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流行文化讲求包装。与日本流行文化所体现的青春崇拜一样，“韩流”红遍大江南北，靠的也是一群由“流水生产线”出品的青春偶像——清一色的明眸善睐、长腿细腰，外加夸张的眼线和七彩的发色，“卖萌卖酷”的舞台作风……总之，清纯抑或火辣，任君选择。这帮青春偶像十几岁时就被星探发掘进入娱乐经纪公司成为练习生，接受培训，少则一年，多则六七年，为的是“有一天站上舞台”这个梦想。他们的成人礼在选择成为练习生的那一天就已完成——因为这个圈子讲的就是“成王败寇”。 大浪淘沙，竞争中出人才。你为台上的偶像欢呼鼓掌，殊不知这样的欢呼与掌声属于他们背后的经纪公司，因为只要“工厂”不倒，“产品”就能源源不断，高矮肥瘦，总有一款能俘获你的心。
——Mac
Think of the work required to make just one 3)Justin Bieber. The production, the management, the 4)vocal training, the 5)choreography, the 6)swagger coaching—all that effort to create one teen-pop star in a country that’s still starving for them. South Korea has no such drought, thanks to several companies that specialize in manufacturing a steady stream of teenage idols, in groups of various 7)configurations. One of the 8)longest-running of these companies is 9)SM Entertainment, which, at the end of year 2011, hosted SM Town Live, a 10)sold-out 11)showcase at 12)Madison Square Garden for several of its 13)acts, any one of which any American reality-TV talent show or major-label 14)A&R department 15)worth its salt would be thrilled to have discovered.
American teen-pop at its peak has never been this productive. K-pop—short for Korean pop—is an environment of 16)relentless newness, both in participants and in style; even its 17)veteran acts are still relatively young, and they make young music. Still, there were subtle differences among the veterans, like 18)BoA and [1]TVXQ, and the newer-19)minted acts like [2]Super Junior, [3]Girls’ Generation and [4]SHINee.
Members of the younger set are less concerned with boundaries, drawing from the 20)spectrum of pop of the last decade in their music: post-21)Timbaland hip-hop 22)rumbles, 23)trance-influenced 24)thump, dance music driven by 25)arena-rock guitars, straightforward 26)balladry.
Of these groups, the relative newcomer SHINee was the most ambitious. From the looks of it, the group’s men are powered by brightly colored leather, 27)Dr. Martens boots and hair 28)mousse. Their music, especially Replay, Ring Ding Dong and Juliette, felt the riskiest, even if it only slightly 29)tweaked that 30)polyglot K-pop formula; these vocalists were among the strongest.
But SHINee came in a recognizable format, the same size as American groups like [5]N’ Sync and the [6]Backstreet Boys. But what K-pop has excelled at in recent years are large groups that seem to defy logic and order. Super Junior, which at its maximum has 13 members, was one of this show’s highlights, appearing several times throughout the night in different color outfits, shining on Mr. Simple and the intense industrial dance-pop of Bonamana.
The nine-woman Girls’ Generation offered a more polite 31)take on K-pop, including on The Boys, which is its 32)debut American single. Girls’ Generation gave perhaps the best representation of K-pop’s coy, shiny values in keeping with a 33)chaste night that satisfied demand, but not desire. It was an inversion on the traditional American formula; in this country young female singers are often more 34)sexualized than their male 35)counterparts.
Male and female performers shared the stage here only a couple of times, rarely getting even 36)in the ballpark of 37)innuendo. In one set piece two lovers 38)serenaded each other from across the stage, with microphones they found in a mailbox (he) and a purse (she). In between acts the screens showed 39)virginal commercials about friendship and commitment to performance; during the sets they displayed fantastically colored graphics, sometimes childlike, sometimes 40)Warholian, but never less than cheerful.
In the past few years K-pop has shown a creeping global influence. Many acts release albums in Korean and Japanese, a nod to the increasing 41)fungibility of Asian pop. And 42)inroads, however slight, are being made into the American marketplace. The acts here sang and lip 43)synced in both Korean and English. Girls’ Generation has signed with 44)Interscope to release music in the United States.
But some ideas that cycle in may soon cycle out. That would be advisable for some of the songs 45)augmented with deeply 46)goofy rapping: showing the English translation of the lyrics on screen didn’t help. The best rapping of the show came from Amber, the 47)tomboy of the least polished group on the bill, [7]f(x), who received 48)frenzied screams each time she stepped out in front of her 49)girly bandmates.
If there was a direct American influence to be 50)gleaned here, it was, oddly enough, 51)Ke$ha who best approximates the 52)exuberant and sometimes careless 53)genrelessness of K-pop in her own music; her songs Tik Tok and My First Kiss were covered during the show.
