In the last few years, I've occasionally come across metalheads who are also fans of Korean pop music (K-pop). So I'm starting this thread for us who enjoy both "genres" and want to discuss it. Granted, I think most metalheads' reaction to K-pop would be "this isn't real music, they're not even real artists", etc. But I know there are people like myself who can really appreciate it along with other forms of Korean music. So for example, when did you start listening to K-pop? What are some of your favorite artists? I'm curious to see what you guys have to share regarding this topic.

I can appreciate it in the same sense I can appreciate any genre of music or medium of art... but I definitely don't like it. Most Asian pop music (that I've heard) has something about it that really aggravates me.

I'm not terribly knowledgeable on the subject, and I definitely don't like the mainstream visible groups, but the indie scene has some nice stuff in it. I've always enjoyed Taru (타루) and Misty Blue. Very soothing and relaxing music.

Yeah, the indie scene there is amazing, that's for sure. Taru is also one that I really enjoy. But there are actually a lot of underappreciated pop artists. For example, Nell and Lim Kim are two of my favorite artists, but both can be considered "indie" and "pop" to some extent.

It's not a genre in which I dug onto really too much. Bands such as SNSD or another similar ones are totally impossible to be heard, in my opinion, because their music is highly annoying...
The only K-pop band that I like is Apink, it is an all-female band, and it sounds pretty good. They also don't have that kind of outfit in order to look hot and horny, what does not happen with most girl groups nowadays.

Speaking about asian pop in general, I must say that J-pop is amazing and have really talented artists. Some even sing or perform in the soundtrack of anime shows. For example, the duo with Minami Takayama and Nana Mizuki in the song "Gyakkou no Flugel", on the anime "Senki Zesshou Symphogear" is awesome as fuck.
Cambodian pop also features lots of nifty performances. Sinn Sisamouth is a great singer and my favourite artist of the genre.

Have you heard any of SNSD's ballads? Pretty beautiful stuff, in my opinion. Their leader Taeyeon has a great voice. She's even a solo artist now.


You do know a lot of K-pop artists do that as well, right? For example: BoA, TVXQ, 2PM, Younha, Apink, Boyfriend, Secret, MBLAQ, FTISLAND, CNBLUE, U-KISS, J-Min, etc. After all, it is quite common for K-pop artists to make music in Japanese as well. In fact, the girl group Kara even had their own 5-episode anime series back in 2013.

This, basically. I have two friends who love this stuff, what with them being sisters and the older one introducing the younger one to it at a pretty young age. They've explained to me the inner workings of the scene and the sheer amount of work that goes into preparing choreographies and stuff, which I can respect, but the music itself is insufferable.

I consider the Korean act Jaurim to be one of the best straight-up rock & roll bands on an international scale of the past 20 years, maybe the best full-stop considering the state of general rock these days. Their singer (who also plays the keyboards) is supremely talented and versatile, the musicians play at a professional level and I like how each of their albums possess different overall moods. Love that gang.

As for Kpop, 15 years ago I was into this techno princess named Lee Jung Hyun. Her first four albums were pretty cool at the time with no syrupy ballads unlike most shit that was out back in the late 90's/early 00's.

Mostly I can't stand it. Every once in a while there's a vaguely catchy song but most of it's really irritating. I also just find it really strange how the music is so incredibly disposable - the fandom seems to care way more about the fashion, the relationships between members, marketing stuff, label disputes, etc. than any of the music.

There's actually not really much of a real indie scene in Korea, either. There are small scenes in the bigger cities but when most people talk about Korean "indie" it's just a type of mainstream soft rock or pop music that differs from the idol groups in general approach, but it's still highly manufactured, commercial stuff.

Short version: modern Korean music is the worst. I wish more young people here were into gugak because that shit's cool:



I'll take that over plastic surgery coordinated dancing fifty member soulless assembly line fast food pop any day.

My ex is way way waaaaaay into this shit. And man, it's just...so bad. So bad.

Living in Korea for nearly 10 months now, you can't escape K-pop. I heard it back when I was in the army and it's catchy as shit but retarded as fuck. Still, I do like a few overall strong albums and a plethora of songs. Most of it is pretty dogshit, though. iamntbatman knows, he's been here longer than me.

Some songs make me want to blow my brains out they're so annoying. Count how many times you hear those fake twinkly effects. Can't even enjoy the women cause the vast majority of them surgically alter their face to they-don't-look-like-the-same-person-anymore levels.

And I am a big SNSD fan. Fight me.

