There are quite a lot of different cultures, subcultures, trends and so on in the world. Each country has its own culture, which is both the custom and the tradition of the nation. This article will focus on the culture of South Korea, which is loved by many even outside the country.
Subculture of South Korea
Korean musical subculture fell in love with many at the moment when the video of the Asian singer PSY - Gangnam Style became insanely popular. In fact, it has been around for a long time, and the world has known about it thanks to the successful video.
The k-pop subculture has many features, however, like any other. However, many fans are not only in Korea, but also abroad. This is due to several factors in this direction:
- based on young talents (as young as 14) who are actively sought out throughout Korea and destined to become stars in the future;
- each member of the group is good at both singing and dancing, because they consider not only singing, but also a good visual to be a great asset of the group;
- you are unlikely to see fans of American singersas active as in Korea - they literally wait for artists at the agency's dormitories, guard at the entrances and exits, take a lot of photos.
South Korean music can be a solo artist, or it can be a group that consists of 2-9, and, in rare cases, more members. Each of these performers has a name - this is a bias. An interesting fact is that there are up to 60 such groups in South Korea a year!
What role do biases play?
Often, those who do not know anything about the Korean subculture, ask themselves the question - who is the bias in Korea? Why is the artist called that and what does he usually do?
Bias is a person who has already completed an internship at an agency and is now a full-fledged star. He has gained some experience and credibility among the fans. Bias are all group members and solo artists.
Given that the stars are also involved in the visual, they spend much more time in the choreographic halls than in the vocal ones. Koreans have a very strong sense of rhythm - they can rightly be called a musical nation. An interesting fact is also that immediately after the release of the video of a certain group, after it, the agency also releases dance practice - how the performers train, their production from the video. This encourages fans to "dance" the choreography of their favorite stars more and more often.
Industry development trend
Bias is a person who sets an example for his fans, like any star of today's show-business. However, not only Koreans want to become popular and enter the music industry, but even foreigners.
Many agencies are now complaining about the endless flow of applicants, while noting that they do not mind including foreign people in their groups. They argue this is especially profitable, because if there is a foreign performer in the line-up, not only Koreans, but also compatriots of a foreigner will buy much more tickets to the concert of this group.
Most often, South Korean artists have either pseudonyms or Korean names, that is, a surname and a toponym.
This subculture began to gain really big momentum, they are popular on TouTube video hosting, absolutely all tickets are bought up for their concerts, and fans go crazy over their biases. Some call it the “K-pop phenomenon.”
How expensive is it to train soloists?
According to 2012, the income from the South Korean music industry amounted to about three and a half billion dollars. The figure is really impressive, but let's figure out how much it costs the agency to prepare a soloist or group.
Different agencies have different rates, however, on average, it takes about half a million dollars to train one person in a group or soloist. Represented? No, it's not free, of course. During the internship, the future star is not required to pay anything, however, after the debut, for some time, the artist will recoup the costs of his agency and even bring much more profit.
International band recognition
As already mentioned, the music industry in Korea quickly and successfully broke out of its own country and began to conquer others. For example, just recently the Billboard Music Awards ceremony was held, at which the popular South Korean group BTS won the Most Stylish Group of the Year nomination, and the famous Big Bang's Fantastic Baby received recognition by hitting the American TV series Glee.
However, just as the subculture of Korea breaks out far beyond the borders of their country, so do South Korean artists leave their homeland for more extensive development. For example, the former member of the girl group 2NE1 started to sing songs more for audiences in the US, in English. And groups such as 4minute, B2ST, SISTAR, SHINee performed their songs at the United Cube Festival, which was held in England.
As we see, music is becoming more than just a hobby, a way to pass the time or enjoy good songs. The music industry has long been a way to make big money and get an international calling, and a bias is a person who has become a way to spread South Korea's rapidly growing subculture.