But while she is 54)simpatico with the newer K-pop modes, she had little to do with the more mature styles. Those were represented by the 55)Josh Groban-esque 56)crooning of Kangta, lead singer of the foundational, long-57)disbanded Korean boy band [8]H.O.T., who made a brief appearance early in the show, and the 58)duo TVXQ, a slimmed-down version of the long-running group by that name, who at one point delved into an R&B 59)slow jam 60)reminiscent of [9]Jodeci or early 61)Usher. BoA, the show’s only featured solo artist, has been making albums for a decade, and her Copy & Paste sounded like a 62)vintage 1993 63)Janet Jackson song.
仔细想想，仅仅打造一个贾斯汀•比伯就得耗费多少人力物力。星探挖掘、管理包装、声乐练习、舞台表现，还有“摆架势”，在这么一个对少年偶像如饥似渴的国度，打造一个少年偶像实属不易。而在韩国却没有这样的“干涸期”，这全仰仗于韩国几家娱乐经纪公司——专职打造偶像的“生产线”，不断推出各色各样的偶像组合。在这些娱乐经纪公司里，SM娱乐公司资历最老，2011年年末，SM娱乐公司在美国麦迪逊广场花园主办了几场SM Town Live演唱会，场场爆满。要是美国真人选秀节目或是真正有份量的大型唱片公司的唱片企划部能挖掘到这么些高素质偶像，他们一定乐坏了。
美国的偶像工业即使在巅峰时期也没有这么高产。韩流——“韩国流行音乐”的简称，讲究的就是“推陈出新”，无论是艺人还是风格；即使是老资历艺人也还相当年轻，做的也还是适合年轻人的音乐。然而，元老级青春偶像之间还是有些微妙差别，像宝儿和东方神起就不一样，而新一批偶像组合就有Super Junior、少女时代以及SHINee。
年轻一派的偶像团体并不刻意限定自己的音乐类型，而是从过去十年兴起的各色音乐流派中汲取养分化为己用：后提姆巴兰时期的嘻哈说唱风、迷幻舞曲音乐风、摇滚吉他弹奏而成的舞曲风以及简单明了的民谣风皆有。
在上述这些组合当中，SHINee相对是新人，却最有雄心壮志。就外貌而言，组合成员们身着亮色皮衣、脚蹬马丁靴外加头上摩丝定型。他们的曲目，特别是《姐姐真漂亮》，《Ring Ding Dong》以及《朱丽叶》听起来最为大胆创新，尽管只是在韩流舞曲多语种歌词夹杂的惯用模式上小作修改，与其他组合相比，他们的唱功最为出色。
但SHINee也是有前例可循的，其组合规模与美国流行乐团诸如“超级男孩”以及“后街男孩”并无二致。但是，韩流近几年最为出色的地方在于推出不合逻辑和规则的大型团体。Super Junior——人数最多时达到13个——是整个演唱会的亮点，一晚上多次变换造型上台表演，演唱曲目有《简单的人》以及激烈的工业舞曲流行歌曲《美人啊》。
——Mac
Think of the work required to make just one 3)Justin Bieber. The production, the management, the 4)vocal training, the 5)choreography, the 6)swagger coaching—all that effort to create one teen-pop star in a country that’s still starving for them. South Korea has no such drought, thanks to several companies that specialize in manufacturing a steady stream of teenage idols, in groups of various 7)configurations. One of the 8)longest-running of these companies is 9)SM Entertainment, which, at the end of year 2011, hosted SM Town Live, a 10)sold-out 11)showcase at 12)Madison Square Garden for several of its 13)acts, any one of which any American reality-TV talent show or major-label 14)A&R department 15)worth its salt would be thrilled to have discovered.
American teen-pop at its peak has never been this productive. K-pop—short for Korean pop—is an environment of 16)relentless newness, both in participants and in style; even its 17)veteran acts are still relatively young, and they make young music. Still, there were subtle differences among the veterans, like 18)BoA and [1]TVXQ, and the newer-19)minted acts like [2]Super Junior, [3]Girls’ Generation and [4]SHINee.
Members of the younger set are less concerned with boundaries, drawing from the 20)spectrum of pop of the last decade in their music: post-21)Timbaland hip-hop 22)rumbles, 23)trance-influenced 24)thump, dance music driven by 25)arena-rock guitars, straightforward 26)balladry.
Of these groups, the relative newcomer SHINee was the most ambitious. From the looks of it, the group’s men are powered by brightly colored leather, 27)Dr. Martens boots and hair 28)mousse. Their music, especially Replay, Ring Ding Dong and Juliette, felt the riskiest, even if it only slightly 29)tweaked that 30)polyglot K-pop formula; these vocalists were among the strongest.
But SHINee came in a recognizable format, the same size as American groups like [5]N’ Sync and the [6]Backstreet Boys. But what K-pop has excelled at in recent years are large groups that seem to defy logic and order. Super Junior, which at its maximum has 13 members, was one of this show’s highlights, appearing several times throughout the night in different color outfits, shining on Mr. Simple and the intense industrial dance-pop of Bonamana.
