we had multiple debuts and many come from big companies. There is no way that you can make k-pop group without shortcuts if you cut time of making group from let’s say from 5 years to 3 something has to be sacrificed. Especially that pool of trainees naturally become smaller because of enormous competition between companies. And what is sacrificed is firstly tone balance between members and probably their artistic individuality (in case of groups bigger than 4-5).
BigBang Daeaung said once that when 2nd generation idols debuted they thought that they would be in the groups for few years and go solo. But today in case of big companies it is financially lucrative for both sides to keep going beyond 7 years. So from perspective of business logic: does k-pop group really need member with big solo potential? Does someone like that become a bit more threat than lacking element to their business model? It’s easy to scout Korean teenager who wants to solo artist to be a idol right now?
And today everyone is touring definitely more than in the past (especially in case of GG change is drastic), some groups tour almost non stop. Do idols have time to spend more time in studio than simply recording finale version of song what we often see in this bts of recording videos? I don’t think so, they don’t work much directly with producers apart pre-debut. It’s already pretty hard to make well tailored album for absent solo singer (still not impossible what best proof is Britney Spears Blackout) but for the group when you have to take into account couple of individuals? And k-pop groups already release albums much more often than average artist.
But there is good shortcuts which is called in colloquial speech: autotune. You can adjust voices to sound similar. You can as well force idols to sing in the style which producers want and not necessary suit tone or artistic temperament of idol. Because it’s better for company to bend song to producers’ will than do many different takes with idols who could do cfs at that time.
This way songs are much more approachable for general listeners. Because the beat is trendy and everything sounds like done by one person and familiar. But what disappear is uniqueness and distinguishable of sound of the group.
And today taking shortcuts is much more practical choice because live singing has been minimalized in k-pop industry. Pretty much for rookies the only serious threat are encores which become rarer as again touring. So producers can less care whatever idols would be ever capable to sound the same live like in the recording. As they can never perform it live in reality.
So why it’s more obvious in songs with more English. Because non English natives are often more “autotuned” to make their pronunciations sound more “English” like. That’s why mentioned by me changes become easier to spot in such productions. But there are still few groups in the market which has luxury to actually work in the studio with often in house producers. And you can clearly hear that their even fully English songs don’t necessary sound so “western”. Because even song with English can be well adjusted to members if their English pronunciation is not bad.
submitted by /u/mio26
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