Scribblings of the Metropolitician

On the Value of Virtuosity

Some of you have missed the point of what I actually said in my initial post on Girls' Generation's appearance on Letterman, and instead, engaged in straw-manning and oversimplifying my argument. Such is the way of the Internet, I guess.

Read this comment here, since it lays out what I actually am saying, not what people think I am saying. Reading comprehension skills, people -- not scanning for keywords. A lot of you are ostensibly English teachers, no?

1) I am not predicting the "demise" of K-pop, nor am I in the dark about it being very popular in China, Taiwan, the Phillipines, Japan. Nor am I ignorant of the fact that it's a vibrant sub-genre in the US. But it ain't what the Korean media is saying, and will remain about where it is, enabled by changing demographics and the easier distribution of music along different parts of the long tail pattern.

2) But music requires talent. Great musicians posses virtuosity. Acts that have jostled people out of where they already were, as in the many examples I cited, possessed virtuosity -- they caused people to sit up, go out and buy the LP, or the CD, or Google them. And you might even find them on iTunes, since a) you know to look, and b) iTunes is one of the aggregators that lets you FIND it. GG just wasn't that good, they dont really have a new sound, especially to the American ears they find great inspiration from.

3) People think only about PUSH, not PULL. As in immigration theory, it's not just that people want to leave their own country, but there has to be a pull that brings them in, as well. Such a theory would apply to cultural trends as well. It's not just that GG wants to enter the American market, or that their boosters really really want them to succeed; the cultural codes, market needs/niches of the receiving culture also matter -- and on this score, I don't see the viewers of Dave being jostled out of their seats enough to care about this random group of kids. This is the same problem I've been positing in ALL attempts to push Korean culture abroad, well before GG's appearance.

4) National blinders lead people to patterns that aren't there. This is a greater example of what I saw in movie theaters in the 1990s. No, this doesn't mean I'm an old fogey. One might call this "perspective": whenever a Samsung logo would accidentally flash across the screen in a Hollywood movie, or "Hyosung" would appear as a sign in the backdrop, the Korean audience would give out a loud "Wooooooo" and would be a-titter for a minute or so. I would roll my eyes; my peers in the States probably wouldn't notice; Koreans would see this as a pattern of "growing recognition/power/penetration/knowledge of Korean culture/brand power/dominance" in the world. In short, the Koreans would see a discrete phenomenon; Americans would just see Peter Parker as Spiderman using a computer.

Such are the problems with seeing huge patterns, making great prognostications, calling the game well before the second inning has even started.

Thus far, to the extent that Korean culture HAS found greater popular purchase and success worldwide, it followed examples of virtuosity -- Old Boy blew 'em away at Cannes and the French got hooked into the gritty, noir style of Korean cinema. Killer dramas in the late 1990s brought a new genre with high production values and Asian cultural values to other countries in Asia. It defined a different aesthetic. Even in Korean music, still, the most purchase ha been found in Asia, and mostly amount the ey young.

And the same is true in the US. GG's performance didn't shake the foundations of music, or even cause much of a stir -- MUSICALLY. That's the point. Everyone is cheering for them because of the import ths has for "Korea" or "Koreans" -- but that isn't pertinent to te matter at hand: those who already know, or be inclined to care, about a Korean girl group with little distinguishing talent appearing on Letterman are the proverbial choir that's already heard the sermon. Those who don't, or who won't be inclined to care, won't be moved enough to do so.

That's all I'm saying.

To be clear -- for singers, virtuosity matters. At least, and especially, in the US. We're not just talking about "Korean culture" in the abstract, but one thing that determines whether or not a singer, let alone an entire genre, will make it -- their singing ability, stage presence, novelty -- all of it.

People here have been calling me an old fogey, saying I'm out of touch. It's a new age, gramps, and the kids won't get off yer lawn.

But in the US, virtuosity leads to glowing reviews, being asked to do a guest performance on an awards show, getting on the cover of Rolling Stone, getting asked to appear on every single other late night show there is, becoming the musical guest on SNL -- oh, and speaking English well enough to not just make it through an interview without embarrassing oneself, which is unfortunately, the bar as it stands now, since that's what everyone would be worried about if one or two of the girls was asked to speak/spar with Dave, but to actually impress, to promote oneself well. 

Virtuosity matters, people. This is music we're talking about. Just as the script, cinematography, directing, and acting matters in a film. And no matter the circumstances of how a Korean film might end up getting premiered in NYC, Chicago, and LA -- as Shiri was, and which Koreans were touting as the seminal moment for something at the time, the film sucked. At least by American standards.

And it didn't lead to larger distribution, it didn't lead to getting shown in a Michigan cineplex. I saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in the Midwest, after it had been show in the artsy theaters, after the buzz had led it to wider release, then full-on nationwide release, at which point I sat in a Midwest mall cinema, marveling that a Chinese-language, subtitled film that could easily be mistaken for the chop-socky schlock I used to love watching the local stations on Sunday afternoons as a kid -- could somehow be on the big screen. Why did it make it, as a foreign film being watched in an American theater, something most Americans do NOT want to watch, especially with subs?

Because it was just that fucking good.

As the man says to Merv, "You either got it or you don't have it. And she's go it!" Listen to the way she ends the song -- she's got it. It doesn't even matter that this was a cover -- not even a new song. She just sang the living sheeeet out of that song, in a way that kinda blew away the original. She brought a fresh novelty to a song people already knew. Damn.

And people say this is "unfair" to compare the two? Sorry. Dave is as important as Merv Griffin ever was, and Whitney had her people pushing her, just as GG does, and they got to stand in the harsh spotlight, take their shot. That spotlight doesn't accept excuses, explanations, or sympathetic stories. And this is the American market. Justin Bieber's YouTube hits don't mean squat, short of getting him noticed by Usher, and then pushed out further. But like him or loathe him, Bieber's got it. Whitney had it. Girls' Generation? Come on. Did we all really watch the same video?

And to those who say that it's unfair to compare them to Beyonce or Whitney or whomever else? Come on -- somehow, however, GG got into the Big Boy Chair (erm, Big Girl Chair, if you prefer) in the US of A, where the bar is high, where major mf's perform in that spot daily. You step up, perform, take your shot. And from what I saw, on the bar that either Joe Schmoe eating his popcorn and flipping channels has, which is actually the same bar some hip music journalist in her Manhattan apartment has while she watches the show and dismisses them as awkward, derivative, and a little "off" -- they struck out.

That's what you bring to a national telvision debut. You fucking bring IT. You either cause goodbumps or people go "Meh" and forget they ever heard you. Especially in the new media age, where people are bombarded with stuff all the time. You make the host go "Whoa!" and the audience stand up. Or you go home and no one remembers you.

And that's what people are forgetting about here. Even if GG had been good, or special, or offered something truly novel, which they weren't and didn't -- it still doesn't necessarily mean much in some larger sense, i.e. "Korea is..." or "Korean culture is..." or "K-pop has finally..."

If GG had just killed on Letterman, I bet a lot more people would be interested in...da da da dum...Girls' Generation! Whether that would have led more people to suddenly love Korean pop -- BESIDES THOSE WHO ARE ALREADY DEMOGRAPHICALLY INCLINED TO -- is a stretch to assume would happen.

And that's already two steps way past what we actually saw.

"Da Kimchi Code" redux

I wrote this post about culture codes as they might apply to Korea in 2006, before Clotaire Rapaille's book The Culture Code had even come out, talking about Korea and the iPod, why the codes were suddenly valid enough to make the iPod a hit in Korea. Remember, this is back in the dinosaur ages when most Koreans firmly believed Apple would never sink the unsinkable iRiver market. Ahem.

I repost this as I talk about culture codes now, in 2011, and why I think the Girls' Generation appearance on Letterman won't be the opening of any floodgates, but will be another mere blip on the pop culture radar in the US, a curiosity that will be forgotten, or if remembered, for the wrong reasons.

 

On the Embarrassing Debut of Girls' Generation on Letterman and Culture Codes

Roboseyo posted about Girls' Generation's debut on Letterman, the first network appearance of a K-Pop group. The Korean media will lap it up and add to the PR meme machine producing the false impression that "the Korean Wave is conquering the US" or that there is even a "Korean Wave" to begin with, without properly contextualizing what that appearance actually means and what kind of image it will really project -- versus what kind of image KOREANS want to project. And in that difference, dear readers, has always lain the rub.

