제 20 호 Englishization of K-pop
Kicker: ENTERTAINMENT
Englishization of K-pop
By Ye-Dam Hwang, Cub-reporter
Living as Korean, we can see many K-pop artists who wants to make a global success like BTS. As this tendency of K-pop emerges, Korean artists like ‘NewJeans’ and ‘Ive’ are using many English words in their songs. In many cases, the number of English words are much more than the number of Korean words of lyrics of K-pop songs. Even though this change of K-pop has good positive effects, it is a clear and noticeable problem that there are few Korean words in Korean songs. Because K-pop music is the thing that we enjoy in common, as a Korean, the need to check the background of this change of K-pop and analyze the examples and their effect is becoming clear and important.
The Background
These days, K-pop artists use many English words in their lyrics. But this is not only the problem of lyrics, but also of the team name and names of the members of the K-pop team. In fact, it is hard to find the true Korean names and lyrics which don’t have any English words. K-pop even released their English album which contains full-English-lyric songs. Then, why has this kind of change started? The answer is ‘global success’.
Like BTS and BLACKPINK, we can see these artists’ global success nowadays. With these successes, we learned that K-pop can be successful overseas as well. By the way, these examples of K-pop’s global success has one thing in common: ‘English-language album’. With realizing this point, the musical circles of K-pop started to use more English words than Korean words in their song’s lyrics and name K-pop Idol team’s name and the members’ in English to become more familiar to foreign fans. The success of the girl group ‘FiftyFifty’ can be an example of this strategy.
The Examples: NewJeans and NMIXX
Have you heard of ‘NewJeans’ and ‘NMIXX’? I think many people have heard of these two teams’ names and songs because they are celebrated and popular. With these K-pop girl groups’ songs, I will tell the Englishization of K-pop. First, in <Super Shy> of NewJeans, it is structured that a specific part is repeated. Since all of the song’s highlight part is composed of English (except the two words), the lyrics have few Korean words. Though it is hard to catch the lyrics at one time, people knew the lyrics quite exactly and they sang this song in their daily lives. However, still, the uncomfortable feeling that this song’s lyrics has few Korean words and many English words cannot be easily shaken off.
The second song that I will show you is <Party O’Clock> of NMIXX. Similarly with <Super Shy>, <Party O’Clock> has highlight part which totally contains 66 English words except just seven words. Also, the last parts of the lyrics are composed with more English words than Korean words. In my opinion, I felt awkward because of the frequency of English words while I listened to this song. I’m listening to a Korean song, but why do I keep hearing English after Korean?
The Effects
First, let’s talk about the results of the two songs that we saw in the above part, <Super Shy> and <Party O’Clock>. With their popularity and maybe the power of English lyrics, the “Get up” album that contains <Super Shy> was ranked 126th on the Billboard 200. As a result, “Get up” has stayed for 16 consecutive weeks, since entering the top spot on the chart on August 5th, breaking the record for the longest chart for a fourth-generation K-pop girl group album. <Super Shy> and <ETA>, which is also in the album “Get up”, are popular on global charts. However, there is a disagreement between the opinion that it has the best addictive quality and that there are too few Korean lyrics.
NMIXX’s case is a little bit like the case of NewJeans, but NMIXX’s case is slightly different. Even though there are many English words in its lyrics, it is hard to find a critical opinion about it. In the aspect of result of popularity, the music video for <Love Me Like This>, has drawn attention as it was fun to find the meaning of various objects, and it reached one hundred million views. The latest <Party O’Clock>, which expresses the mysterious things happening in the forest on midsummer night, is cruising toward the 100 million-view mark, giving fans around the world a cool, refreshing feeling and easily exceeding 50 million views.
It is a rising and clear issue that many K-pop artists are using more English words than Korean words these days. Although it has positive effects like global success to expand their audiences of their songs, I think K-pop should maintain the ‘K’ in their songs and performances. What do you think about this issue? I want you to consider deeply about this issue at least if you are Korean.
Sources:
https://www.joynews24.com/view/1626267
https://newsis.com/view/?id=NISX20231115_0002521571&cID=10601&pID=10600