The nine-woman Girls’ Generation offered a more polite 31)take on K-pop, including on The Boys, which is its 32)debut American single. Girls’ Generation gave perhaps the best representation of K-pop’s coy, shiny values in keeping with a 33)chaste night that satisfied demand, but not desire. It was an inversion on the traditional American formula; in this country young female singers are often more 34)sexualized than their male 35)counterparts.
Male and female performers shared the stage here only a couple of times, rarely getting even 36)in the ballpark of 37)innuendo. In one set piece two lovers 38)serenaded each other from across the stage, with microphones they found in a mailbox (he) and a purse (she). In between acts the screens showed 39)virginal commercials about friendship and commitment to performance; during the sets they displayed fantastically colored graphics, sometimes childlike, sometimes 40)Warholian, but never less than cheerful.
In the past few years K-pop has shown a creeping global influence. Many acts release albums in Korean and Japanese, a nod to the increasing 41)fungibility of Asian pop. And 42)inroads, however slight, are being made into the American marketplace. The acts here sang and lip 43)synced in both Korean and English. Girls’ Generation has signed with 44)Interscope to release music in the United States.
But some ideas that cycle in may soon cycle out. That would be advisable for some of the songs 45)augmented with deeply 46)goofy rapping: showing the English translation of the lyrics on screen didn’t help. The best rapping of the show came from Amber, the 47)tomboy of the least polished group on the bill, [7]f(x), who received 48)frenzied screams each time she stepped out in front of her 49)girly bandmates.
If there was a direct American influence to be 50)gleaned here, it was, oddly enough, 51)Ke$ha who best approximates the 52)exuberant and sometimes careless 53)genrelessness of K-pop in her own music; her songs Tik Tok and My First Kiss were covered during the show.
But while she is 54)simpatico with the newer K-pop modes, she had little to do with the more mature styles. Those were represented by the 55)Josh Groban-esque 56)crooning of Kangta, lead singer of the foundational, long-57)disbanded Korean boy band [8]H.O.T., who made a brief appearance early in the show, and the 58)duo TVXQ, a slimmed-down version of the long-running group by that name, who at one point delved into an R&B 59)slow jam 60)reminiscent of [9]Jodeci or early 61)Usher. BoA, the show’s only featured solo artist, has been making albums for a decade, and her Copy & Paste sounded like a 62)vintage 1993 63)Janet Jackson song.
仔细想想，仅仅打造一个贾斯汀•比伯就得耗费多少人力物力。星探挖掘、管理包装、声乐练习、舞台表现，还有“摆架势”，在这么一个对少年偶像如饥似渴的国度，打造一个少年偶像实属不易。而在韩国却没有这样的“干涸期”，这全仰仗于韩国几家娱乐经纪公司——专职打造偶像的“生产线”，不断推出各色各样的偶像组合。在这些娱乐经纪公司里，SM娱乐公司资历最老，2011年年末，SM娱乐公司在美国麦迪逊广场花园主办了几场SM Town Live演唱会，场场爆满。要是美国真人选秀节目或是真正有份量的大型唱片公司的唱片企划部能挖掘到这么些高素质偶像，他们一定乐坏了。
美国的偶像工业即使在巅峰时期也没有这么高产。韩流——“韩国流行音乐”的简称，讲究的就是“推陈出新”，无论是艺人还是风格；即使是老资历艺人也还相当年轻，做的也还是适合年轻人的音乐。然而，元老级青春偶像之间还是有些微妙差别，像宝儿和东方神起就不一样，而新一批偶像组合就有Super Junior、少女时代以及SHINee。
年轻一派的偶像团体并不刻意限定自己的音乐类型，而是从过去十年兴起的各色音乐流派中汲取养分化为己用：后提姆巴兰时期的嘻哈说唱风、迷幻舞曲音乐风、摇滚吉他弹奏而成的舞曲风以及简单明了的民谣风皆有。
在上述这些组合当中，SHINee相对是新人，却最有雄心壮志。就外貌而言，组合成员们身着亮色皮衣、脚蹬马丁靴外加头上摩丝定型。他们的曲目，特别是《姐姐真漂亮》，《Ring Ding Dong》以及《朱丽叶》听起来最为大胆创新，尽管只是在韩流舞曲多语种歌词夹杂的惯用模式上小作修改，与其他组合相比，他们的唱功最为出色。
但SHINee也是有前例可循的，其组合规模与美国流行乐团诸如“超级男孩”以及“后街男孩”并无二致。但是，韩流近几年最为出色的地方在于推出不合逻辑和规则的大型团体。Super Junior——人数最多时达到13个——是整个演唱会的亮点，一晚上多次变换造型上台表演，演唱曲目有《简单的人》以及激烈的工业舞曲流行歌曲《美人啊》。