Source : 19880818.xo.st,모네모네 @BBVIPZ
Thursday, April 26, 2012
[NEWS] BIGBANG MENTIONED ON SPIN MAGAZINE , APRIL 2012
Over the past ten years, Korea has perfected a fruitful system for producing top-flight pop stars. Now, as K-pop focuses its careful aim on the American market, that same formula appears to be just as ripe for export.
You would never guess that this is where they live. Lisa Jo is casually pointing to it from her office just across the street: a squat, red-brick apartment building whose only distinguishing mark is the grimy noodle shop tucked into its ground floor. Thousands of houses just like this one carpet Seoul's hilly northern half, most of them dwarfed by the skyscraping residential towers that line the Han River and virtually every major avenue in the city like teeth. This one, though, functions as the primary residence for as many as 30 young "trainees" signed to YG Entertainment, one of three major management companies headquartered here in South Korea's capital. And this is where another group of unit-shifting, border-blurring, level-pushing Korean pop starlets sleeps, during those few hours at night when they break from studying their craft. "They are not home right now," Jo says, minutes before lunch. "They are in school."
Jo, a Seoul native and overseas business representative for YG, might be referring to the intense high school curriculum that all Korean youths are expected to complete before entering university (YG claims to make educational arrangements for the teens whom they board and train). But as we make our way to the basement cafeteria, Jo swings open the doors to two dance studios: The first is dark, save for the smartphone flicker of someone whose mid-morning nap we've just interrupted. In the second, a young girl in a gray Gap T-shirt and black tights is crouched, dropping in her contact lenses as she prepares for an afternoon class in song composition. She smiles and bows, and when I ask Jo why the girl is here rather than in school, the question is misunderstood and met with a giggle: "Hopefully, she is getting popular." That's the plan.
Over the past ten years, Korea has perfected a fruitful system for producing top-flight pop stars. Now, as K-pop focuses its careful aim on the American market, that same formula appears to be just as ripe for export.
The training ideology itself is a tweaked interpretation of the one first put to use by Johnny & Associates, a dominant force in Japanese pop (J-pop) since it rose to global prominence in the '80s. It's also the latest development in a phenomenon called hallyu, a Chinese term for the rising "Korean wave" of cultural exports throughout Asia that began with television dramas in the '90s and has been shot into hyperdrive by a continent thirsty for both material goods and high-speed connectivity.
"The way I felt watching Chinese, Korean, and Japanese music videos ten years ago in China," says Dr. Charles Armstrong of Columbia's Center for Korean Research, "is that Koreans were the most Americanized. They understood the idioms of popular culture and music and dance. For much of the rest of Asia, South Korea is sort of their dream of the future: a more modernized, Westernized society." What's most uniquely Korean about K-pop, however, is the aggressive manner in which it's surging across borders in all directions. Because local markets for American and Japanese artists are so large, artists can remain at home and enjoy hugely successful, prolific careers. Koreans are exporting K-pop simply because their local market is too small to satisfy or contain it.
And just like Justin Bieber's "Beliebers," a hyperactive, devout community of online K-pop fans known as "Netizens" has been cultivated to provide the social media numbers that keep bands/brands trending worldwide. Digital service comprises 80 percent of the music industry in Korea, the world's highest share.
"If you look from afar, these K-pop acts moving into foreign markets could be looked at as another form of neo–cultural imperialism," says Bernie Cho, 41, the cofounder of DFSB Kollective, a Seoul-based creative agency which acts as an intermediary between Korean artists and brands all over the world. "It's not as forced as you think, though. It's finessed." Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, raised just outside of Buffalo, New York, and educated at Dartmouth, Cho came to South Korea in the early '90s for grad school, only to get sidetracked after taking a part-time job at a newly christened MTV Korea. "Twenty years ago, this place was pretty third-world and Tokyo was like Blade Runner," he says of Seoul's development. "Now it's the other way around. Koreans didn't invent cars. Koreans didn't invent mobile phones. Koreans didn't invent flat-screen TVs. But they've somehow tweaked and twisted the formulas to the point that they feel fresh."