So, the majority opinion here is that K-pop is utter shit and not worth listening to. Can't say I should have expected anything less.
Then again, I find it amusing how people can say it's "insufferable" while also listening to stuff like death metal which essentially pummels your ears. I mean, I love that too, but damn, just put that in perspective. And also the need to bring in fandom problems to make an argument more valid...yeah, because it's not like the metal community has any reoccurring problems. But whatever, I still love K-pop nonetheless. I can also assure that a lot (if not most) K-pop fans don't like metal music whatsoever. I guess I really underestimated how different each genre is and how rare it is to find people who truly enjoy both of them.

Excuse me?!

I wasn't being serious. I myself am a big death metal fan. I'm sorry if that came off as rude.

Even though not every genre of music is for me, I can definitely respect any genre where the fans truly love the music, which I think is fair to say is true of almost every style with passionate fanbases. Yeah, peripheral stuff can be interesting and even really important to the experience of the subculture, but I've never witnessed any music style where the marketing and commercial aspects take such massive precedence over any part of the musical content as K-Pop. It basically makes me think of those parts of 1984 where they talk about auto-generated machine music designed to be as least-common-denominator enjoyable as possible using some wretched Facebookian social worth algorithm or something.

Rude? No, mate. Bizarre? Very. Just listened to a couple of songs - not sure how representative but hey - out of curiosity. You don't want to hear what I think, though.


This is some of the most dissonant music I've ever heard. Intriguing.

That 2NE1 song that was on a Microsoft commercial was so maddeningly catchy that I wound up checking the music video, which made me realize all of the girls were completely adorable (even the scary one in a frighteningly arousing way), which made me check out the rest of their songs, which made me realize I hated everything else.

It's shallow marketable stuff, which means I won't like basically all of it except for something that just completely transcends catchiness. Just like with American pop music.

For anyone interested (and the fact that I'm doing this out of boredom), here's a list of a few songs considered K-pop that I personally really enjoy and feel like sharing.

Seo Taiji & Boys - 난 알아요 (1992)
Kim Jong-seo - Epilogue (1998)
Shin Hae-chul - 일상으로의 초대 (1998)
Lee Jung-hyun - 바꿔 (1999)
Koyote - 파란 (2000)
H.O.T - Outside Castle (2000)
Nell - 믿어선 안될 말 (2003)
TVXQ - Rising Sun (2005)
Epik High - Fan (2007)
Brown Eyed Girls - Sixth Sense (2011)
B.A.P - Power (2012)
Lim Kim - Rain (2013)
VIXX - Voodoo Doll (2013)
Kim Jae-joong - Mine (2013)
Seo Taiji - Christmalo.win (2014)
Topp Dogg - Arario (2014)
Akdong Musician - Melted (2014)
BTS - Danger (2014)
Lee Seung-hwan - 내게만 일어나는 일 (2014)
Park Hyo-shin - Wild Flower (2014)
IU - 소격동 (2014)
2BiC - Walk Backward (2014)
Spica - You Don't Love Me (2014)
Jung-mo of TRAX - 광화문에서 (Kyuhyun cover) (2014)
Lee Michelle - Without You (2014)
Im Chang-jung - Love Again (2015)
Oh My Girl - Closer (2015)
Ladies' Code - Galaxy (2016)

Everyone has different tastes. Even world know it.

I have friend who 80% likes K-pop. And I respect them.
But the 'main' problem is vice versa, they didn't respect me as metalhead, they said K-pop is better. I don't know why what magic make them screaming like a zombies when at gigs, and make them disrespect to other. I called them poser music, worse than other posers.

Its very rare for me to see metalhead like k-pop as he likes metal music.

Ok, you're not one of them, cause you belong here. Respect.

2NE1 are bust. All those girls are CRAZY hot too. and they have "I am the Best" which is so fucking dope. everything else is eh.

Oh yeah, it's annoying when people only like one type of music and slander everything else. Both metal and k-pop really mean a lot to me, as I listen to them (along with other genres) on a daily basis. Music is extremely important to me, but it's not easy to find people who are as open-minded in that regard. Either they say metal is "just noise" or kpop is "soulless trash" without doing any prior research before criticizing it.

It should be worth noting how cultural differences can come into play. For example, western people usually associate boy/girl groups (i.e Backstreet Boys or Spice Girls) as having only 4-5 members. But in k-pop, there are groups that reach up to 11-12, and at one point there was a group called Apeace which had a record-breaking 21 members. And no, it really doesn't go any further than that, although there's a Japanese group called AKB48 with 100+ members. So one may ask: why so many members? Well, in the case of AKB48, it's so they can perform in different locations at the same time, as they are divided in separate units. As for k-pop, it basically comes down to teamwork and the visual aspect. Seriously, even when a solo artist or duo is performing, it's very common to include back-up dancers. Don't wanna have a largely empty stage, y'know. It's nice seeing so many people in sync with each other. Bottom line, the amount of members in a group doesn't matter as long as they can work well together.

