VK and Kpop....why?

[CAT5 9075]

I'm honestly perplexed and need for the fans of both VK and Kpop to explain to me why so many people find these 2 scenes to be simultaneously appealing. I have my own theories, but I'm interested to find out directly from the fans. I don't think there's anything wrong with listening to music from either scene, but there seems to be a trend of people listening to both almost exclusively, and another trend of people moving to Kpop after they tire of the VK scene. I'm merely curious to find out why this is such a widespread movement...

[dannemannen 69]

Never thought about that. The only thing ive noticed is that its mostly women who like the koreans, while there are many guys who are into VK. Personally I dont get the k-pop thing though, its like aids.

[Wonrei 108]

Yeah, I was thinking the exact same thing these days. I just don't get. They're two completely different genres. Normally, I'd think "If someone likes this modern visual kei, maybe they'd also like listening to nu metal? Or maybe metalcore?" As it's somewhat similar... But then I find out that most of these who like vk because they reject the "western trash music"(sigh) go listen to kpop. And Kpop is far from being that different from the western pop. Well, it just makes no sense at all. The same thing goes to people who only listen to kpop or only to visual kei, it's just weird. Maybe it's because I always like finding new music from every place in this world...

There's also this funny thing that if someone like that sees this thread they will probably go "why are you judging me for listening to this???" while most of them judge people who don't listen to asian music.

Oh, whatever.

[Guest]

I like fun pop music. I like glamour and the spectacle of it all.

I don't understand the whole "I am so glad I left the VK fandom for K-POP! SUPER JUNIOR!" thing, though. I love both and a lot of other genres too.

[Nyasagi 259]

I don't understand it either. I tried to listen to kpop, but I got bored easily, all these boysbands sound the same. Apparently I care about music too much. Korean tv programs can be really funny though, but it's nothing music related. I've always thought that pop isn't very much about music in general, but more about promoting something, so people spend their money... or just the tv pays these stars to appear there. Coat west porn actors don't do anything else except having sex, so girls need to look at some guys doing something funny, I guess. VK is a bit about the image and promotion as well, maybe that's why some girls like both...

[Number Girl 48]

It hasn't really been much of a mystery to me. Same "pretty boy/girl" Asian band fad, different music and instruments. Though I don't think it is very odd if people just happen to enjoy all kinds of music.

Not that I necessarily care, I'm just a little perplexed by some of the reasons people give for the whole "conversion" to K-Pop from VK. For example when people say they "left J-Rock" because "all the bands sound the same and are totally generic liek omgggg guize." And then I look at their list of favorite K-Pop bands and I'm like . . . ummmm, okay then.

[Gizorz 24]

I listen to both, and a bunch of other genres. I just really like clubmusic for when I go out, to dance on, and kpop falls under that, especially the techno-ish songs. Not that I find it good music, but it's fun and catchy and sometimes I want to listen to songs like that haha. I listen to ~western~ pop and club music too it's just that kpop got shoved in my face a lot when that whole "I left vk for kpop" hype happened like.. 1 or 2 years ago so some things kinda stuck. I'm not a hardcore kpop fan though so maybe I'm not the kind of person you are referring too.

But you know, the thing both have in common is the huge emphasize on appearance so that might be an explanation..

[Tokage 5930]

The cynic in me wants to say that the reason is probably "lol omg da guise look so hot xd"

[Jigsaw9 6783]

I listen to VK and K-pop (and of course all sorts of other music) currently/simultaneously for about 2 years now, but I dunno... xD It might have to do with the fact that I've learnt not to give a crap about feeling "ridiculous" or "weird" for listening to catchy pop - a mentality that the rock/metal community instills; that's where I came from originally. But I don't think this musical "opening up" of mine could've occured so smoothly in the first place without me already listening to VK (so I guess the "exotic" factor has to do with it too, to some degree).

Plus, K-pop sounds cooler and catchier (to me) than regular whatever-pop - even though, yeah I know, it's not uncommon in K-pop that random Western people write their songs.

By the way, it's pretty easy to see why people (like weaboos, etc) "convert" to K-pop: both VK and K-pop provide that sense of immaculate/"safe" prettyboy image, both are Asian, what more can a Japanophile teenage girl want? lol (sorry for the generalization, but that's how I experienced it where I live)

[jarrad 1]

I started listening kpop last year. It wasn't because I was sick of visual kei, it was merely because my brother was playing a song and I thought it was catchy. So, I looked further into it. I'm not a huge fan of kpop, there are a lot of songs I don't like but then there are the ones I find catchy. I much prefer korean hip-hop to be honest.

[greeeeen 49]

I was curious, and also in dire need of something refreshing - something catchy. I was already over VK when I started listening to K-Pop.. But what made me listen to the music was not because of looks (hey, I believe this is one of the main reasons for most of the people who shift into the scene); I didn't really watch MV/performances and the boys were not all that appealing to me. Until now, I'm still not a fan myself - it is just something to dig when I kind of feel like listening to fun, light music without thinking of anything. Not the shabby lyrics, its lack of originality - just listen and forget.

[Jigsaw9 6783]

it is just something to dig when I kind of feel like listening to fun, light music without thinking of anything. Not the shabby lyrics, its lack of originality - just listen and forget.

Yeah, kinda like that for me too I guess. It really helps that I can't understand the lyrics too, haha.

[sai 868]

I like fun pop music. I like glamour and the spectacle of it all.

I don't understand the whole "I am so glad I left the VK fandom for K-POP! SUPER JUNIOR!" thing, though. I love both and a lot of other genres too.

Kind of like this, really. I like to listen to it mostly when exercising or on the road because it is more light music compared to the more ambient music I often listen to. Can't listen to that all the time, so this is for more upbeat moments Yeah sure the guys are good-looking, but they're not the best vocalists around. I don't mind it that much, I just like the songs.

[Kaye 296]

Lots of people went from VK to Kpop (some discarding VK completely, others just listening to both). I don't really get it either, but it happened to me as well. Though I have the explanation that I grew up listening to rock and pop at the same time because of my parents and I've always had a thing for pop music, though my real love lies within rock. Not one is better than the other. Both have horrible vocalists, both have awesome vocalists. Both have bad music and both have good music. It all just depends.

I'm only really a fan of two or maybe three and a hip-hop group though a listen to loads of different kpop artists. It's just catchy and fun I guess. At the same time I also have loads of Krock, which is a scene harder to dig into. It reminds me I should post some stuff here. You guys might like it.

I have no real explanation for the link between them, but I do think it's interesting. As a few have stated before, some people might just like the visuals? The "concepts per release" is a thing that returns for both.

[saltofstones 136]

I think it's mostly the visuals and the glamour of it all. If someone was almost exclusively into VK bands, who mostly play rock music, then the logical step for them to take if they wanted to try some Korean music would be Korean rock bands. But most Kpop fans entirely ignore any form of rock coming from Korea, yet some of them continue listening to VK because they "also like rock music". Ok, so why not K-Rock then? Maybe because they actually like "Asian pretty boy music" and the rest are just excuses and rationalizations for their superficiality. Of course I think it's fine to listen to Kpop and whatever you want if you actually do like plenty of different music, it's understandable that people enjoy a variety of music and genres. Kpop is fun music, I myself don't like it, but it's pretty easy to like, that's for sure. But obsessing only over VK and Kpop and ignoring everything else is pretty telling of having 0 interest in the music itself.

[fitear1590 2414]

I've always wondered about this too.

Listening to both VK and K-pop, among a number of other different genres and international music isn't hard to understand. You have varied tastes in music, no one's questioning that.

But when people listen to exclusively VK and K-pop, or do the infamous all VK to all K-pop switch, it's confusing... I guess the superficial aspect makes sense. I didn't really see the visual connection, until these pics popped up in one of ViViD's threads:

Left: ViViD; Right: Taemin (of K-pop group Shinee)

(Yes, ViViD has always pretty much been the epitome of sellout trendy VK, but you get the idea.)

My personal theory, I think blogspots might also have to with the VK/K-pop phenomenon. When you have loads of blogspots fully devoted to VK, uploading all your music, it makes it very easy to get comfy and not venture outside of that. I don't have any experience with K-pop, but I assume there's also many blogspots where people download to their heart's content. And after people get all jaded with VK, it might make for an easy transition to just move on to downloading K-pop.

[madygrain 515]

I personally think it's because both are aimed to simmilar people. Both have pop or esy to get into catchyness and "hot dudes" on the videos. VK is more for the pre-teen/teen girl who wants to feel special and still belong to a group and have "alternative" idols that people don't understand or know but they are still good looking to her. K-POP is more for a more grown up girl that does not need to define her caracter and label herself as different. She still want to have a exotic and likeable hobby, and K-POP provides the hotness and the catchyness she needs without the argebly stupid poses and looks of VK and that she may be ashamed by now.

That's why I think the "target audience" for VK, at least overseas, tends to shift from one to the other. Their tastes and attitude change, but not their entretaintment needs and preferences.

[dannemannen 69]

"K-POP is more for a more grown up girl that does not need to define her caracter and label herself as different."

Do you guys really think that high of K-pop? For me it just takes all the cheesiness, genericness, soullessness and "produced in a factory"-element from jpop to another dimension, i dont get it

[Nyasagi 259]

More for a grown up girl? Please... Kpop fandom is even more annoying than Gazette fans... I wouldn't call them grown up.

[ficsci 50]

Well it's pretty easy, at least for fans who are less nerdy about purely the musical aspect, they both have an entertaining visual appeal. I've heard people mentioning Lady Gaga when talking about VK. Well look at K-pop, they practically stole Lady Gaga's costumes.

