A sincere thanks to Sam for the great suggestion! At this point, the academic focus of my research should shift to traditional Korean culture and the specific case study section. I need to read existing research on how traditional Korean culture is practically integrated into contemporary pop music, and to evaluate the outcomes of these fusions. To investigate this, I selected the paper “When K-Pop and Kugak Meet: Popularising P’ansori in Modern Korea”. Kugak refers to traditional Korean music, encompassing both court music and folk genres. This article investigates the challenges imposed by popular culture on traditional performers, alongside how they respond.
The paper points out that contemporary audiences are “firmly accustomed to the popular culture that drives the Korean Wave, see little appeal in traditional culture (Yates-Lu, 2019, p. 52)”. Consequently, young p’ansori artists are forced to adapt and change. Because they consume K-pop and are influenced and inspired by Hallyu narratives, they recognize the necessity of incorporating “easy and entertaining” cultural elements into their performances to attract more audiences (Yates-Lu, 2019). Drawing on Sutton (2011), the paper notes that fusing traditional arts and musical forms with pop music has multiple benefits: it provides a pleasant listening experience and generates income for performers; it helps Koreans reconnect with their own musical heritage by gently guiding them from pop to kugak; and it promotes Korea and its culture overseas. However, the popularization of traditional culture faces dilemmas. Adapted works often fall into an awkward middle ground—they are neither mainstream enough to attract massive audiences nor traditional enough to satisfy the strict standards of purists and critics (Yates-Lu, 2019).
BTS’s track “Body to Body” from their latest album Arirang will be one of my case studies. It incorporates a sample of the eponymous, iconic traditional Korean folk song, Gyeonggi Arirang, also known as Bon Arirang. I believe the analysis of this song should go beyond treating it as a mere aesthetic choice. It also serves as a successful model for traditional artists seeking to blend cultural heritage with popular trends. For those currently navigating the dilemma of cultural popularization versus preservation, BTS’s case offers transferable insights. Returning to my research, I believe that it’s worth examining how BTS’s “Body to Body” achieves mass popularization while preserving cultural authenticity, as well as which strategies could be applied to other music productions. This is exactly what I’ll explore in the next step.
References:
Sutton, R. A. (2011). “Fusion” and questions of Korean cultural identity in music. Korean Studies, 35, 4–24. https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.2011.0011
Yates-Lu, A. (2019). When K-Pop and Kugak Meet: Popularising P’ansori in Modern Korea. Yearbook for Traditional Music, 51, 49-71. https://doi.org/10.1017/ytm.2019.7