What BTS's "Boy With Love" ft. Halsey Can Teach Us About K-pop

Switched on Pop

Vox Media Podcast Network

Music Interviews, Music History, Music, Music Commentary

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 2 July 2019

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How should we listen to K-pop? This music has become a global phenomenon, charting on the Billboard Hot 100, taking over social media feeds, and touring the world. In particular, the group BTS has captured the ears of millions, building an Army of fans along the way. As uninitiated listeners, the language and culture barrier left us uncertain about how to approach listening to, let alone breaking down their music. So we sought out the support of Dr, Suk-Young Kim, Professor of Critical Studies and the Director of the Center for Performance Studies at UCLA, and KCON's Vanessa Augsbach. Dr. Kim's research on K-pop helps to expand our ears and understand the genre's history and aesthetics, while Augsbach helps us better appreciate the fandom. Applying their insights, we listen to "Boy With Luv" as a first foray into the wonders of K-pop. Read Dr. Kim's book K-pop Live: Fans Idols, and Multimedia Performance, Watch Vox's Netflix series Explained on the history of K-pop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Sabotage hired goons and a landfill in Utah.
0:05.0	How Steve Jobs' revolutionary catastrophe of a computer, the Apple Lisa, earned a brief
0:10.7	second life and then was buried for good.
0:14.8	Watch the Verges documentary Lisa's final act now on YouTube.
0:30.0	Welcome to Switch Done Pop.
0:35.5	I'm songwriter Charlie Harding and I'm musicologist Nate Sloan.
0:39.2	So Nate, I think you'd agree that probably the number one most requested thing on our
0:42.6	show has been to cover K-pop.
0:44.9	K-pop, 100%.
0:47.4	So I thought we should just jump right in on it.
0:49.7	The biggest song right now, really in the world probably, is BTS's boy with love,
0:56.1	featuring Halsey.
0:57.1	Let's take a listen.
0:58.1	Hmm, that is a catchy number.
1:21.0	I've already got it rattling around my synaptic pathways.
1:25.9	It is a super catchy track.
1:28.2	But it's funny, I kind of feel like I wanted to reserve judgment about this song and honestly
1:35.0	K-pop as a whole.
1:36.4	I just haven't figured out how to get into it.
1:39.3	It's a different language, coming from a different nation.
1:42.8	Yet it's this global phenomenon and honestly, I kind of feel like I've missed the boat and
1:46.9	I'm almost embarrassed by it.
	...

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