NCT Dream finally rocked the South Korean music industry by releasing their 4th mini album Reload on April 29th, 2020. The boy band group under the auspices of SM Entertainment consists of six members Na Jaemin, Lee Jae-No, Haechan, Huang Renjun, Zhoung Chenle and Jisung gave a difference impression in their latest album.

NCT Dream is the 3rd sub unit of NCT, and first debuted with the first single titled ‘Chewing Gum’ in 2016 after which one year later released the mini album My First. Both the first single and their album have a fresh concept and show a cheerful adolescence. But on the contrary, in the latest album NCT Dream presents a more mature and charismatic look. The music video shows the members with cool style dominated in red, white and black. The song has a strong beat so it can invite listeners to come along and feel the vibes.

In this comeback, it was enough to bring the success of NCT Dream in the South Korean charts, where their main song ‘Ridin’ ranked first on the realtime chart on the Melon streaming platform within hours of being released. As reported in the Kpop Chart “Even though NCT Dream had topped the chart on another music streaming platform, this is the first time for them to rank first on the Melon chart since debut.” This is the first time for one of the NCT units to rank first in the biggest music chart in South Korea and the biggest achievement of the NCT Dream since debut.

Not just a comeback but this news was also followed by a group rebranding by SM Entertainment. As we know, Mark Lee is the original member and leader of NCT Dream. However, the rules in the group that provide graduation for members entering the age of 20th make this group only have six members and Mark joins the NCT 127 sub-unit.

Quoted from Soompi, SM Entertainment confirmed the existence of a change in the system of the group. “The unit graduation system has been removed and seven original members will carry out activities in formats such as NCT U.” Surely rebranding the group is news that is highly awaited by their fans who are commonly called NCTzen. Because there was a removal in the graduation system that applied to Mark and all members in the group and set the NCT Dream to be a permanent unit.

Congratulations on the latest comeback and rebranding from the NCT Dream group. Don’t forget that music videos can be watched on the SMTOWN YouTube account and support your idols by streaming their songs and music videos.

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SM Entertainment is one of the 3 biggest agencies in Korea that gave birth to many famous artists and musicians, as we know Super Junior, SNSD, EXO are under the auspices of this South Korean entertainment company. Like other agencies, SM often holds tour concerts for their musicians which are held in various countries and with a high level of enthusiasm, are often sell out tickets in minutes or seconds. But this time there was something different with SM Entertainmet, they held an online concert titled “Beyond Live” by inviting Naver as an online search engine in South Korea to work together.

Digital concerts have indeed been held by several boy bands before, like BTS with ‘Bang Bang Con’ on their official YouTube channel. But this latest project is not only an alternative way of providing fans with fans during the Covid19 pandemic, but also to expand the video content business and their reach in the global entertainment industry. This was explained by Lee Soo Man as the founder of SM in The Korea Herald’s online media “By collaborating with Naver with its technology and well-established platform, we expect to see a new type of entertainment where content and technology meet and both companies expand their presence in the global market. “

Beyond Live will be held at the Naver V Live application at 3:00 PM Korean time by paying 1,500 coins equivalent to $ 300 USD for each concert. Next is the opening line up that has been announced by SM Entertainment.

• SuperM :April 26, 2020
• WavY : May 3, 2020
• NCT Dream : May 10, 2020
• NCT 127 : May 17, 2020

This concert will be very real because of the features that allow fans to still be able to interact with their idols coupled with the presence of a digital lightstick. As reported in The Korea Herald “And as the name suggests, the service seeks to go beyond merely broadcasting concerts but provides digital concert content optimized for the online world, including live chats between stars and fans as well as digital light sticks. “

Are you interested to seeing this online concert? Make sure you already have the V Live app on your smartphone and of course coins to watch. And don’t forget to always check the information on the official channel of Beyond Life to find out the latest updates, hopefully the next line up is your idol.

During this time what we see in the South Korean music industry is a luxurious life that can even be regarded as the life desired by some people. As we see, working in the South Korean entertainment industry looks like a good achievement and brings success, such as making a lot of money and is known to foreign countries. But apparently, what we observe is just in front of the screen, without knowing like there is behind the scenes. The following will discuss the dark side that exists in the fierce competition in the South Korean music industry.

1. Sajaegi
‘Sajaegi’ is a term of cheating in manipulating the charts in the South Korean music industry by the agency that houses the idol, such as large-scale purchases of their idol albums and other frauds. Of course, with fierce competition the musicians are competing to make the song enter the Korean charts and that makes it a great achievement. One of the only case issues which was widely discussed in 2018, where a singer who is also a DJ named Shaun was in the spotlight. At that time he released an album and one of the songs in the album titled ‘Way Back Home’ occupies the top position, beating the famous kpop idols Twice and BlackPink on several Korean charts such as Mnet, Melon and Genie.

