K-Pop: Popular Music, Cultural Amnesia, and Economic Innovation in South Korea

by John Lie

Popular Music, Cultural Amnesia, and Economic Innovation in South Korea seeks at once to describe and explain the emergence of export-oriented South Korean popular music and to make sense of larger South Korean economic and cultural transformations. John Lie provides not only a history of South Korean popular music―the premodern background, Japanese colonial influence, post-Liberation American impact, and recent globalization―but also a description of K-pop as a system of economic innovation and cultural production. In doing so, he delves into the broader background of South Korea in this wonderfully informed history and analysis of a pop culture phenomenon sweeping the globe.

Genres: Music, Sociology, History, Nonfiction, Cultural Studies, Academic, Pop Culture

241 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

John Lie is C. K. Cho Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Reviews

[Carlex · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good portrayal of Korean society, its history, and why K-pop has become a first-class export product.

A well-crafted sociological/anthropological study. The level of detail is even excessive for what I personally needed. In this sense, the reader must learn to "skim" through information they don’t require (for example, numerous singer names), but this is not truly a complaint, given the level of rigor this study provides.

[Mireia]

para el tfg, pero demasiado denso y de poca ayuda :/

[Mind the Book · Rating 3 out of 5]

Språkligt och historiskt pretentiös genomgång av k-popens bakgrund. Inte förrän på sidan 96, kapitlet 'Seoul Calling', glimmar det till. Behövde dock denna torra akademiska ansats, p.g.a. handleder gy-arbete i ämnet.

[Alexander Bos · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an academic work and may therefor not be interesting to many, but I loved it.

The book is clearly divided into two parts: 1. Pre-Kpop era, which talks about Korean history where even though music is the main theme, a lot of other topics get explained that may have or have not had an influence on the evolution. 2. Kpop era. The start of Kpop and why it's so influential nowadays.

While the book itself is amazing, it kind of left me a bit disappointed with South Korea. I did not know much about their country before and I always thought they had a very unique culture and history. Something similar to Japan. Though the history is explained where music is the main theme, it is rather obvious that South Korea not only adores the US, it has somewhat copied their way of living. South Korea threw away lots of their culture to get to the point where they are now, which is undoubtedly a lot better in terms of living standards, but they have become less unique and distinctive compared to other Asian countries, though I want to make the comparison to Japan, as they also have been highly influenced by the US, but still held on to their culture.
Though this had to happen for Kpop to even exist, as Korean culture didn't really accept that type of music / performance before.

The only negative thing I can say is that, even though it's an academic work, the vocabulary used is unnecessarily complicated. I usually advocate for people to write in the simplest way possible if it doesn't affect the beauty of the work. In this book, the author could've used many different synonyms and it wouldn't have made a difference, apart from the readibility.

[Batu Bekmen]

K-Pop'tan çok Kore(ler)'in popüler müzik tarihine yönelik bir araştırma, ancak K-Pop'u tarihsel bir seyre oturtması ve Kore kültürünün kodlarıyla bağlantılandırması açısından oldukça yararlı bir kaynak. Popüler kültür fenomenlerini ciddiye alan, akademi-dışı eserler bulmak kolay değil. O yüzden konuyla uzaktan yakından ilgili herkese öneririm.

Ülkeler arası paraleller kurmak çok kolay ve yanıltıcı olabiliyor, ancak modern tarihinin önemli bir bölümünü cunta yönetiminde geçiren, kültürü yakinen kontrol altında tutulan bir ülkenin, doksanlı yılların ortasında gelindiğinde devlet ile eğlence sektörü arasında çok yönlü bir işbirliği kurmasını, Türkiye'deki 1980 sonrası kültür politikalarıyla mukayese etmek (ve belki geleceğe yönelik model bellemek) ilginç bir okuma tecrübesi oluyor.

[Emin Yiğit · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would have anticipated that K-pop is an outcome of American influence in South Korea but I have learned in this book that it is also related to the Japanese invasion of the peninsula. I've also learned about the impact of Western missionaries on turning South Korean culture towards the West, which wasn't surprising.

There are many Korean terms and names in the book that I was checking on the search engine, but it was correcting almost all Korean words (written with Latin alphabet) whenever I searched them in English. The commonly used spellings of the Korean names slightly different than what John Lie wrote in his book. That makes your research a bit complicated.

[Michael Alan Forward · Rating 4 out of 5]

a very engaging telling of the history of music in korea with a k-pop focus in its latter half. the criticisms and analysis of the k-pop industry are incredibly fair and surprisingly prescient for a book published in 2015, just on the cusp of the third generation with some of the industry’s biggest hitters yet to show face.

what I appreciated most is that this book does not dismiss the value and unique aspects of k-pop in the popular music sphere, nor does it worship the industry either. it can be rare to find academics willing to give popular consumer media a fair shake, not falling into tedious criticism or juvenile adoration

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting look at pre-K:pop developments in Korean culture, music, and history and what went into the ascendance of K-Pop on all those levels.

[River · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to read this book for a class at school, but I actually found it quite enjoyable (particularly the second half which was less full of terms I didn't understand).

[szymborskalyte · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better as a modern history of Korean culture than a soc of culture work.

[versarbre · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good sociological historicization. I had hoped there would be more sociological analysis of the styles though. The last few chapters have part of it. It could have been done more.