On Saturday, Made in Korea: The K-pop Experience began by hailing K-pop as ‘the multi-billion-pound music that’s taken the world by storm’. Unusually, this wasn’t TV hype. Last year, nine of the world’s ten bestselling albums were by Korean acts (the sole westerner being Taylor Swift). Even odder for people over 40, according to such reliable sources as Richard Osman on The Rest is Entertainment podcast and my children, South Korea has replaced America as the cultural centre of the Earth for many British teenagers.
Korean youngsters are trained for pop stardom on an industrial scale
But this global domination hasn’t come about by chance. Korean youngsters are trained for pop stardom on an industrial scale. While they’re being drilled in singing and dancing for up to five years, everything they eat, wear and, above all, post on social media is strictly controlled.
So how might a group of British wannabes get in on this distinctly foreign world? That’s the question posed by Made in Korea – and the answer so far is ‘not terribly well’.
The programme didn’t bring us the presumably oversubscribed auditions. Nonetheless, the five boys chosen to form a band seem appealing enough........