From Paran’s “Five Steps”
“Overlap”,
?
Jang lee in’s “Y”,
Seo Ji Young’s “Out”,
?
Boa’s “Sunshine”,
Tei’s “Don’t Cry”
?
to DBSK’s “Beautiful Days”, what do these songs have in common?
It’s that a foreign composer has written the song, and Korean lyrics has been added to the song.
In Se7en’s case, from his 1st album to his 3rd, a lot of foreign composers have participated. Including DK’s “One more time” (1st album)
and “Love Story”(3rd album),
Todd Mushaw’s “Honey I Know” (2nd album),
Joey Carbone & Anthony Mazza’s “Wishy Washy”(2nd album),
“Like the Man”(3rd album),
?
Joe Hogue’s “All Night” (3rd album) are all made by composers actively working in America.
A person from YG Entertainment said, “If we get a call from foreign composers who are interested in making songs for Se7en, we monitor their previous works. If their previous work matches with our singer’s concept, we contact them back.”
This situation is a little different from just remaking famous foreign songs or just translating English songs to Korean and using with permission.
Getting songs from foreign composers who are not well known in Korea is a pretty new concept. Recently, a company who connects American composers and Korean singers has been established, too.
Music Source Korea is a company who makes license agreement with foreign composers and provide their songs to Korean Music Management companies. Lee Eun Seung manager, from the company, said “Korean Management companies can get fresh music at inexpensive price, and they can also change the song a little bit, to match the songs with a singer’s concept. So it’s very efficient.”
It’s said that the reality of Kpop composer market where creative power has been decreasing made music management companies turn their eyes away to foreign markets.
A music critic Kim Guang Han said, “In an attempt to find fresh songs that can keep up with young generation’s taste, some management companies went all the way to Home of pop music. Remake songs (Gina: old hit songs that are changed in modern way) are not fresh enough for people. Their effort to explore new databases feels even late at this point.”
Like well-known rumor in Kpop industry, “star management company may fall, but star composers never fall”, most of Kpop songs are from a few star Kpop composers. Another music critic Lim Jin Mo analyzed, “The entry of foreign composers into Kpop market might be a new breakthrough for Kpop market”.
So far, there has not been a case where these songs have become really famous in Korea. Most of the time, these songs are used as sub songs, separate from Kpop singers’ title songs.
Kpop composer Park Geun Tae said, “To match the song with Korean culture, after-work such as rearrangement is a must and makes the total cost expensive. Usually the songs are used by big management companies to improve variety within an album. I don’t think we will see rush of foreign composers’ songs.”
It’s also challange for those songs that they are only used to give an album more variety. A music critic Sung Woo Jin said, “Not to remain as a song to fill out an album, Kpop management companies should learn how to make better use of those songs.”
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Yum Hee Jin Reporter salthj@donga.com
Credits: Donga (pics: Donga & Newsen) + sjhye @ http://z12.invisionfree.com/Se7enth_Heaven/
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