From top to bottom, YG Entertainment's office, a postmodern hunk of glass and dimpled concrete, is designed to both manufacture and maintain a carefully calibrated, highly controlled stream of pop product. Up top, you've got an off-limits floor for founder Yang Hyun-Suk, former member of '90s R&B legends Seo Taiji & Boys. Just below that you'll find offices devoted to expanding the company's vast international audition network. Walk down a few flights and you're met with an assortment of plush recording studios, available to producers both in-house and imported. There's a fully outfitted gym manned by a celebrity fitness guru. The cafeteria serves home-style Korean fare and boutique coffee until late in the night. And of course, there are those practice spaces built for students who are recruited from all over (including America), all of whom are major investments immersed in a specialized curriculum of dance, voice, composition, and foreign language, meant to prepare each trainee for a career not just at home in Korea, but across continents.
Nowhere are the fruits of K-pop's training more apparent than onstage. It's the middle of a Saturday afternoon and throngs of schoolgirls are shrugging off frigid temperatures outside the aging Olympic Gymnastics Arena, one part of the massive Olympic Park complex built for the 1988 Summer Games. Tonight, YG is rolling out its entire roster in celebration of 15 years' worth of hits. They've gone to great lengths to create a festival atmosphere within the Park's stone plaza, assembling a small village of tents and official merchandise counters (not to be confused with the many bootleggers hawking candy-colored binoculars, glow bands, and luminous, group-specific wands between here and the subway station). The smell of ketchup and fried animal fat is thick in the air, fumes spiraling out from a ring of kiosks serving Korean sausages and lollipops of battered pork.
To the left, check your cameras and recording devices — none are allowed inside the arena. Next door, a tent is promoting SOUL, the Ludacris-endorsed line of headphones. And across the way, there's an information booth set up specifically for the Japanese fans who have flown in for the event; its line is the longest. In 2011, no foreign fans have embraced K-pop more enthusiastically than the Japanese. If all these acts weren't performing together this weekend, they'd likely be making short, strategic tours through Japan, a market whose size exceeds Korea's several times over. For two countries with such a complicated and difficult cultural history, the exchanges between fans here are pure: Kids bow and smile, gesturing nervously to the handmade sign each has brought along and dedicated to the idol of their choice. When this same show comes to Saitama Super Arena outside of Tokyo a month later, over 200,000 fans will attend.
"A trainee goes through the regimen for two years. I'm not sure other countries or labels have that patience. Every time they perform a song, it's got to be perfect." — Yvonne Yuen, VP of international marketing for Universal Music
Tonight belongs to the guys in Bigbang. Since frontman G-Dragon went into hiding in 2011 after the rare K-pop scandal (he tested positive for smoking marijuana but was never charged), this performance marks a triumphant onstage reunion for the group. They seem up for it; you can feel it in their gravitational pull. They move more like moussed-up panthers or professional athletes than pop stars. When G-Dragon's childhood friend and fellow rapper-singer T.O.P approaches, it's as if the city's been tipped on its side for 30 seconds.
Your once laconic, germaphobic neighbors hurtle and squeeze into one corner of the section like a pile of giggling carp along a catwalk, mouths agape, eyes wild, hearts doing weird things inside their chests. T.O.P swivels and smirks, as if to puckishly half-acknowledge the frisson at his feet. He probably took a class on this. A beat drops, your eyes water. A hook arrives, you laugh to breathe. Kids are running in place, clutching their faces, screaming in so many different frequencies that the sum resembles what it must sound like if someone could roll down the window on a 737 six miles up.
With an hour left, some of them are starting to collapse from exhaustion, their friends catching and carrying them out with such calm it feels like just another part of the ritual. Not long before Bigbang begin their encore, a wavy-haired, thirtysomething American woman grabs my arm. "How do I get out of here?" she shouts. "How do I get out of here?!"
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Source : spin.com
[NEWS] PIXIE LOTT INTERVIEW ABOUT GD & T.O.P'S COLLABORATION
Pixie Lott, K-pop ambassador.
A pop star in her own right in her native UK, with three No. 1 singles under her belt, she's all set to fly the flag for Korean boy and girl bands.
First step?
