If someone were to ask where they should look in order to understand the origin of K-pop, many people would direct them to the iconic trio of Seo Taiji and Boys. Debuting in 1992, this group was arguably the first to create music completely different from what was in the Korean music scene today, pulling influences from the west to create a foreign sounding song about South Korean issues. In some regards, this would be the correct answer to their question. When looking at K-pop today, there is no other group that fully shows the birth of a music genre which has taken over nationally and globally. Seo Taiji and Boys were the first to take western music influences, such as R&B, hip-hop, rap, jazz, etc., and use them to create a new hybridity of music, which appealed massively to the younger audiences. This hybridity, combined with their colorful visuals, eclectic fashion, and big dance moves, is a big fundamental of K-pop today, making Seo Taiji and Boys a prime example of K-pop’s beginnings.
However, many people would forget to direct them to a different trio that may show just as much of K-pop’s beginnings as Seo Taiji and Boys. This trio is the Kim Sisters, three young girls who performed music in South Korea for American Soldiers during the Cold War. Formed in 1954, the Kim Sisters first began to perform for GIs that were stationed in South Korea by the American army during the Korean war, performing songs for them in night bars. The girls were young at the time, ranging in ages between 11 and 13, but they garnered an extensively large amount of attention and popularity among the soldiers, which was just one example of a larger trend taking place at the time: a rise in popularity of all-Asian girl bands. The girls ended up having such an impact among the GIs that they were able to perform in America, even on the Ed Sullivan show in 1959, performing songs, mainly all in English, that showed off their singing abilities, and wearing western outfits that showed off their figure.
The Kim Sisters were very talented, and their performances contained many of the elements that even Seo Taiji and Boys followed, including some dancing and songs influenced or taken from the west. In this way, their group shows an origin of modern day K-pop, albeit in a more diluted manner than Seo Taiji and Boys. The success of the Kim Sisters performing on The Ed Sullivan Show is a good example of the additional cultural exchange that took place during this time period, since it shows their success in presenting the American television audience with a foreign group. But even more than that, the success of the Kim Sisters with the American GIs showed a different aspect of their popularity which may still be present in K-pop today.
When the Kim Sisters began to perform in Korea, one of the reasons they became so popular, even though they were very young, was because of the fetishization of young Asian girls and women at the time of. Because of America’s troops stationed abroad in Korea, there became an increasing amount of sexualization of the Asian female figure due to the prostitution and interracial romances which occurred there. This is a sad reality for the all girl group, but one which can hold true even in today’s K-pop. As K-pop began to grow past Seo Taiji and Boys, the artists began to be idealized by their fans, even going so far as to have artists in the K-pop industry be called idols due to the way they were romanticized by their fans and put on a pedestal. Especially as K-pop becomes more global, a resurgence in the sexualisation of the Asian figure is growing as well. This is another fundamental that was first seen with the Kim Sisters, and one which is just as much apart of K-pop today.
The Kim Sisters and Seo Taiji and Boys were two very talented groups that contributed a lot to the Korean Music industry, and more specifically the K-pop industry, and although what their groups and their success provided were different, they both became important examples of K-Pop’s beginnings, and the fundamentals and characteristics, both positive and negative, that were created by them which are still a big part of K-pop today.
The Politics of K-Pop 
Interesting read! I had no idea about the Kim Sisters and their impact on K-pop’s history until now. Gleaning from the early practices of the fetishization of Asian females during this era, I wonder if it has impacted the ways in which K-pop stars today are encouraged to engage with audiences, especially female idols to male audiences, in these types of ways. Of course, the sexualization of female bodies is a common vein that runs across all sorts of industries as the ideas of sexual desire are universal, but given South Korea’s cultural Confucianist past, perhaps this encouragement of fetishization of young girls was more easily accepted due to that sort of early exposure. Perhaps it is through this sort of exposure that made the adaptation of the Japanese aidoreu system much more feasible when South Korea was trying to grow its music industry. Interestingly, with this sort of past of Asian stars engaging with foreign (i.e. American) audiences, it raises the question as to why exactly Korea emphasized a focus on achieving domestic success and only domestic success when a breakthrough in the foreign market was clearly possible given the Kim Sisters’ appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
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I really liked the article’s exploration of Seo Taiji and Boys’ influence of Korean pop music in the past and until now. It was interesting to read how the first Korean boy band was able to employ specific foreign musical elements and create its own unique music and impact Korean audiences and eventually, indirectly contributed to changing South Korean government’s view on banning certain kinds of music and other Korean popular culture commodities.
Additionally, it was also intriguing to see the author including the Kim Sisters as another source that contributed to and influenced modern K-pop. As we know, the Kim Sisters refers to these three girls who performed for American soldiers during the Cold War in South Korea and eventually America. They were the people to started combining western elements with Korean ones.
I agree that this has definitely contributed to the rise of young female bands in the K-pop industry in the future. However, at the same time, perhaps the band members, unfortunately, was connected to notions of the sexualization of young Asian women, a historical phenomenon where Asian females are portrayed as mysterious and sexual by foreigners, in everyday life as well as K-pop music industries.
With regard to the author’s mention of these two very iconic bands in K-pop history, I think that these bands have both contributed to the K-pop industry in significant ways and I also agree with the author in that the Kim Sisters was a band that attracted western attention to K-pop and influenced the K-pop industry into the establishments of young female bands and the way they may be represented sometimes.
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I’m glad you bring light to the impact of U.S. military influence on image of The Kim Sisters and subsequently on Korean popular culture, as discussed in the readings. Author Benjamin Han also bring up the historical feminization of Asian by the U.S. and other Western countries. This conversation of American troops and this historical feminization due to war ties in perfectly with the current discourse on Korean soft masculinity and hypersexualized Korean female stars we see in K-pop music videos. As Anthony Kim brought up during class, YouTube is crucial for the spread of not only current Korean cultural products, but also of Korean creative history. YouTube is a platform through which Asian/Korean participation in popular culture throughout media’s history become immortalized and remembered. As we’ve discussed in class, music videos are essential to the spread of K-pop and Korean cultural products. Korean entertainment companies invest a big portion of their budget to fund their elaborate and unique visual representations of Korean pop idols, lifestyle, and culture. Anthony Kim also brought up the idea of ambivalent identities and ambivalent responses to these identities. Regardless of whether they were accepted or rejected by the U.S. or South Korea, the Kim Sister were clever in leveraging from both their Korean and American presentations.
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