And detractors, be fair. One might say that this is due to some "haterism," or ring of the accusation that I "hate Korea," but I've been writing about these culture codes for years, specifically in regards to the Wonder Girls and other girl groups, about the appropriateness of Girls' Generation shaking their asses at a historical event with the president in attendance, and all kinds of culture-crunching -- since like 2007, people. It's not a hastily-made glass of Haterade™, nor my overgrown sense of schadenfreude at seeing K-Pop flop (OK, maybe just a little, but only because I think they're doing it the wrong way, and all the time, and I really wish they'd stop), but again -- I wish someone would just think about ANY of the things I always mention.

Sorry -- just playing objective, as if I were Joe Schmoe in Ohio watching them, with no knowledge or predisposition to liking K-Pop.

With the likes of Destiny's Child, Madonna, and all the other great acts that have graced network TV in general and Letterman specifically -- come on, now. I saw Green Day premiere on SNL and was blown away in 1994. I've seen a veritable nobody like Sharon Jones go from YouTube hit to nationwide sensation with her Letterman debut, let's not even get to Justin Bieber.

THAT'S the bar. I know fans are pulling for GG, K-pop people are cutting them slack. But that's the level we're talking and whether or not it's their fault, Joe Schmoe in Ohio is going to be thinking "Why are there so many ppl packed up on that stage?" and/or "Man, those are some babes! They can't really sing, but man, can they shake their asses!" because -- and let's get 100% real here -- they might be "good for a Korean group" but their choreography would have been embarrassing had they been a high school cheerleading squad of blonde chicks from central Ohio. Sure, I think the small stage and its irregular size probably confused things -- but it doesn't matter. That's how they came off.

And the last problem I see is that the culture code doesn't match. There's the question of why so many girls, and the only thing the average American has to compare such a spectacle of a not-so-spectacular singing, not-so-well-dancing gaggle of girls is to what we would call a "revue" of girls, with neon bulb lights on the 42nd Street of old. Or maybe some girls in the strip club.

Seriously -- I'm not trying to be mean -- that's the impression I would have of them were I not a K-Pop fan wanting to cut them slack. And the reaction of Bill and Regis was basically polite confusion, kinda like WTF? I've seen musical groups knock it out the box, and when the greetings come, it's cheerful, genuine, and very friendly -- especially if it's a gaggle of barely-not-teenager girls in hot pants and hooker boots. Don't you think it would have been easier to appear more excited after their performance? Especially for a bunch of hot cuties? But that's not what we saw.

And my last thing is on the culture code of Korean "sexy-but-I'm still-demure" versus American "sexy." That's why the Wonder Girls could never work -- especially when they were younger -- because it's just...umm...weird to see Sohee trussed up like Jodi Foster in Taxi Driver. It's why that Russian underage porno-music duo back in the early 2000's was so controversial, and is the only source of their brief notoriety -- that very controversy. We all knew they sucked (I mean, much worse than GG), and why they were even on stage. Britney Spears -- the message wasn't confused -- even in the first video, "Hit Me Baby One More Time" it was playing on the Lolita image, but it was overtly sexy -- and when she was cute, as in other videos on that same album, she was simply CUTE. And STILL, there was controversy because of her age. But when she came out as sexy, as in "Oops," and she was in that red spacesuit outfit, she was straight up SEXY. Not a coy, "Oh, I'm a sexy girl (but no I'm not, oppa)" or "I'm a little girl (and LOOK like one), but I'm a little sexy for you (ajussi)" -- EWW.

That was the Wonder Girls. GG on stage doing the stripper pole wiggle, then covering up in a coy gesture of shyness -- it comes off as more of a weird tease, and lest we forget -- in terms of the culture code, America is essentially a conservative country. People still bristle at the existence of Hooters, which would be about the tamest way to objectify girls there IS in Korea, and when Britney came out with say, that Rolling Stone cover of her, it was a cultural hand grenade. And she didn't even cross the line that much, meaning that her message wasn't that confused. She was either/or. Not both. Yet, she still caught flak for her age and the Lolita reference.

