Routledge Studies in Popular Music, no. 7. New York: Routledge [imprint of Taylor & Francis Group], 2016. xi, 256 pp. (Tables, graphs, figures, B&W photos.) US$148.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-138-84001-0.
Michael Fuhr’s Globalization and Popular Music in South Korea is one of only three English-language single-author academic books on K-pop. Fuhr’s book is the second, the third was released in August 2018. John Lie’s book, published first, is hard to assign to students (I did for six semesters) due to a barrier-inducing academic tone, a lack of affection for the music, and a failure to divide the text into easy-to-assign chunks. In contrast, Fuhr’s book is written in approachable language, with vignettes and ethnographic details that bring the points to life.
Starting from the introduction the writing is at times beautiful—and while there is clarity on the sentence or even paragraph level, stepping back, the different paragraphs and sections do not mesh well. On page 26, for example, Fuhr explains his three research questions, which were never truly answered. The book is most successful presenting small chunks of information and analysis, a few pages in length at a time, while the larger questions are not clearly answered even with a conclusion that draws it all together.
Chapter 2 is about the invention of Korean popular music, and purports to cover 1885 to 2000. In Fuhr’s history lesson it takes only five pages to progress from 1885 to 1945, four more to reach the 1980s, and eight to get through the 1980s and 1990s. For a reader interested in the historical development of Korean popular music, other texts would be much more useful, including work by Roald Maliangkay, Stephen Epstein, Keith Howard, Son Minjung, and Shin Hyunjoon.
Chapter 3 is the most ambitious and wide-ranging chapter in the volume. In it Fuhr does an excellent job clarifying and explaining various points about K-pop, including artist names, the use of English, and the way the idol star system works. Fuhr explains the idol system and how the music is produced and performed, including the digital-era changes to the industry. Fuhr digs into the hooks, beats, and rap in K-pop. Yet throughout the book his analysis often seems like he is advancing and updating ideas already contained in other volumes and articles. That said, chapter 3 contains the biggest original contribution of the book, Fuhr’s introduction of what he calls the “ppong factor,” or in other words, the influence of trot (t’ŭrǒt’ŭ) on K-pop. Fuhr explains that the “discursive functions of ppong come to the fore and show how the K-pop field constructs the idea of a uniquely Korean sound, which is preserved and delineated against foreign pop influences” (106). However, the explanation is somewhat confusing and ends with a paragraph that both asserts that the more globalized a K-pop song is, the less ppong factor there is (arguing for K-pop as lacking in distinctive Korean-ness, i.e., ppong), and then essentializes Korean music with the analogy that songs with more audible ppong are like well fermented kimchi. Fuhr seems to be arguing that SM Entertainment (SME) is making songs that are less worthy of the title K-pop than some other companies that include more ppong factor in their songs, but since SME in many ways makes quintessential K-pop, this argument does not pass muster.
Chapter 4 addresses the ways that Korean popular culture, as promoted by the Korean government, has been part of Korea’s globalization. The chapter includes pop culture beyond K-pop. Here Fuhr outlines the changing cultural policies of various administrations, and how liberalization and promotion of pop culture has been rationalized, before discussing changes in the music industry during these same years. Fuhr then examines the Asia Song Festival as an example of Korean governmental policy towards music. Fuhr argues that “K-pop is utilized by officials to portray or imagine Korea as a nation that is no longer lagging behind but has caught up with other advanced nations” (150). He also tackles how the rise of Korean popular culture has shifted relationships with other nations such as Japan and China.
In the fifth chapter Fuhr addresses the transnational production of K-pop through discussions of K-pop stars who have attempted to make it outside Asia, such as BoA, the Wonder Girls, Yoon Band, and Skull. The diversity of the artists featured in this chapter make it more interesting than a simple discussion of idol K-pop, and I found it particularly interesting that Fuhr found common threads such as “self-orientalism, traditionalism, and pop globalism” in the international forays of each artist (186). Although this chapter works for the book, it also stands alone better than any of the other chapters, and I have previously recommended it to students working on projects related to K-pop beyond Korea’s borders.
Chapter 6 discusses the idol stars that have come to Korea from overseas, many of whom are ethnically Korean. Fuhr touches on various celebrities with non-Korean ethnicity, but the chapter is knitted together with the story of Park Jaebeom, who started out as the conventional Korean-American member in an idol group (2PM), but was then cast out. Jaebeom’s case illustrates how K-pop idols are required to be good patriotic Koreans, even if they are not Korean citizens. Fuhr even discusses the impact of anti-Americanism (210–214) on popular music, bringing in the case of Yu Seungjun. Finally, using extensive interviews with Brian Joo of the duo Fly to the Sky, Fuhr demonstrates the steps an overseas Korean must take to be successful in music in Korea.
The short conclusion, just over eight pages long, comes to many of the same conclusions as other works that purport to nail down what K-pop actually is: “K-pop signifies a complex and relational process of re-configuring, re-arranging, and re-packaging existing concepts and styles” (235). It is “visually perfect, aurally catchy, and performance-oriented” (236), a “whole package” (237).
Fuhr earned his PhD in Germany, and following the German system the dissertation is rapidly converted to book form. As with most other books quickly prepared from dissertations, the final result reads like a dissertation in many ways, such as a love of deep engagement with the texts of other scholars, and efforts to reference every theoretical frame that could possibly connect to the subject. Overall the book contains many moments of insight and clarifying analysis, but is burdened with surface-level errors that a thorough re-write and decent editor could have fixed. Difficulties in Romanization, spelling, and grammar (e.g., former president Roh Moo-hyun is consistently called president “Roo”) are frustrating—is one expected to print out a corrective document for students to refer to as they read? The book covers most of K-pop’s standard elements in a clear and unpatronizing tone, although the absence of serious treatment of thornier issues (objectification, appropriation, abusive industry practices) leaves readers’ rose-colored glasses firmly in place.
CedarBough Saeji
The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada