@girlbandgeek

🧵 2/2

"La Pam Pam" sounds to me like an orchestral pop piece that has been influenced by anime music. I think too that influence was at work in a lot of GFriend music.

I note that because Japan has also contributed to kpop musically as well as in terms of industrial organization and idol culture in general. Of course, the US musical influence on kpop is much more noticeable but that Japanese input is still there.

The overall importance of Japan to the kpop industry often gets neglected in those "Is Kpop getting too westernized?" discussions . Part of the reason for that neglect is that we in the west naturally focus on the west, but I also think that sensitivities about Japan Korea relations come into it.

Although I have an interest in late 19C and 20C East Asian history, I have no expert knowledge, so treat what I say with appropriate caution; a lot of it is just conjecture.

I sometimes wonder if Kpop can tell us something about Japan Korea relations. On the one hand , you have "scandals" pertaining to that history:

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/art/2025/02/398_344898.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46147777

On the other hand, you have the importance of the Japanese market for the kpop industry and the Japanese influences I've noted earlier.

Kpop fan spaces tend to fall back on a version of history in which Japan is simply the colonial oppressor and Korea the victim.

I certainly would not want to deny the importance of that colonial exploitation in general and the the scars left by practices such as sex slavery.

Yet I have a feeling that this narrative is simplistic . Colonies depend on consent and collaboration as well as oppression, and my guess is that applies here too. Possibly there is a parallel with British -Irish relations, where revisionist historiography in Ireland has shifted from "centuries of unbroken resistance" to a more complex and nuanced view .(I'm aware of the challenges to that revisionism).

That historical complexity is reflected in the relations that obtain today between the UK and Ireland in general and even in the entertainment industry in particular.

So I am wondering if we might get a better understanding of the kpop industry and even kpop artistry if we were ready to admit the possibility that the popular history in kpop spaces merits critical scrutiny.

To obviate any misunderstandings, I am not denying or trying to play down the appalling aspects of Japanese rule in Korea and elsewhere in Asia.

Okay, we need more music at this
point. GFriend -- Memoria seems appropriate. As well as having an apt title, it's a great song, even though the lyrics include a corny English rhyme and the MV has some ugly outfits!

https://youtu.be/YTWwz6R6jy0?si=-sX7NZNNUhfETnnP

#Kpop #KoreaJapanRelations #EastAsiaHistory #Colonialism #HistoricalRevisionism #GFriend #Memoria