Both metal and k-pop usually get the accusation of "it all sounds the same", but I'm sure most of you would agree there is a LOT of variety and experimentation within metal. But to be fair, the same applies to k-pop. Sure, in the end, it's pop music, but that doesn't mean everything sounds the same. Different styles are incorporated, like folk, new jack swing, disco, r&b, hip-hop, dubstep, rock, jazz, house, etc. In fact, even though this is a country-specific genre (though more or less an umbrella term), they also make use of other languages like English, Japanese or Mandarin. That gives it a broader appeal. And that's what it comes down to: it's meant to have public appeal, which was certainly not what the black metal scene was aiming for back in the day. They have different things to value, and I've grown to deeply appreciate them.

Welp, ended up rambling a bit there. Sorry about that.

CL makes Iggy Azalea sound as racially aware as Immortal Technique.


What's up with the black cultural appropriation permeating so much of the current K-POP?

That's more or less a matter of the Korean society as a whole and how it's portrayed in media. After all, this isn't anything new. One cay say that k-pop in the 90's had cultural approriation with all the hip-hop influence, which can be traced back to how the Americans were a big help during the Korean war and were treated as heroes. So naturally a lot of people looked up to them and discovered their music. Though obviously this is also an issue outside of South Korea, and it can be a very sensitive topic for some. But really, things like this shouldn't hold back one's enjoyment of music. Just think about all the NSBM bands we have here (many of which I personally enjoy based on musicality).

Because Korea is super, super racist, especially toward black people.

Also that stupid "Pick Me Up" group had 100 members.



PIG ME, PIG ME, PIG ME UP
PYGMY, PYGMY, PYGMY, YUP

That fucking song


Also, this Simon song I hear in public really makes me want to obliterate Korea.



"Simon
Simon Dominic
Simon D-O-M
I
N-I-C OH OH"

Trashing Kpop, yet listening to 미쓰에이 “Love Alone” .

My eyes and ears are burning. Holy fuck.

To be fair, that was only for a survival show where trainess from different companies were eliminated one by one, leaving 11 of them to form I.O.I. And for the record, yeah, I don't really like Pick Me either. It is quite annoying.

Even AKB48 cant handle more than 100 members when performs.
So this is annoying.

I respect people who listen to what they want to listen to, but geez that gives me a headache! I really don't like any pop music, I think it's garbage, let's see your KPop and Justin Bieber hold up to good acts like Exhumed, Morbid Angel, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, Death Angel, or Allegaeon! For now, this is an exact simulation of what KPop and modern Pop fans look like after you play them metal!

Pop music is pretty hit and miss for me. When it comes to Korean pop music, I like several songs, but many are also trash. I'd say it's a guilty pleasure thing as a whole. Something I listen to when I'm doing something else such as reading manga or just browsing the internet. My musical taste is a bit all over the place these days, and I guess if someone put my songs on shuffle, they'd be like "WTF" if a 2NE1 song came after a Bolt Thrower one.

I think I prefer j-pop overall. It's less over the top and overtly produced, from my experience.

When I was still in school K pop was pretty popular and you'd see it pop up a lot on people's Facebook walls, but I didn't really take much notice. All I was thinking at the time is how a ticket to an SNSD concert can be $250 and a ticket to a local metal gig is $15 so I know which I am more likely to attend.

After school I had to join the army for 2 years (all Singaporean guys do) and many people had songs as ringtones, or just chatted over new music videos during spare time. The army camps being what they are, most chatter revolves around the dances, outfits and basically girls. But I explored out of curiosity, and found out I liked some of the groups. Fast forward a few more years to now and I do like a couple of K pop groups, although I don't actively find new ones to explore, kinda sticking to a small number I'm familiar with and just enjoying those.




Pretty large list, maybe I'll look into some of them. Have you heard anything from Nine Muses, T-ara or Stellar yet?

This has to be the most positive response I've gotten out of this thread, so thank you for that.


Yes. In fact, recently I've been supporting Stellar with their new single "Cry". Sadly they didn't crack the top 3 on The Show today, despite ending up at #2 on Tudou where I voted for hours. But yeah, I listen to a lot of different artists, and I make sure to support them directly if possible. Again, thank you for being so positive.