But that was not justified by Shaun and his agency, as reported by Kpopchart.net Shaun gave the statement “I just want to say that because I produce music, I am proud for not doing something embarrassing like manipulating charts.” Shaun’s statement was even supported by representative from the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on Koreanesia.com. There is absolutely no big difference from the song that is controversial with the 3 comparison songs. ” Until now there are still many issues regarding the cases of just about the alleged blamed on some musicians, but more clearly do not know the truth of the issue.

2. Rigorous Contract By Agency
Many of the South Korean agencies apply to control the lives of their idols, such as the prohibition of not dating within the specified time limit and several other contracts. One contract that is very bound by idols is a contract to debut, with whom they will debut, and join a group or solo. If this is in accordance with the wishes of the idols themselves surely they will like the decision, but if it is not appropriate and already in the idol contract, it cannot easily refuse the existing debut contract. As revealed by Cheska in AllKpop who is a former member of the girl group Fiestar and debuted in 2012 “I want to leave since I started, but I can’t because it’s under a seven-year contract. I decided to leave when I knew I could not get close to other personnel despite trying hard to get close to each other. That’s when I knew I had to leave before I finally killed myself, because that’s what I would do.”

Not only that, during the trainee period, the agency also arranged its idols to not often meet with their families and restricted the use of smartphones, providing a dense training schedule and rigorous assessments that made the idols work hard until they did not have normal sleep time. In The Korea Times youtube channel, they interviewed Kong Yoo Jin who decided to leave the BONUSbaby group in 2018. Kong Yoo Jin gave several statements about his experience of being an idol with various rules “The schedule was always hectic for her, where the group had to wake up extremely early to go to music broadcasts. The group would also always practice until the early morning, so they only got a couple of hours of sleep. And we had to meet our family for an hour only inside the office building. ” Not infrequently these rules make the trainees as well as those who have successfully debuted and become idols feel depressed so that it affects their mental health, this can be even worse to commit suicide as has happened to some idols lately.

3. Plastic Surgery and Extreme Diet
It is common knowledge that there is a culture of plastic surgery in the South Korean entertainment industry in order to reach the standards of being an idol. Although some idols do not do that, it is only natural that the changes are made and made to look as natural as possible. Cheska also gave that testimony in AllKpop, saying that Lisa BlackPink performed plastic surgery. “Here, she (Lisa Blackpink) underwent surgery, but this is a natural operation. It’s not like singer Park Bom who is clearly seen operating on her face. “

Likewise with the ideal posture, some agencies have their own weight standards. Because if you see the female idol has a slim body shape and has a small waist size makes people interested, like the body shape desired by women. Kong Ji Yoo Jin in The Korea Times also revealed about the diet that he must live in order to meet the standards of his agency “The agency told us we should weigh no more than 46 kilograms. I refused to eat, I would normally have one pack of soymilk for the entire day. I used to replace meals with a sip or two from a small pack of soymilk while practicing dance moves all day long.”

Even so, not all agencies in the South Korean entertainment industry act or treat their idols like that. There are still many agencies that are very well connected with their idols, even to their own family. Make this information add to our knowledge of the South Korean music industry and be a smart reader.

Almost some people when discussing the ‘K-Pop’ that comes to mind are a group of boys or girls commonly called boy groups or girl groups like Super Junior, SNSD, BIGBANG and others. And if observed, the Korean music industry is not much different from other countries that gave birth to solo musicians, duos, to groups with various music genres. K-Pop music can’t be doubted its existence and has become the consumption of people from almost all over the world and the discussion this time about several genres and musicians that are in South Korean music or who you are familiar with K-Pop.

Ballad
One genre that is in Korean music and is in great demand is Ballad, melow music and many of its songs tell a love story that finally makes this genre easily accepted by the public. Baek Ji Young, IU, Roy Kim are some of the musicians who many of the songs have a ballad genre and are successful in the Korean music industry even to the international scene. It is not uncommon for Korean drama ost to give their soundtrack playlists, which are mostly filled with ballad songs so that the audience’s emotions get carried away in the story.
Gummy who is also one of the solo female singer ballad song specialists who successfully brought the 2016 ost drama Descendants of the Sun, her soundtrack titled ‘You are My Everything’ successfully won the 2016 Seoul International Drama Awards 2016. As reported by wowkeren.com ” Gummy who managed to bring home the Best Ost trophy for the song You are My Everything “. Until now the ballad is still in demand, it is marked by its existence on Korean music charts.

