Interrogating the global success of J-pop and K-pop idols

Abstract

Why is it that we think of K-pop idols as more globally successful than J-pop idols? In this article, I examine the production, distribution and media reception of the South Korean and Japanese idol pop music under the labels of J-pop and K-pop. I show how although structural and economic reasons go some way towards explaining the differing international reaches of J-pop and K-pop idols, we must also take into account the impact of imagined versions of national popular cultures within the paradigm of the global. Specifically, I argue that we cannot consider J-pop and K-pop’s global successes without acknowledging two critical factors: the way that success in the anglophone West is used as a byword for global success and what the circulation of imagined, Orientalist versions of Japanese and South Korean popular culture may tell us about contemporary mediascapes, both as global configurations of media and the visions they proliferate.