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Seoul music: Korea bails out its music industry
In news which will make RIAA bosses grind their teeth with jealous frustration, South Korea is bailing out its music industry:
The Culture, Sports and Tourism Ministry said it would create a Korean version of the US Billboard Charts and a K-pop award evoking the Grammys in a bid to "globalise" the country's pop music.
Oh, yes. Hold an event a bit like the Grammys. That'll get everyone's attention worldwide. Or at least locally. They can have Kelly Osbourne to present it, if they like.
The ministry will also support 35,000 noraebangs -- karaoke bars without alcohol -- across the country by providing karaoke equipment.
State-sponsored karaoke. That's got to be the way ahead, right?
Although, um, is it going to help sell music if you encourage everyone to go down the karaoke bar and sing for themselves?
1 comment:
Not to mention that most songs found in their karaoke rooms are American/British, so this won't really promote Korean music much.
As someone who's just spent 16 pretty good months working in Korea, I got to say, this copy cat scheme doesn't surprise me at all. Not only do Korean pop "hiphop" stars tend to have English names (G-Dragon, for example) as well as their "rock" groups (FT Island; BigBang), not only are ALL their hits seem to be littered with ESL English ("Girl, I cry, cry", "I'm so sorry, but I love you", "Tell me, tell me, t-t-t-t-tell me!"), but they also seem to prefer foreign gigs to their own. It's easy as pie to go see any Korean group in a relatively small club. Meanwhile, 15,000 showed up to see Linkin Park, paying more than double what you pay to see a top selling Korean. Also, everyone I knew was at least as excited about Paris Hilton coming to Seoul to.... do whatever she does as they were about their national elections.
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