Billboard Chief Offers Thoughts on Future of K-Pop

Published on 2014/10/11 | Source

Janice Min, who leads Billboard and the Hollywood Reporter, the two most influential U.S. showbiz publications, has some advice for the popular music industry of her ancestral home.

Min attended the MU:CON Seoul 2014, a world music market hosted by the Korea Creative Contents Agency, which ended on Wednesday.

Min delivered a keynote speech on Monday on K-pop and shared candid thoughts about it at a press conference afterwards.

The largely manufactured genre will need to approach the public in more authentic way to be sustainable, she said.

"K-pop is the perfect 360-degree expression of entertainment right now. It has dance, singing, fashion, beauty, it's all packaged so well that it makes it incredibly appealing to anyone in the YouTube generation".

But that synthetic perfection may prove its Achilles heel.

"Fans are going to want to feel a sense of authenticity from these performers", she said. "In America, there was a phenomenon with the boy bands... but it later felt all too manufactured, there were too many people controlling the groups, all pre-packaged, and we weren't really getting to know the performers".

She added, "For authenticity, you need to feel like these artists are passionate about music, that they write their own songs and that it's true artistic expression".

Min was appointed co-president and chief creative officer of the Entertainment Group of Guggenheim Media in charge of Billboard and the Hollywood Reporter in January.

She said at the helm of Billboard she can see the ever-growing influence of K-pop. One example was the recent tragic death of two members of girl band Ladies' Code. "You have no idea how huge that was in the U.S. It was the top-read story on the Billboard website for days", she said.

Min is a second-generation Korean-American and the mother of three children. She said she is too busy to find enough time to sleep, but she doesn't know whether she's successful in life yet. She just hopes to be a good role model for her children.