ABSTRACT
For the last two decades, K-pop-and in particular, its success along its Asian trajectory-has been portrayed as a national triumph for Korea and a blockbuster case of commoditizing its soft culture. However, the transnational flow of Korean popular music should not be thought of as just a recent or contemporary phenomenon, nor confined to the regions in Asia. From the perspective of music and historical studies, the circulation and consumption of Korean popular music outside its own geo-political and cultural boundaries is long-established, tracing as far back as the turn of the twentieth century, although its reach, meaning, and modes of production and consumption were divergent at different times and contexts. With the pre - sumption that music crosses borders for one or more reasons, even in times when border crossing is restricted and inconvenient, this chapter traces the transnational flow of K-pop from the early twentieth century, and discusses what enabled the circulation and reception of K-pop in different contexts and epochs of world history. Diverging from K-pop as a label of contemporary music, in this chapter K-pop encompasses various sounds of popular music made in Korea from the early twentieth century to today. The two authors call attention to “musical transnationality,” the particular elements and ability of which fulfill the needs of audiences residing, in this case, outside Korea. By exploring the power of musical transnationality in history and in contemporary global soundscape, this chapter argues the need of investigating K-pop as to what the music offers to its audiences and the reasons why particular groups of people become adherents and fans of certain types of music. Despite differences in style, ideology, and the relevant industries and technologies of K-pop, the range of distinct cases discussed in this chapter will complement the existing knowledge of contemporary K-pop studies.