GG are the highest evolution of singing/dancing 도우미. That figure exists in South Korea at a much higher level than the "gamer babes" at a large convention, or mere "racing girls" across the world. Korea has singing girls to open up bakeries and sell toothpaste in the gorcery stores. The management of GG in specific has admitted that their target market is 40-something males, and their commercial activity shows that. Lee Hyori shakes her ass and sells soju, while GG shakes their ass and sells many other things, from bank accounts to ramen. But mix them codes and you get...

Britney Spears shaking her ass and actually talking about how to shake the beer can to get that foam head going? That'd be just about the end of an American pop icon's career, or at least seen to be the sign OF it. But that's my point. And I've blogged about this a long time before.

The codes for selling shit, drinking ads (Britney might get away with Coke, but not Coor's) -- it's different. Normally, one can say that selling Cass on Korean TV and being a star and hawking Pepsi can't be compared, and you'd be right.

But now, GG is showing up on Letterman. And they're going to be judged by American culture codes, inevitably, not the few sympathetic folks who can actually tell them apart, know their names, and understand the genre in the foreign land they come from. All of whom will probably be Korean or living in Korea. Or an American teenager into Asian music.

Otherwise, both churchgoing Mary Jane Smith in Arkansas or Missy Cool in NYC are going to furrow their brow while watching Letterman and go, "What the hell is this gaggle of Asian chicks in hot pants doing on Letterman?" Or, as the men will tend to react, "Man, did you see that gang of hot Korean chicks shaking their asses on Letterman?" But, alas, that's one of the draws of GG -- unfortunately, there won't be much impression beyond that for most men -- at least, not based on the originality of their act, how well they sing or dance, or anything that will actually generate an interest in Korean music.

Sorry. It's the way Korean producers and cultural content handlers try to package and export culture, and how they don't understand the code. You know what would work better? Let's do a thought experiment.

Suppose, instead of copying and repackaging popular American pop sounds and creating generic bands the size of some smaller countries' armies, the Korean pop music system had 1) variety in its most popular offerings, as well as 2) virtuosity, as in -- yes, displaying actual singers with real talent, who DO exist here, but never make it through the it-must-appeal-to-teenagers-and-be-overtly-saucy-on-television test.

Suppose a fucking SUPER-diva such as Pak Mi Kyoung could actually be 1) a woman, 2) talented, 3) above the age of 30, and 4) allowed to be famous -- suppose her talent and experience and stage presence didn't have a shelf life and were allowed to grow, with her doing pop hits in the 90's and beyond.

Suppose a star like that, with a voice like that, could have been allowed to evolve past the late 90's. Perhaps the Korean market actually allowed for the diversity and virtuosity that briefly produced so many interesting Korean films from the late 90's, when government censorship ended and before Korean cinema was identified, packaged, and constricted into what has been called a "Wave" -- suppose all that had happened.

Eventually, someone, some group from Korea, would end up on Letterman and actually bring something 1) uniquely Korean, yet familiar to connect with, and it was 2) actually good, on the level that Americans will inevitably compare it to, since we're talking abou the likes of Beyonce, Lady Gaga, John Legend, Mos Def, Justin Bieber, and the like.

Let's just suppose we can imagine a world in which the first Korean musical act to perform on Letterman weren't a bunch of barely-distinguishable doumi dancers who lack the very variety and virtuosity that get acts recognized on Letterman, that helps make impressions, that gets people on the map and keeps them there.

LETTERMAN 2 18 08 - Sharon Jones The Dap-Kings Vidéo pacifique84800 sélectionnée dans Musique

Sharon Jones brought a new song in a genre we had thought had naturally died. She and the Dap Kings killed. And they launched onto every late show there was and launched a successful career in the little genre they helped revive.

When we see someone come on Letterman, we want the variety to give us something new, we want the virtuosity that makes us sit up and take notice. The only way Girls' Generation passes the variety test is by virtue of being a group of femme bot-like hot Asian chicks doing a group lap dance on stage -- which is not much of a virtue, to say the least. And in terms of virtuosity, well. Come on. Really?