Made in Korea: The K-Pop Experience

I was in Seoul in September 2024 for the Korean Open tennis competition. The tennis courts are next to the former Olympic gymnasium where RIIZE was giving a concert the day before the tennis started so I thought I'd drop in to "evaluate" them through the eyes of a would-be SM Director of Artistic Development.

Singing: good, not remarkable

Choreo: very simple. For me, the ultimate in complex dance-pop choreo was Momoland's BAAM. Nothing I saw from RIIZE came close.

Stamina: none needed; 3 short dance routines in 90 minutes

Interaction as a group: fantastic but, unfortunately, all of it occurred while sitting down or strolling around the stage, not while performing.

I think I may have been attending some kind of a wrap-up, end-of-tour performance because 80 of the 90 minutes I was there were consumed by the boys chatting to each other and to the audience, playing dress-up games and doing quizzes. One of the games required each boy to watch a clip of himself during a previous stage performance then repeat it live. All of this was, of course, in Korean which is why I left after 90 minutes.

I tried to ask my neighbours (I estimated the attendance at 10,000; 95% of whom were young women) if this was a normal k-Pop concert but none were willing to read Google Translate on my phone as long as the boys were "performing."

I did notice that the loudest audience screams came when a boy appeared in close-up on the huge screens to play his part in the chatting and quizzing. Not the music, not the dancing, not the choreo, not the scenery or the spectacle but close-ups of the performers.

So, are good looks the simple secret to the k-Pop phenomenon?

Clearly, bands in other music genres have some physically attractive members but, with rare exceptions, all the members of those bands are talented musicians and one or more of their members compose most of the songs they perform.

Apparently not so in k-Pop.

Could it be that the back stories to the genre-boot camps, years of drilling, harsh criticism, even harsher contracts, no romantic partners, etc etc-is all a marketing ploy to make them seem special and give the audiences an excuse to go and look at a pretty face?

This is in no way a K-pop experience, it's an advert for SM Entertainment (who coincidentally have recently lost some of their biggest Idols).

As a K-pop fan I started watching this because seeing a British boyband go through an authentic K-pop trainee experience sounded fascinating. However! The boys weren't a boyband, wouldn't have made it past auditions without the TV show, and the experience was anything but authentic; except Yoon HeeJun's evaluations (which are meaningless, because the show booked filming for 100 days, so that's how long it's gonna last regardless).

It kind of feels like SM saw the Stray Kids Survival Show and copied the format (and wrongly assumed no-one in England would have seen the original). The challenges the boys were set made sense for a group of trainees being assessed for debut (and who wrote their own songs, so brought the high notes on themselves), not so much for a group of English theatre school kids with no experience and no clue about the K-pop industry.

Everything about the group's life outside training was ridiculously easy and luxurious compared to a real trainee's life, while the tasks the boys were given were just impossible, and designed to make them look stupid.

The boys basically had a holiday with a bit of training thrown in, in-between the variety show trips and games. And no attempt was made to teach them proper etiquette, which is a big part of life in Korea but dofficult to learn (I cringed every time they referred to Yoon HeeJun's by her first name and without honorific because it is so disrespectful). They got a nice hotel suite, nights out, and sightseeing. Real life K-pop trainees live like monks. They live in the company dorms, get a small food allowance per day, aren't allowed in bars or clubs (even if they're old enough), and have no time or money for anything but training. A lot of trainees are still at school, so they do a full day at school then go back to the company for coaching and practice sessions. And there's no time off or allowances for illness or injury; bad leg - strap it and back to work, sore throat - honey and back to work, broken neck - rest between performances (true story). Only really big stars get to be human.

Conversely, the performance challenges given to the group were far harder than what is asked of even debuted Idols. K-pop group members have particular roles - the singer, the dancer, the rapper - no-one expects the members to be brilliant at everything, but the boys were all expected to sing and dance perfectly from the first day. The choreo was unnecessary complicated for men new to the style, and trying to learn a new song at the same time. The boys were given songs in a key only a few exceptional adult male singers can hope to handle, and expected to sing them live, unassisted, while dancing unfamiliar and very energetic choreography; after only a week of practice, when real trainees are assessed monthly. Whereas in real life, all Idols use auto tune, if only for the volume boost because it's so hard to sing with any power while dancing, and most of them lipsync their live performances; certain SM Idols in particular are known for even lipsyncing their concerts.