Without a doubt, by far the worst form of "
music" ever created.
Korean pop oozed out of the slimy aftershock of
Cantopop. Formerly a mindless
duplicate of the
Hong Kong style, nowadays they draw from such diverse sources as
Aaron Kwok,
Leslie Cheung,
Andy Lau, the
Backstreeet Boys,
N-Sync,
Britney Spears and various types of low-brow
MTV rap.
Korean pop is utterly formulaic, abandoning what little traces of
creativity that existed in
Cantopop.
These musicians are chosen more for their looks than musical abilities. Korean pop has further devolved from the sugary love songs of Cantopop to the current fad, rap-dance pop hits. You don't "listen" to Korean pop. You watch it. Korean MTV is filled with piles upon piles of dance videos. The lyrics are totally nonsensical, its the beat that's important, for it provides the dance steps. Hence the chigger obsession with Dance Dance Revolution, but I digress.
Korean pop all sounds the same. The various musicians all sound the same. There is no variety of themes, lyrics or anything. The suits, sitting in their big corporate offices in Seoul, designed it that way. While crowds of Korean teeny boppers fawn over the dancers (I refuse to call them musicians), buy all the videos and merchandise, they are sitting in their offices laughing their heads off. At the same time, the raging hormones of Korean guys compel them to buy soft porn spreads of the girl bands. Music? I won't be surprised if it was all lip-synced. Sound familiar? Milli Vanilli, anyone?
From the pseudo-male members of the Korean boy bands (trust me, they seriously look female with their ridiculous hair and makeup) to the schoolgirl fetish girl bands, Korean pop embodies everything that is wrong with music today. As a musician myself, I cannot believe anyone can fall for this kind of pop culture junk.