“We had this vision to take the K out of K-pop and make it global.” This is the sales pitch that begins Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE, a documentary about the titular girl group, who are signed to Korea’s HYBE (BTS) and America’s Geffen (Olivia Rodrigo). Later in the film, the CEO of Interscope Geffen A&M proclaims their endeavor unprecedented, explaining that the labels are applying K-pop training practices but “doing it in pop music.” They seem confused. Are they adding the “K” or removing it? Is K-pop not “pop music”? Ignore the marketing tactics and the music tells all: KATSEYE, frequently touted as a uniquely global girl group, are awfully ordinary.
In many ways KATSEYE are the most unexceptional HYBE group to date, highly emblematic of mainstream K-pop’s trajectory over the past decade. The success of the music competition show Produce 101 ushered in numerous acts formed via reality television. KATSEYE originated from another show, Dream Academy, and the members—as is common nowadays—hail from different countries and speak multiple languages. Sophia is from the Philippines; Manon is from Switzerland; Yoonchae is from Korea; and Daniela, Lara, and Megan are from the U.S. Even so, their songs are almost entirely in English. Without any songs in Korean, they’re presumably not K-pop. And as the Korea-based, ethnically Japanese girl group XG proved before them, if you’re singing in English, the type of pop music you make becomes hard to classify.
When music fans talk about “pop,” or use the glaringly specious “pure pop,” they are often referring to what I call A-pop, or American pop music. Just as “American” can be wielded as a nebulous term that ignores minority groups, so too is A-pop defined by its nonspecificity and de facto whiteness (“pure pop” rarely describes R&B, for instance). If there is rapping, it’s stripped of regional signifiers. If there’s a dembow riddim, it’s not Jamaican or Latin so much as in the lineage of Justin Bieber’s “Sorry.” KATSEYE’s second EP, BEAUTIFUL CHAOS, often falls into this terrible A-pop pitfall: pan-global mush. The bilingual “Gabriela” is the worst offender; it has a reggae bassline and Spanish guitar, but they’re in service of something nondescript—inoffensive music for the incurious listener. (It was previously offered to Rita Ora.)
For decades K-pop groups have thrived in their willingness to be derivative, finding success in a domestic market by trafficking interpretations of the “real thing.” K-pop’s first generation was endearingly slapdash in their stylistic homage, with songs frequently anchored by karaoke–ready balladry. Genre agnosticism and shameless inauthenticity became the prevailing methodologies thereafter, and there is always something fascinating in the gap between original copy and ostensible ripoff. Though BEAUTIFUL CHAOS is a more mature offering than the mawkish teen pop of KATSEYE’s debut EP, SIS (Soft Is Strong), its game of “spot the difference” is often a matter of “sounds like X but worse.” “M.I.A,” for example, imagines the most sedate version of “like JENNIE,” itself a degree of separation removed from the Brazilian phonk it’s indebted to. KATSEYE’s chanting can’t mask the anodyne spirit, and the song limps to the finish line. If K-pop sounds fresh, it’s because it treats established formulas as suggestions; KATSEYE’s music sounds generic because it treats the well-trod as bullseyes.
