Advice to K-Pop
“Half of the top ten news reported by The Hollywood Reporter (THR) is related to K-Pop. The world is getting more and more interested in Hallyu content.”
Janice Min, co-president and chief creative officer of Guggenheim Digital Media's entertainment group overseeing The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard, a powerful entertainment brand in the US, visited Korea to attend the 2014 Seoul International Music Fair and said so on Oct. 7. She also commented, “With the appearance of next-generation celebrities after PSY, K-Pop will spread around the world once more.”
President Min is also an editor of Billboard, a famous music magazine. She is called the Magazine Queen, as she succeeded in increasing the number of visitors to the THR website by 900 percent through a radical transformation.
Min assessed that K-Pop content has competitiveness in the fast-moving music industry. She said, “K-Pop content has strengths in the way that diverse areas including dance, music, fashion, and beauty are covered. This enables everyone to enjoy it and get along. Especially to the generations who accept cultural content through YouTube, K-Pop is very powerful and appealing.”
She did not forget to give shrewd advice to K-Pop along with compliments. She advised, “K-Pop content now needs sincerity. Perfectly-wrapped appearances might look fake to audiences in the U.S.” What she means is that K-Pop content currently manufactured by management companies, just like industrial products from factories, cannot jump a step further. President Min added, “In the U.S. as well, fans become much more enthusiastic when group singers pursued the art they wanted to do after leaving management companies. K-Pop now has to grow based on sincerity.”
She also positively projected the continuity of Hallyu content. Especially pointing out PSY as a singer in K-Pop’s turning point, she analyzed, “PSY made audiences, who came to see a Dodgers game, one of the most American cultures, dance. Even though most of them could not understand what the lyrics meant, his song and dance had strengths to fascinate people’s hearts.”