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MADE IN KOREA: Studies in Popular Music. Routledge Global Popular Music Series. Edited by Hyunjoon Shin and Seung-Ah Lee. New York; London: Routledge, 2017. xiii, 247pp. (Illustrations.) US$145.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1138-79303-3.
South Korean (hereafter "Korea") popular music, a range of genres often stuffed under the rubric of "K-pop," has been an ubiquitous global presence in the 2010s. Aside from diffusion in established markets for Korean popular culture such as China and Japan, K-pop has increased its reach from Antofagasta in Chile to Zanzibar in Tanzania, and secured its foothold in global cities such as New York, London, and Paris, through dissemination via Youtube, SNS, and precisely choreographed live concerts. Nonetheless, analyses that move beyond clichés and display a solid command of the history and the specifics of the Korean popular music scene have not grown with commensurate rapidity, at least in English.
Made in Korea, part of a Routledge series of edited volumes with similar titles and formats, such as Made in Japan, Made in Brazil, and Made in Italy, addresses this relative lacuna. With contributors from various social sciences and humanities disciplines, the book is an assemblage of seventeen essays organized into four sections: history, genres, artists, and issues. Preceding these are a preface by one of the editors, Hyounjoon Shin, which explains the core questions and the background of the book, and an introduction by both co-editors that provides definitions of key concepts, a brief description of the historical contexts of twentieth- and twenty-first-century Korea, and some anecdotal comments on the state of Korean popular music...