K-pop: Roots and Blossoming of Korean Popular Music (Contemporary Korean Arts)

This book is mainly divided into two sections. The first deals with the developments in Korean pop music from Japanese rule up to the early 1990s. Exploring this period, which falls into a prehistory of K-pop, will serve as an opportunity for understanding the historical context surrounding K-pop. The second section illustrates the processes of the formation to K-pop throughout the 1990s and the stages in its development into its current form as a globalized cultural element. The main focuses of the second portion include K- pop's representative idol groups, the social circumstances that yielded K-pop, and its production system.

Gaining a thorough grasp of the K-pop fever around the world requires a more multi-dimensional perspective that encompasses its historical context and structural conditions. In this sense, this book will prove useful to those who desire to learn about K-pop and Korean popular culture, and further about Korean society.