Indie Pop/Rock
Indie pop / rock is an alternative genre, because indie is not a genre but an abbreviation of independent which means free and independent. But it can be additional descriptive in a genre such as; indie-rap, indie-pop, and indie-rock. In South Korea, the phenomenon of indie music is called ‘K-Indie’ with a number of indie musicians such as Coffe Boy, Ahn Ji Young and one of the successful South Korean indie bands reaching International ‘Hyukoh’.
Hyukoh debuted with their mini album titled 20, the band now taking part in HIGHGRND was formed in 2014 with personnel Oh Hyuk (Vocalist, Guitar), Lee In-Woo (Drum), Lim Hyun-Jae (Lead Guitar), Im Dong-Gun (Bass). This indie band is increasingly well-known in the music industry, sourced from the South China Morning Post they get the chance to appear at the prestigious annual Coachella music event 2019 “The South Korean indie band Hyukoh also performed at the event, which is being held from April 12 to 21. ” . Not infrequently the songs of indie musicians can be considered unique and do not follow the trend of existing songs, because they create a work in accordance with what they like.

Hip Hop
The trend of Hip Hop in South Korea, also known as ‘K-HipHop’, has indeed been widespread in society since the Deux group first introduced the genre, as reported in Wikipedia “Deux is a South Korean K-pop duo from the early 1990s, which was among the first which incorporates hip hop into Korean music. “
Until now, South Korea has given birth to many hip hop musicians ranging from trio, group duo to soloists who are not identical with male singers, such as JinuSean, MFBTY, Gray, Jessi, Zico, Dean and others. Because the K-HipHop trend is in high demand by the people of South Korea, several television stations in the country have finally created a Hip Hop competition, namely Unpretty Rapstar, Show Me The Money, and High School Rapper, this has led to a growing number of talented the other hip hop musicians.

Trot
Trot is a genre of South Korean pop music which is also referred to as traditional pop song, initially this genre is called yuhaengga and has a similarity to one of the music in Indonesia, ‘dangdut’. Trot developed during the Japanese occupation of Korea, as reported in Wikipedia “During the Japanese occupation of Korea, Korean pop songs called yuhaengga developed as a mixture of Korean folk music and Japanese pop music with rhythm of torotto (foxtrot). Yuhaengga songs use traditional Korean scales and singing techniques, but they are sung with a tempo of 2/4 and 3/4 which are characteristic of Western foxtrots. “
The South Korean singer who successfully brought the trot genre since 2009 amid the current popularity of K-pop Hong Jin Young, as reported by Channel-Korea.com “She debuted in 2007 and was a member of the short-lived South Korean girl group, SWAN . In 2009 she returned to the music scene debuting as a trot singer.” Trot is sung with vocal colors and distinctive gestures, generally favored by elderly people. But over time this genre began to be liked by young South Korean children so that it is not uncommon for K-Pop idols to sing trot songs while on stage.

Currently korean culture is sweeping in various parts of the world, one of them is korean music or better known as K-Pop. Even korean music can be considered successful in capturing the hearts of it’s listeners, so it’s no wonder korean culture has a large number of fans, they are called ‘Kpopers’, many of them even become fanatical fans who can also have a negative impact on themselves. Eits, but don’t be mistaken there’s a few people who don’t like to listen music from the land of ginseng. Many reasons that make them dislike korean music, such as physical assessment to be associated with most of the korean idols undergoing plastic surgery and the dislike can go into all aspects to hate the country as well. It’s not uncommon for kpopers who feel unfair with the non-kpopers assessment that is increasingly leading to the utterance of hate speech, according to them many of their idol works are indeed good and deserves appreciation, from there the war of opinion took place between two camps.

But who would have thought it turns out that these ‘Non-kpopers’ could turn their hearts, who had hated them to be able to give a positive assessment just because of one situation. How come it works?

Yep, that happened in Indonesia. With the latest news about South Korea prioritizing Test Kit assistance for Indonesia, as reported by era.id “The South Korean government only prioritizes three countries to get assistance. Fortunately, one of them is Indonesia.” Still with the same source, the article explained that “The decision was based on the level of emergencies and relations between the two countries.” No wonder this information is related to kpop fans in Indonesia who consider it a boomerang for non-kpopers who really hate Korea. As happened to my friends, some of them paid their respects to the help and succeeded in opening their minds that the country they did not like turned out to care about Indonesia.

Actually, a lot of things that can be taken in this paper. For example, the statement that something excessive is not good. As well as the phrase “Music is Universal” that music does not discriminate listeners through physical, gender, religion, language, and culture but the thing that distinguishes music lovers from one another is their taste in music. If you consider yourself a music lover, you surely explore various type of music, right? One of them is by exploring korean music, many things are presented through several genres of their music and certainly not only about boy grups and girl groups.