Again, this is not a rant, but I don’t think it fits thought either because this is a grievance. Anyways, let me begin….
I do not understand K-pop stans who say K-pop is becoming westernized. Kpop has ALWAYS been westernized. 1st gen kpop groups like Seo Taeji and the boys, H.O.T, S.E.S, BabyVox, etc(I’m a 4th and 5th gen stan so to be honest I do not know much about 1st gen besides the basics) were inspired by western music genres and aesthetics so the very base of kpop has always been western. It’s just pop but with Korean lyrics.
Maybe it’s the prevalence of English. There’s more English lyrics than Korean lyrics, apparently, so it’s not very kpopy. I don’t get that complaint because most K-pop songs are Korean. I feel like only the songs that are meant to gain popularity are very English based.
Maybe it’s the English version s or completely English songs.We barely get English versions of songs. If we do get English versions, it’s only for popular songs( off topic but the English version of XO and HWAA were banging! Gidles english versions always eat). We also barely get English songs. BTS only has 4 out of like 250 songs(I’ve only listened to 3. Butter, Dynamite, and Permission to Dance. I didn’t like Permission to Dance but Butter and Dynamite are bops) and they got tons of unwarranted hate. I know Twice has one completely English song, The Feels. A few other groups have some( I saw a post on here with someone basically, like calculating how many English songs groups have. Check out that post, which is very insightful) Basically I’m trying to say English versions and songs are rare.
The only complaint I agree with is the misuse of AAVE and like terrible kpop raps( wtf is “you gon finna catch me”, “all my hood unnies”, or like “you not even gang”😭) most kpop rappers are just decent or below average. I wouldn’t say anybody is TERRIBLE, but there’s room for improvement. BTS, SKZ, Ateezs’ raplines, Mark Lee, Taeyong, and Soyeon can rap amazingly for K-pop. I agree with the opinion(idk if it’s popular or not) that the rapper position is kinda just given to a member that doesn’t really fit in any position or like it’s an afterthought. Most K-pop groups don’t need raps or raps.
In conclusion, I do not believe K-pop is becoming westernized, like at all, because it’s always been westernized. The English heavy songs are mostly just songs that are designed to be popular/ played on tiktok. English versions/songs are actually pretty rare once you look at the amount of them over the whole discography. Although, K-pop raps can be very cringy to listen to sometimes because of the misuse of AAVE( or just terrible lyrics. I mean, mostly English raps, Korean ones are fine. I’m no expert in Korean)
I would argue what makes K-pop….KPOP is not the music, but the fan culture. Kpop has a very unique fan culture, and that’s a whole other post to make.
Thank you to everyone who took time out of their day to read this post. I love sharing my thoughts, and as always, I’d like this to be a discussion, so give me YOUR thoughts on this topic if you have any❤️
EDIT!!: ignore the first few sentences of this post. I was originally gonna post this somewhere else but I have negative karma😅
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