South Korea celebrates Okay-pop’s Golden historic Grammy win

The Grammy win for Golden, which additionally contended for track of the yr, might assist additional strengthen Okay-pop’s American foothold and enhance the style’s prospects at future awards, he mentioned.

There is debate over whether or not Golden, an English-language pop track from a Sony Pictures Animation movie, qualifies as Okay-pop. Still, the Grammy award sparked pleasure in South Korea, the place the movie impressed Demon Hunters-themed ramen and different merchandise and boosted tourism to Seoul’s outdated fortress partitions and different cultural websites featured within the movie.

“It feels unreal,” mentioned Kim Na-young, a 50-year-old who mentioned she noticed the film at the very least 5 occasions. “Sony made it, Netflix released it, but the film was definitely about Korea.”

‘OUTSTANDING VOCAL PERFORMANCE’

OkayPop Demon Hunters, launched by Netflix final June, follows the three members of the fictional Korean woman group Huntr/x as they use their music and martial arts abilities to maintain demons out of the human world.

The movie went on to turn into Netflix’s hottest launch of all time, with songs like Golden and Soda Pop climbing international music charts and its characters turning into common Halloween costume decisions within the United States. The singers behind Huntr/x – Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami – gained enormous followings.

After successful their award on the Grammys’ Premiere Ceremony, the songwriters of Golden delivered their acceptance speech in each English and Korean, highlighting its bilingual attraction.

Some South Koreans noticed the Grammy win as the newest important second marking the rise of South Korean popular culture, following the 2020 Oscar triumph of Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite.

“When Parasite won, it felt like South Korean culture had entered the global mainstream. The Grammy win takes that recognition even further,” mentioned Park Jeong-eon, 48, recalling journeys overseas within the 2000s when she felt that South Korea was little identified.

Seo Ga-yeon, who research Okay-pop at a college, mentioned she might emotionally relate with the private story of Ejae, who struggled as a younger Okay-pop trainee in South Korea earlier than establishing herself as an artist within the United States.

“I think it was above all her outstanding vocal performance – overflowing with emotion, as if she was singing about her own life, almost like a cry – that made Golden a success,” she mentioned.

South Korea’s governing Democratic Party mentioned the Grammy win was a traditionally important second during which Okay-pop “finally overcame the long-standing Grammy barrier.”

BOOSTED AWARENESS OF Okay-POP

The Recording Academy had lengthy ignored main Okay-pop acts like BTS and a few analysts query whether or not Golden ought to really be thought-about Okay-pop’s first Grammy win.

“The film, of course, used K-pop as material and helped bring it global attention, but I feel there’s a distance between Golden and K-pop,” mentioned Jinmo Lim, one other music critic, who described the Grammy win as recognition of Okay-pop’s rising worldwide attraction reasonably than a victory for the style itself.

Lim Hee-yun mentioned Golden sounds extra like American pop – “Katy Perry or early Lady Gaga” – than a typical Okay-pop idol observe, which can have helped it attain a broader viewers. While Okay-pop teams normally have 4 or extra members who rotate vocal elements to interact followers, Golden is carried virtually fully by a single lead vocalist – Ejae.

Group composition, precision in fashion and choreography, and passionate – virtually non secular – fan bases are key components that outline Okay-pop, he mentioned, although the style has turn into more and more tough to pin down musically.

“For people who knew little about K-pop, or had only heard of BTS or Blackpink, KPop Demon Hunters certainly boosted awareness of the K-pop world and even sparked interest in travelling to South Korea,” Lim Hee-yun mentioned. “K-pop groups are likely to receive far more attention in the future than they would have without the film.”