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Post by Admin on Nov 10, 2018 18:04:49 GMT
The group is due to start their Japan tour next week, with nine shows at major arenas — including two at the 50,000-seat Tokyo Dome, where Paul McCartney played sold-out shows last week. BTS has played sold-out shows in the U.S. and topped the Billboard charts, as well as making a speech at the United Nations in September in support of UNICEF's Generation Unlimited education campaign. The band previously supported a UNICEF campaign against youth violence. In 2012, TV actor Song Il-gook and K-pop singer Kim Jang-hoon took part in a relay swim to the Dokdo/Takeshima islands, which are controlled by South Korea but are claimed by Japan. The incident stoked tensions between the two neighbors. After a period of relatively good relations, a recent decision by a Korean court that Japanese companies are liable for wartime forced labor compensation claims has made ties deteriorate again.
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Post by Admin on Nov 11, 2018 17:54:47 GMT
K-pop began its international expansion largely thanks to its success in Japan, the world's second-largest music industry after America. In the early 2000s, solo diva BoA became the first Korean singer to top the charts in the island nation with her Japanese debut album Listen to My Heart.
This paved the way for second-generation K-pop boy bands (like TVXQ!, BIGBANG and SHINee) and girl groups (Girls' Generation and Kara) to hit new heights in the market and become regular fixtures on the Japanese media scene -- hitting a new jackpot when it came to overseas earnings by the early 2010s. Largely, though, many groups (particularly TVXQ!) were considered to have worked from the bottom up in the industry rather than riding an already-popular trend.
Still, with an idol scene all its own, Japan had seemingly struggled to balance the popularity of Korean artists compared to its domestic acts. In 2011, thousands gathered in Tokyo to protest the Korean wave in Japan after an actor said he felt "brainwashed" by the amount of K-content on a popular TV network and was subsequently fired.
By 2013, the Wall Street Journal was reporting on small but "hostile demonstrations against the country's Korean residents" staged every weekend across the country. Around this time, K-pop acts began promoting in Japan less frequently when it appeared that broadcasters had a general sense to slow down on K-pop. It's only been with the recent success of new-generation leaders like BTS and TWICE that it seemed like the time for K-pop's Japanese comeback.
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Post by Admin on Nov 16, 2018 17:54:56 GMT
It's important to acknowledge that the icy relationship is also largely rooted in long-standing political history. During World War II, the Japanese empire advanced throughout southeast Asia, occupying all of Korea and parts of China.
With Japan's notoriously brutal rule, there is still unresolved issues between the Japanese and Koreans over wartime incidents, such as the compensation for South Korean women trafficked to Japanese army brothels (known as "comfort women") as well as Seoul's refusal to let the "Rising Sun" flag (a symbol considered to embody the mind-set of the former Japanese empire) fly at naval review.
Korea has made a point not to welcome Japanese media as well. After the Japanese rule ended in Korea in 1945, punishment laws and restrictions were enacted to bar music, videos, games and more from other countries -- with a major focus on Japan -- which gave South Korea no legal access to Japanese products until the '90s.
Korean radio and TV stations still cannot broadcast Japanese music or dramas even as minor steps to acknowledging the country have come via the popular singing competition Produce 48, which saw K-pop hopefuls and Japanese idols competing for a spot in a new girl group.
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Post by Admin on Nov 22, 2018 17:54:30 GMT
After a week that included headlines about BTS having past photos of an A-bomb T-shirt and depicting the band in Nazi-related imagery, fans around the world showed solidarity with the septet by coming together to purchase and stream the BTS song "2! 3!" The track -- originally included on BTS' 2016 album Wings, which earned the band their first top 40 entry on the Billboard 200 -- is largely considered a song specifically dedicated to ARMY. "2! 3!" debuts at No. 1 on Billboard's World Digital Song Sales chart this week, selling 7,000 downloads in the week ending Nov. 15, according to Nielsen Music. Previously, "2! 3!" had never appeared on a Billboard chart, with this week's download total representing a remarkable 17,610 percent increase in sales. The cut also earned 137,000 on-demand audio streams in the week ending Nov. 15, up 37 percent compared to last week. BTS also score their 14th entry on the Digital Song Sales chart, where "2! 3!" starts at No. 47. The band has two No. 1s on the all-genre ranking, first with "Fake Love" in June of this year and followed by "Idol" featuring Nicki Minaj in September.
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Post by Admin on Dec 4, 2018 17:45:38 GMT
With roots in the 1990s, K-pop — a mix of pop, rap, electronica, and other genres with a South Korean twist — is affecting far more than social media trends and billboard charts. Fans of the music are taking up charitable causes, and according to the global fashion search engine Lyst, they are also wearing the same designers as their beloved K-pop idols. In its “Year in Fashion” report, which tracked more than 100 million searches from 80 million shoppers across the globe in 2018, Lyst identified K-pop stars as “major global fashion influencers.” It credits these performers with spiking searches related to brands like Moschino and Chrome Hearts after wearing them this year. The omnipresence of K-pop fans on social media around the world is fueling the trend as well as the importance of visuals in the genre. Bright colors and bold prints are the norm when it comes to K-pop acts, who have made fads of the most mundane (and unexpected) pieces of clothing. A campaign T-shirt from Rev. Jesse Jackson’s failed 1988 presidential run became a must-have in South Korea this year after rapper Moonbyul of Mamamoo wore it. And the introduction of makeup lines for men is largely due to K-pop, since many members of the boy bands use “guyliner,” lip tints, and brow fillers; it’s no coincidence that South Korea reportedly makes up 20 percent of the global men’s cosmetics market. While K-pop stars have received plenty of praise for their style, their sartorial choices have sometimes sparked controversy. In November, BTS drew criticism for wearing hats bearing Nazi symbols during a photo shoot. Three years ago, the group faced a similar controversy after taking part in a photo shoot at the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. The Simon Wiesenthal Center also pointed out that BTS has performed onstage waving large flags that looked similar to the Nazi swastika. Just last month, a scheduled TV appearance featuring BTS was canceled because one member reportedly wore a shirt that included an image of the atomic bomb dropping on Japan. The Simon Wiesenthal Center subsequently declared that BTS owed both the Japanese people and victims of Nazism an apology.
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