I never really understood why people will specifically bunch Korean Pop into one category. Metal doesn't splice up its genres into 'Norweign Metal,' 'Swedish Metal,' 'German Metal,' and things like that. What if people ran around calling Rammstein G-Metal? That would be stupid. So why do people do it with Korean pop? It isn't too different from J-Pop or any other Pop from Asia. Strange that Japan and Korea get these special categories for their music, very strange.

Funny enough, there was actually a boy group in the early 2000's called K-pop. Once the term became commonly used to describe Korean pop music as a whole, the group faded into obscurity. Anyway, it's just an umbrella term. Like when people say "I'm listening to metal", we all know that "metal" in itself isn't a specific genre, but rather an umbrella term for many different kinds of metal. So when people do say "Norwegian Metal", they're just being ambiguous without having to explain the exact music style. But when it comes to country-specific music, a lot of people tend to agree that Norwegian black metal is unique when compared to black metal from other countries. In the same way, a lot of people find differences in K-pop and J-pop. On the other hand, we have the Visual Kei scene in Japan, which doesn't stand for a specific genre, but rather the aesthetic it encompasses.

This does make sense. In metal we do talk about things like Swedish death metal, the characteristic buzzsaw guitar tone and the HM-2 pedal that replicates it, because the sound and style of the bands that fall into the categorisation have similar traits (the guitar tone, maybe certain riffing patterns etc.). We do group bands like Darkthrone, Mayhem, Burzum and Emperor together as Norwegian BM (although since they did appear in the similar time period as 2nd wave of BM this might count for something) and then contrast them with groups like Enslaved, Bathory, Dissection and Watain as Swedish BM.

I can't comment on how K-pop differs from J-pop and Mando pop (the Chinese equivalent, mando being short for Mandarin) apart from language used since I don't know a lot about any of the three, but I suppose you could say something along the lines of "they do use similar things like drum-bass, certain sound effects etc, but they are from different countries and the language they use for the lyrics is accordingly different". Some exceptions exist though; for example some Kpop groups will produce the same song with both Korean and Japanese versions, but this is to cater to an audience in both countries more than anything (more potential income).

Actually, Enslaved is from Norway.


J-pop companies usually don't care about appealing to the international market since the domestic market does so well on its own. K-pop, on the other hand, is all about spreading the music across the world, trying to keep it accessable to foreigners. They usually make sure to include English subtitles for all the non-korean people to understand, but if not, the fans do the work themselves. J-pop doesn't seem to have a strong international fandom in that regard.

Another noteworthy thing about K-pop is how, a lot of times, there are members from different countries. For example Thailand, China, Canada, Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines. It's also quite common for groups to make songs in Mandarin, and in general they value artists being multilingual. And of course there's the album packaging and design. K-pop goes above and beyond with this, making it all the more worthy to buy physical albums rather than just downloading them. So much well-thought-out marketing.

When it comes to differences in musicality, it's very relative, but it should be said that neither of them stick to just one sound, especially when considering how they go decades back. There's a lot to find and appreciate.

I enjoy listening to J-pop but K-pop is a no-go. For me, It's essentially literally the most "hip & cool" mainstream Western music with Asian groups doing sexy dancing.

I get that K-pop is a lot about the coreography but it just annoys me. Composition-wise, pretty weak and one-dimensional. Overly sexualised and marketed. For some reason, the fans care more about the groups' inner drama than the music (which isn't a surprise -- the music isn't anything great). The whole insustry just seems to be corupted by North American BS, In my opinion.

I like J-pop a lot more because artists dare to step outside the basic pop BS and try something unique, e.g. Babymetal & Karyu Pamyu Pamyu. J-pop also tends to have some interesting little nuances that enhance the listening experience: complex rhythms, dissonances, use of wide variety of instruments... Also their indie (or as it would rightly be named, doujin scene) is bloody perfect. A plug for every socket and a socket for every plug.

(Most J-pop mainstream groups are as bad as K-pop though. Why is it that big groups always have very uninteresting and one-dimensional music? Do they have to concentrate on looking good so much that they can't sing anything outside of three chords or what? In any case, it's all about bands. Groups suck major ass)

So let me get this straight...

You despise K-pop for being sexual, as if every single Korean artist falls under that category, but you claim to enjoy J-pop despite the fact that there are sexual artists there as well? Like, hello, ever heard of gravure idols? They're quite a big thing in Japan. But oh well, I guess sexuality is still shunned by people like you for some reason, but just don't be so one-sided about it. Also what's so bad about pop music being marketed? It's meant to appeal to a wide audience. Are you implying that J-pop isn't marketed? What about all those trucks that literally display ads for new album releases?

