KMK: K Pop BootCamp

Ever wonder where all those shiny faced lean bodied beautiful Korean Pop stars come from? They were so prolific shimmying across my TV screen, on my soda bottle, on billboards and bus advertising that I assumed they were grown in labs and cloned. Well that’s not far from the truth because Korea has one of Asia’s most dominant and productive star making training camps not seen since Starr put New Edition and New Kids on the Block on the map.

Just last month K-Pop mogul extraordinaire JYP held a audition that brought, according to the Korea Times, 23,000 aspiring K-pop stars out to audition to become one of the dozens of lucky folks to be included in these exclusive training camps. He’s put 2pm and the Wonder Girls on the covers of countless magazines and TV shows and these boys and girls came from around Korea and Asia to try their luck. In the entertainment game it’s key to start young so we’re even talking about twelve and thirteen year olds singing and dancing their little hearts out, anxious to be the next Rain on Hyori.

Once picked these lucky ones pack up everything they own and head out for pop star bootcamp in a training camp. There they practice, practice, practice and take lessons on acting, dancing, and singing. Sometimes they even include media training and language lessons if the pop starlet in question has the potential to be a world wide breakout star. Now if you take someone like Beyonce and put them through one of these camps then you can just shrug your shoulders because she would have made it no matter what. Yet, when you take someone with no vocal ability but with ungodly good looks and throw them in this star making process and out comes a synthetic pop clone ready to sing her heart out with the aid of producers and voice manipulation, well, I guess it all feels a little disingenuous. Don’t you agree?

Incredibly I’ve heard some people argue that the pop stars with no talent have it rougher because they don’t have their talent to fall back on. Insert blank stare, please. A Pop star with no talent is a model not a singer and should simply become a model and not speak, thereby sparing the world from an album of mediocre music with inane lyrics. To be fair these K-Pop tarts are just doing what any fame whore would do: claw their way to the top by any means possible. It’s just in their nature like how bees pollinate flowers and beavers make dams. They’ve seen their idols in music videos and movies and they think, “If they can do it, then so can I.” The sad part is that they’re completely right, considering how far musical standards have fallen. Talent use to be a prerequisite. Now it’s just a plus,

Though perhaps I shouldn’t be so hard on them since the article points out these boys and girls of pop might not realize just what they’re getting into. If you look behind the curtain these pop star Queens and Kings have just about the same amount of mystique and magic as The Great Powerful Oz did. You see the movers and shakers behind these pop star money makers aren’t so altruistic. Sure, they want to find the next big name, but they also want to lock them into long term contracts to keep them on low wages, comparable to their worth, for years and yeas. That’s akin to having a stable full of pop star serfs. Can you imagine selling millions of albums worldwide and still being practically broke? TLC knows something about that and apparently so does a legion of K-pop wonders.

Maybe after hitting it big they should change their names like Prince did a few back. Remember, he had that clandestine symbol? Well, G-Dragon could just use a dragon. Big Bang could use a Care Bear. The Wonder Girls could use a 10 inch stiletto heel. Rain could use a rainbow. That way they can get out from under the foot of the K-Pop Man.