“We had this imaginative and prescient to take the Okay out of Okay-pop and make it world.” That is the gross sales pitch that begins Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE, a documentary in regards to the titular woman group, who’re signed to Korea’s HYBE (BTS) and America’s Geffen (Olivia Rodrigo). Later within the movie, the CEO of Interscope Geffen A&M proclaims their endeavor unprecedented, explaining that the labels are making use of Okay-pop coaching practices however “doing it in pop music.” They appear confused. Are they including the “Okay” or eradicating it? Is Okay-pop not “pop music”? Ignore the advertising ways and the music tells all: KATSEYE, ceaselessly touted as a uniquely world woman group, are awfully atypical.
In some ways KATSEYE are probably the most unexceptional HYBE group up to now, extremely emblematic of mainstream Okay-pop’s trajectory over the previous decade. The success of the music competitors present Produce 101 ushered in quite a few acts fashioned by way of actuality tv. KATSEYE originated from one other present, Dream Academy, and the members—as is frequent these days—hail from completely different international locations and communicate a number of languages. Sophia is from the Philippines; Manon is from Switzerland; Yoonchae is from Korea; and Daniela, Lara, and Megan are from the U.S. Even so, their songs are virtually totally in English. With none songs in Korean, they’re presumably not Okay-pop. And because the Korea-based, ethnically Japanese woman group XG proved earlier than them, if you happen to’re singing in English, the kind of pop music you make turns into laborious to categorise.
When music followers speak about “pop,” or use the manifestly specious “pure pop,” they’re typically referring to what I name A-pop, or American pop music. Simply as “American” might be wielded as a nebulous time period that ignores minority teams, so too is A-pop outlined by its nonspecificity and de facto whiteness (“pure pop” hardly ever describes R&B, as an illustration). If there’s rapping, it’s stripped of regional signifiers. If there’s a dembow riddim, it’s not Jamaican or Latin a lot as within the lineage of Justin Bieber’s “Sorry.” KATSEYE’s second EP, BEAUTIFUL CHAOS, typically falls into this horrible A-pop pitfall: pan-global mush. The bilingual “Gabriela” is the worst offender; it has a reggae bassline and Spanish guitar, however they’re in service of one thing nondescript—inoffensive music for the incurious listener. (It was beforehand supplied to Rita Ora.)
For many years Okay-pop teams have thrived of their willingness to be by-product, discovering success in a home market by trafficking interpretations of the “actual factor.” Okay-pop’s first technology was endearingly slapdash of their stylistic homage, with songs ceaselessly anchored by karaoke–prepared balladry. Style agnosticism and shameless inauthenticity turned the prevailing methodologies thereafter, and there’s at all times one thing fascinating within the hole between unique copy and ostensible ripoff. Although BEAUTIFUL CHAOS is a extra mature providing than the mawkish teen pop of KATSEYE’s debut EP, SIS (Delicate Is Sturdy), its recreation of “spot the distinction” is commonly a matter of “seems like X however worse.” “M.I.A,” for instance, imagines probably the most sedate model of “like JENNIE,” itself a level of separation faraway from the Brazilian phonk it’s indebted to. KATSEYE’s chanting can’t masks the anodyne spirit, and the music limps to the end line. If Okay-pop sounds contemporary, it’s as a result of it treats established formulation as recommendations; KATSEYE’s music sounds generic as a result of it treats the well-trod as bullseyes.