Collaborating with G-Dragon and T.O.P. from K-pop quintet Big Bang on her new song Dancing On My Own, which will be featured in the Asian Deluxe version of her second album Young Foolish Happy, out in early May.
Lott drops by Singapore on May 18 for an invite-only showcase at Zirca.
She will be signing copies of her latest album Young Foolish Happy for fans on May 17 at Bugis Junction.
Speaking to LOUD over the phone from her home in London, Lott, 21, was enthusiastic about her love of the genre.
"I think it was the first time I went to Japan, and got to know about the bands that were starting to get big there," she said.
"I just loved the whole vibe of it. The music videos are so crazy, so futuristic," she said. "I was so interested in the whole craze, and how huge it had become.
"It's a really fresh sound."
Plotting a K-pop collaboration, she settled on working with the Big Bang boys, who were just as keen on partnering up with her.
"I became such a big fan of theirs, and when I heard that they wanted to collaborate as well, I was so excited," said Lott.
Though the dance and hip-hop elements of K-pop are what she fell for initially, the collaboration is more of an R&B ballad, with G-Dragon and T.O.P. handling rapping duties.
"They have a great dance vibe, but I think it was cool for us to do something a little bit different," said Lott. "I think it shows their fans something different as well."
Though she met the boys in Japan during the Spring Groove festival earlier this month , she's never been to Korea, and plans to swing by after her trip to Singapore.
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Source : asiaone.com
[CLIP] BIGBANG FANCAM IN JAPAN [120423]
This was taken when Big Bang went out to eat after the "Alive Premium Live Event" - @Shishi123
Source : joojooplus
[NEWS] Big Bang to conclude ‘ALIVE’ promotions with a final performance on ‘Inkigayo’
Idol group Big Bang is preparing to wrap up promotions for their mini-album, ‘ALIVE‘.
Their agency YG Entertainment remarked, “Big Bang will be wrapping up promotions for their mini-album ‘ALIVE’ with a final performance on April 29th’s SBS ‘Inkigayo‘ and will be focusing on their Japan Tour.”
Big Bang began their activities for this mini-album by kicking off their first World Tour performance in Seoul this past March, and the boys have broken numerous records since.
The group coined each track on their album as title songs, and all the tracks claimed the #1 through #7 spots on various music charts, receiving an explosive reaction from the fans.
Their track “Fantastic Baby” has proved to be a fan favorite, as it still remains within the top 10 on the charts, even after 2 months of being released. Their album has sold an impressive number of over 270,000 copies, more than any other album released this year.
‘ALIVE’ also broke the top 200 on Billboard without participating in any separate promotions or releasing an English version of the album. Big Bang also became the first Korean artist to have a photo of their performance be showcased on the main page of the Grammy Awards website.
Big Bang also visited Taiwan for the very first time, and their songs climbed to the #1 spot on 8 different Taiwanese music charts, and during their Seoul concert, Big Bang also broke a record for drawing the most Japanese attendees in the history of concert performances.
Once Big Bang conclude promotions for ‘ALIVE’, they will be shifting their focus on their World Tour which will first take them to five cities in Japan this May, performing for 150,000 of their Japanese fans.
What was your favorite moment from their ‘ALIVE’ promotions?
Source : YG Entertainment,MyDaily via Nate (via allkpop)
[NEWS] BIGBANG Works with Photographer of Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, Jay-Z, and David Beckham
On April 24, YG Entertainment released a photo of Big Bang taken by the world-renowned photographer, Terry Richardson. The photo, taken at Richardson’s personal studio in New York City, shows the five Big Bang members in a relaxed and comfortable look, wearing colorful leather jackets.
Richardson is one of the most famed photographers in the U.S., having worked with Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, Jay-Z, Brad Pitt, and David Beckham in the past. His previous work also includes fashion brands such as Gucci, Sisley, and Diesel, where he came up with refreshing images of their products.
Richardson and Big Bang first met in 2009 for their Arena photo shoot. Back then, Richardson expressed his interest in working with Big Bang again, saying, “I don’t think I’ll ever forget Big Bang’s innocence.”
Source : YG Entertainment,Soompi
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