"Fake Love" by BTS, Tuesday, January 26, 2021

If you have been in a cave for a few years, you may not know about this South Korean boyband. There's usually a glass ceiling for how popular K-pop can get in America. But this group constantly shatters that ceiling. Number 1 on Billboard's Hot 100? Today, I recommend the song "Fake Love," by BTS, particularly the "Rocking Vibe Mix" which replaces some of the keyboards and electronic music with guitars. They did a similar remix with their hit "DNA," but we can save that song for another day. Because this is the first of what I assume will be several K-pop recommendations, I figured I'd start with my history of how I became K-pop listener, a genre I barely knew existed before landing in South Korea in late August, 2012, which you may recall was the time when a certain 40 year old rapper blew up the internet talking about his hometown in the wealthy neighborhood of Gangnam.

A FAKE FAN. Please Internet and K-pop fans be kind. Please rock people hear me out. I want to tell you about my first impressions of K-pop, and it wasn't positive. "Wow! Fantastic baby! Dance" 

What the hell am I watching? I wondered as I saw dog chains, mo-hawks, shirtless boys. I was like watching Adam Lambert at the Grammys. That was my reaction to Big Bang's "Fantastic Baby," which had been a hit around when I was in high school, but I had to look it up because my elementary school students were shouting it out as a reaction to lessons. The little horrors! K-pop videos were certainly avant-garde. The dancing and camera angles were dizzying. Then there was "Gangnam Style," which in many ways is a parody of K-pop. Psy, being much older than the boys of BTS or Big Bang, became huge mostly for breaking the Internet which made him all the more famous in Korea. Hearing first grade elementary students singing "Hey sexy lady" as they do the "horse dance" was funny and a bit disturbing.

I'M SO SORRY BUT IT'S FAKE LOVE. Inundated in the world of K-pop from hearing it at all the cafes and grocery stores, I built a tolerance and eventually an affinity for some of the songs. It started with Busker Busker's first album which wasn't exactly pop, but by 2014 songs like "Everybody" by Shinee, "Mr. Mr." by Girl's Generation, "Give Love" by Akdong Musician, and Taeyang's Rise album were all in my personal music collection. Slowly I added more and more songs that I liked. It was fun to try to catch words, to see if I could understand a little bit as I learned Korean. The instrumentation on some songs was interesting. "Did they really just sample that song? Why did they use that instrument? 

GANG WARFARE. South Korean teenagers LOVE K-pop, especially girls. They worship their teen idols. This has been happening for 30 years. In the drama Reply 1997 there is the K-pop fan rivalry between the fans of H.O.T and Sechkies. When I came to Korea it was Shinee and EXO. Then BTS and Wanna One. BTS however outlived their rival and set to conquering the world. In 2019 publications started comparing them to the Beatles. This of course could outrage music fans. While they may not be the Beatles, their fans certainly seem to embody "Beatlemania." BTS is able to sellout shows all across the world, and they even sell a special light that is controlled by their light production manager at live shows. 

CONQUERING THE WORLD WITH A MESSAGE.  Again, I'm not a REAL fan of BTS. I don't listen to them all the time. They're in my Apple Music library, and I listen to some of their songs from time to time. However, I admire this group. They have a message for their fans. It's simply to "Love yourself." South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world for teenagers. There's so much pressure to do well on the 수능, or college entrance exam. There's also cultural pressures to get into the best schools and marry the right person, get the right job. The group is also an outspoken proponent of LGBTQ rights, which was virtually unheard of for a K-pop group before them. A message of self acceptance will hopefully keep many South Korean young people alive. 

And a metal group covered this song: