BBCThousands of screamers from viewers. A global trend. A multi-billion ounce company. No, it’s not Taylor Swift ( this time ). We’re talking K-pop.
And with four of 2023’s top 10 best-selling acts coming out of South Korea, the Brits want a piece of the action.
Move forward recently created boy band, Dear Alice, who applied to take part in the latest BBC One skills show, Made in Korea: The K-pop Practice.
Meet Blaise, Dexter, James, Olly and Reese. From now on, you may learn a little bit more about them.
None of them were intimate before the showrunners put them together as a channel after each audition.
The fresh-faced band were then flown out to South Korea’s money, Seoul, for 100 times of comprehensive K-pop training with fame in their sights.
Most K-pop education takes weeks or even months. The boys ‘ experience involved extended hours of vocal training, intricate dance, and a little Korean sight-seeing thrown in for good measure ( and good Television- the North Korean tourist board will be thrilled ).
The six-part set is a partnership between the BBC, K-pop superstar company SM Entertainment and Moon&, Up Media, run by Television soldiers Dawn Airey, Nigel Hall and Russ Lindsay, whose back library includes shows such as The X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent and Saturday Night Takeaway.
Hee Jun Yoon, the creative power behind some of the biggest K-pop songs of the past 20 years, views the singer’s performance at the end of every week, and it’s safe to say she pulls no blows. Perhaps the mind of BBC spontaneous information, Kate Phillips, says Hee Jun “makes Simon Cowell look like Mary Poppins”.
Cowell, the past X Factor head prosecutor, is, of course, starting his own search for a child band in a pending Netflix series that is still being produced.
Without giving too much apart from Made in Korea’s first season, Hee Jun gives the channel a huge wake-up visit in week one with some uncompromising criticism. ” The level of choreo is so simple, it’s hospital level”. Oops. Her physical expressions only have the potential to get popular.
The boys wo n’t be tipped as to whether any of them intended to end the show at any point. ” You’ll have to wait and see”, says Olly Quinn, 20, from Sunderland, a new student in dance and musical theater. ( Clearly, the media training has also been exacting ).
They only said they’re still “rehearsing hard” and that the effort and harsh feedback was worthwhile, and that they have n’t signed a record deal yet.
Londoner Dexter Greenwood, 22, who also trained in music theater, says:” It was difficult work, truly challenging but the end justifies the means. I believe that SM’s staff was very patient, but we were “different from what they anticipated”!
Reese Carter, 20, from Wiltshire and a previous cruise ship comedian, adds:” At first it hit challenging but we had a wonderful security team in place… and it was all done with love.
” They’re fair because they want to drive us to be that much better. I enjoy the suggestions. They’re on our side. We had happiness, a career coach, we had persons living with us regularly, you may walk inside and talk to someone, “he adds.
Olly concurs:” It’s the brutal honestly. We needed it.”
In episode one, the band’s performance is undoubtedly different from a later video clip that was shown to the audience for a preview.
Coco Yeonsoo Do is a K-pop dancer and choreographer, and was a former member of KAACHI, considered the UK’s first K-pop girl group.
She claims to the BBC,” It’s really difficult to make a K-pop group reach BTS or Blackpink level,” but training is what distinguishes successful groups.
” It’s very intense and competitive,” says Coco.
She adds that the latter’s production is one of the main differences between UK and US pop groups and K-pop ones.
” It’s obvious, but K-pop groups work more like a group, and emphasise the group identity, rather than individuality,” she adds.
Following allegations over very strict and punishing training regimes by wannabe K-pop stars over the past few years, Korean press reported the introduction of regulations to ban some unfair practices in contracts between K-pop trainees and entertainment companies.
The producers of The K-pop Experience have obviously given welfare a lot of thought.
Helen Wood is a professor of media and cultural studies at Aston University, and she is pursuing a study on the importance of decency in television.
Following a number of reality stars ‘ suicides in 2019, there was a Parliamentary Inquiry and Ofcom Consultations on the broadcasting code.
In 2020, the media watchdog announced new rules to protect those taking part in TV shows.
” Now there’s more pressure on production to make sure that they’re taking due care of the welfare, dignity and wellbeing of participants that go through production,” she says.
” That’s not to say that things were n’t in place before 2021, but there’s now much more regulation.”
A requirement to show audiences that a duty of care is being enacted is another key change that the new Ofcom code introduces, she adds.
This means pulling back the curtain to show viewers some of the behind-the-scenes production procedures to make sure they are aware that contestants are properly cared for.
The band members ‘ welfare has been at the center of their training, according to a Made in Korea spokesperson, adding that there was a” strong support team in place” and that the band’s welfare continues to be the top priority.
Reese claims that they also lacked support from one another.
” We ‘ve]the band ] grown closer and closer over the last couple of months. Although there was great welfare there, there were many instances where we were n’t required to visit them because we were strong enough as a group.
Blaise Noon, 19, from London, is the baby of the band but appears to be taking it all in his stride. He graduated from the Brit School and appears to be the most confident.
There are a lot of really good things we can take away from this hybrid fusion, he says, and they are really fortunate to have had the advantage as a British band to be submerged in the Korean training regime.
Interestingly, most of them have never had any desire to be in a boy band until now.
James Sharp, 23, from Huddersfield, is one half of the Sharp twins, whose TikTok account has amassed 5.5 million followers.
He says he thought boy bands were” cringey”, Blaise laughs as he recalls feeling” too cool” for them although Dexter was always a fan. Olly also received instruction in K-pop from his auntie, who runs K-pop fan pages.
All agree, though, that this was too big an opportunity to pass up.
But how did they come up with the name of the band?
They discovered a restaurant in Seoul called Dear Alice after Olly’s suggestion of British bulldogs was quickly scotched ( ca n’t remember why ).
They all liked it and it stuck.
” The’ dear’ is like a letter to the fans” and Alice stands for’ a love I ca n’t explain”, says Blaine.
More to the point, the restaurant” sold the best beef wellington in the world” according to the lads.
Although not exactly your typical Korean dish, Dear Alice will be hoping a similar cultural fusion will be the key to their success.
On Saturday, August 17th, at 17 :15 BST, BBC One and BBC iPlayer will air the first episode of Made in Korea: The K-pop Experience.
Ruchira Sharma provided additional reporting.