And I find that vk bands tend to have "catchier" song structure than the non-vk counterparts of the same musical genre (e.g. often I find vk metal to have a more pop structure than regular metal; or vk shoegaze incorporating other genres and also using a more pop-song structure than regular shoegaze, which I actually really like because after a while I find that drone-y shoegaze bands with boring, monotonous melodies just all sound the same in every song ). I don't this point directly contribute to why people like both VK and K-pop, but I guess it might make VK slightly closer to "pop" as rock music.

Btw I don't like K-pop. I've gone briefly through a phase when I got kinda addicted to it, but after some time it was too easy to notice K-pop's hypnotically repetitive chord progressions (first it's the same 4 measures for the entire song, then they take it to a different key but play the same 4 measure progression for another entire song), and I started to feel my IQ dropping. I don't feel that way for the VK bands I listen to even though I rarely listen to anything else, because many of the compositions, arrangements, chord choices are too bizarre, dissonant, and intricate to be called "pop", even if they clearly have a catchy chorus, and are too open-ended in style that I honestly don't know what one genre label to put them in.... (maybe prog rock? I mean not really....)

[madygrain 515]

I don't think high about K-POP in fact I don't like it at all. I am not also saying that K-POP fans are more mature or grown up. I just wated to say that K-POP fans generally have surpassed that inmature phase of wnating to be part of a group that enbraces the unlikeable the dark and the undergroudish because it's so. In the end, as I said are the same kind of people looking for the same things, and equally annoying and superficial most of the time.

[Kyrie33 0]

I suppose it's because both scenes are full of crazy fangirls who can practically like any kind of music as long as the musician is "hawt" XD

[ShanethVarosa 1209]

Honestly, I didn't read the whole topic. I'm just going to say my piece and see what people have to say about it:

I am personally in to both, but I think K-Pop is a natural progression when you're into the Asian culture AND into dance/pop music. I know that in my life, having fun and going dancing is one of my favorite things to do so I like having nice beats and rhythms to dance to. I much prefer Japan to Korea on any day of the week, but J-Pop never captured me the way K-Pop did because I think there's better producers in Korea or something. Or Korean women are better singers than Japanese women. I don't know for certain, it has a je ne sais quoi that J-Pop just does not have.

But I will say this: the boy bands in K-Pop are NOT my thing. They're gorgeous, yes, but overall their talent is extremely questional. SHINee has to be my favorite (oh and CNBlue is pretty awesome), but other than that... Every guy group fails me and I think it's because they make women's ovaries explode and it isn't about the actual dancing, fun-having, or music anymore. Whereas with the women groups (and BoA), they have lightyears more talent in terms of singing where there is, on average, less abhorrent use of autotune.

And I mean come on. 2NE1 is just fucking cool.

My love for VK is completely unrelated to my (extremely mild) K-Pop fascination.

[TheBistroButcher666 228]

I personally think it's because both are aimed to simmilar people. Both have pop or esy to get into catchyness and "hot dudes" on the videos. VK is more for the pre-teen/teen girl who wants to feel special and still belong to a group and have "alternative" idols that people don't understand or know but they are still good looking to her.

I pretty much agree with just this only.

It's marketed towards the same audience, but one slight difference is Visual Kei is still more or less unknown. So it lets people feel like they're being unique not caught up in big mainstream artists. It also just appeals to the alternate rock sub culture because while some stuff is just catchy pop rock tunes. There's still some pseudo deep, heavy stuff.

I wouldn't say K-Pop is for older people, it's just a more accessible mainstream style that will appeal to more people because they are playing familiar music and ermagerd dah boys.

The people that did the infamous shift from completely removing VK from their life and attaching themselves to K-Pop are morons though. I also say good riddance because these people were probably obnoxious, I mean some of these people are still obnoxious. Hanging around making sure everyone knows they don't like Japanese music and only K-pop. I don't see that here on MH but it pops up in the old Livejournal communities.

[Slsr 207]

Well yeah, honestly audience targeted is partly same but I don't see this has much to do with that. For many it seems to be all about them cute Asian boys and girls to follow closely <3<3<3, they are so much better than fake american pop singers even if in kpop case it's obviously very same crap that is only made to sell they are performing. That's actually from where we get one major difference between these acts, since kpop is actually just same thing as any other pop, their songs are even written often by very same people who write pop songs to american pop singers etc. Whereas vkei bands mostly write their own songs as far as I know. So for me vkei is something I have much easier to have respect towards, it's a bit hard for me to consider mainstream pop music much of an art anyway. Of course vkei has their own weak points, often they might lack talent to write decent songs and it's easy to question if all bands are able to stay so honest towards their music either, especially when lacking talent it must be more easy to loose grip on songwriting than someone with much skill. But still more often than in pop, sales aren't only thing that matter, and bands try their best to do and write music they want to, so surely it's still way more orginal and cool music on this regard, even if it's not always so brilliant.