You despise K-pop, even though many of those artists have made songs in Japanese and have collaborated with J-pop artists? In fact, there are a fair amount of songwriters that work within both K-pop and J-pop, like Andreas Öberg and Erik Lidbom. Also I don't know if you would consider ballads to be "hip and cool", but there are a lot of those in K-pop.

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu may seem abstract and unique to people based on her music videos, but the same can't be said for her music. I'm not one to say it's bad by any means, but she can indeed be described as "basic pop". And the idea of blending pop music with metal has basically been around since the 80's, and we've had tons of Japanese all-female metal bands as well. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Babymetal, but come on, if we're gonna talk about composition, they're just another idol pop group with hints of metal. That's not necessarily a bad thing though, but if you're into music for the sake of complexity (and perhaps experimentation?) then why not just stick with avant-garde and musique concrète?

You clearly haven't delved much into K-pop, or even J-pop for that matter, as these arguments you're making are baseless and one-sided. You should consider listening to more music before criticizing. Like seriously, there are tons of Korean bands that play instruments and you might possibly enjoy them. And really, what's the point of bringing up indie music when discussing pop music, other than to show your bias towards Japanese music? Like okay, I understand you're a weeb, but please try to be more open-minded to non-Japanese media.

I'd like you to forgive me. I'm basing many of my arguments on first impressions because I don't listen to K-pop and I'm still new to J-pop too. I have enjoyed J-pop so far but K-pop isn't soing it for me much at all.

I did mention that I dislike groups (they are often quite sexual with their presentation) in general. Maybe I didn't state that clearly enough.

I'd be lying if I said K-pop wasn't sexual and Western as fuck, not taking that one back (of course there are different artists. I'm talking about the industry as a whole). And I don't like the way sex has to be everywhere I look, even in music. J-pop has the same shit a lot but I avoid it.

I can agree with Karyu being basic pop (still I'm more interested in her than some group) but I thought Babymetal had different genres mixed with pop and metal? Not sure now because I'm still new to the scene.

You're right about me not having listened to K-pop. The reason is because it sounds so much like the stuff you'd hear from the radio here in the West. If you can recommend some songs to me, then please do. I'm sure the songs will be very interesting. I'm open for any and all suggestions. Maybe I've just heard bad bands?

P.S. Of course I have a bias towards Japanese music. I have l have had positive experiences listening to it while in turn, I've had negative impressions towards K-pop. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned J-pop at all i my comment since it made my original statement seem like a challenge.

P.P.S. For future commenting: labeling people really doesn't help get your point across.

How would you know K-pop sounds western if you haven't listened to it? Like, I won't deny that the influence is commonly there, but so many other countries are influenced by western music, yet if K-pop artists do it, that's suddenly a bad thing?

Dude, it's music. Even if the performers are sexual, it's still possible to enjoy the music itself. If you can avoid J-pop artists doing it, why not the same for K-pop? It's not a good idea to simply base your arguments on minimal first impressions. Babymetal does sprinkle in some different music styles here and there, like crunk on the song "Iine!". But I thought taking influence from western music was a bad thing to you? You know, considering crunk is a form of hip-hop. As for your last point, didn't you label yourself as a weeb in your metal-archives profile? Not sure why me bringing that up is doing any sort of damage.

Anyway, I did actually post a bunch of songs earlier in this thread, but here are a few others:
Kim Jong-seo - You Do Not Answer (1992)
Seo Taiji - Feel the Soul (2000)
Moon Hee-jun - Red & White (2001)
Lee Sun-hee - Fate (2007)
Super Junior - Don't Don (2007)
Nell - The Day Before (2012)
Busker Busker - Cherry Blossom Ending (2012)
UV - I Want to Live with Her (2012)
IU - The Red Shoes (2013)
VIXX - Hyde (2013)
B.A.P - Coffee Shop (2013)
Wonder Boyz - Tarzan (2013)
TVXQ - Something (2014)
Laboum - What About You (2014)
f(x) - Red Light (2014)
Kim Yeon-woo - Move (2014)
Younha - Umbrella (2014)
Infinite - Back (2014)
Vidan - White Miracle (2015)
B1A4 - Sweet Girl (2015)
Awesome Baby - Why Me? (2015)
Kim Sung-kyu - Kontrol (2015)
Crayon Pop - FM (2015)
F.T. Island - Pray (2015)
Park Gyu-ri & From the Airport - The Little Prince (2015)
Lee Moon-sae - Spring Breeze (2015)
CocoSori - Exquisite! (2016)
Kim Hee-chul & Kim Jung-mo - Ulsanbawi (2016)