BBCMillions of screaming fans. A global phenomenon. A multi-billion dollar business. No, it’s not Taylor Swift (this time). We’re talking about K-pop.
And with Four of the top ten best-selling acts of 2023 come from South Koreathe British want a piece of the pie.
First up: the newly formed boy band Dear Alice, who have applied to take part in BBC One’s latest talent show, “Made in Korea: The K-Pop Experience”.
Meet Blaise, Dexter, James, Olly and Reese. You might hear more about them from now on.
None of them knew the others before they auditioned individually and were put together as a band by the showrunners.
The inexperienced quintet was then flown to the South Korean capital Seoul to undergo 100 days of intensive K-pop training with the goal of becoming a star.
Training in K-pop usually takes years, not months. It’s not for the faint-hearted: the boys have spent hours taking singing lessons and learning complicated choreography, and on top of that they’ve also done a bit of Korean sightseeing (and good TV – the South Korean tourist board will be delighted).
The six-part series is a collaboration between the BBC, K-pop agency SM Entertainment and Moon&Back Media, run by TV veterans Dawn Airey, Nigel Hall and Russ Lindsay, whose catalogue includes shows such as The X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent and Saturday Night Takeaway.
K-pop expert Hee Jun Yoon, the creative force behind some of the biggest K-pop bands of the past 20 years, critiques the band’s performance at the end of each week and it’s safe to say she doesn’t mince her words. Even the BBC’s head of unscripted content Kate Phillips says Hee Jun “makes Simon Cowell look like Mary Poppins”.
Former X-Factor head judge Cowell is, of course, launching his own search for a boy band in an upcoming Netflix series that is still in production.
Without giving too much away about the first episode of Made in Korea, Hee Jun wakes up the band in the first week with unflinching criticism. “The level of choreography is so simple, it’s at kindergarten level.” Ouch. Her facial expressions alone could go viral.
The guys wouldn’t say whether any of them wanted to leave the show at some point. “You’ll have to wait and see,” says Olly Quinn, 20, from Sunderland, a recent graduate in dance and musical theatre. (Apparently the media training was also very demanding.)
They also don’t reveal whether they have already signed a record deal. They just say that they are still “rehearsing hard” and comment that all the effort and brutal feedback have been worth it.
Dexter Greenwood, a 22-year-old Londoner who also trained in musical theatre, says: “It was hard work, really challenging, but the end justifies the means. Everyone at SM was very supportive, but I think we were different than expected!”
Reese Carter, 20, from Wiltshire and a former cruise ship artist, adds: “It was tough at first, but we had a great social team in place… and everything was done with love.”
“They are honest because they want to push us to be better. I’m happy to hear the feedback. They are on our side. We had social assistance, a life coach, people were always staying with us, you could go downstairs and talk to someone,” he adds.
Olly agrees: “It’s brutal, to be honest. We needed it.”
There is certainly a big difference between the band’s performances in the first episode and a later video clip shown to journalists at a preview.
Coco Yeonsoo Do is a K-pop dancer and choreographer and a former member of KAACHI, the first British K-pop girl group.
“It’s really hard to get a K-pop group to the level of BTS or Blackpink,” she tells the BBC, but training is what sets successful groups apart.
“It’s very intense and competitive,” says Coco.
A key difference between British and US pop groups and K-pop groups is the production of the latter, she adds.
“It’s obvious, but K-pop groups function more like a group and emphasize group identity rather than individuality,” she adds.
Followed Allegations of very strict and punitive training regimes of wannabe K-pop stars in recent years, The Korean press reported on the introduction of regulations banning unfair contract practices between K-Pop trainees and entertainment companies.
For the producers of the series “The K-Pop Experience,” the well-being of the population was clearly the top priority.
Helen Wood is Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at Aston University and is working on a research project on duty of care in television.
In 2019, there was a parliamentary inquiry and an Ofcom consultation on the Broadcasting Code after several reality stars committed suicide.
In 2020 The media regulator announced new rules to protect participants in television programs.
“Today, production is under greater pressure to ensure that it adequately cares for the welfare, dignity and well-being of the participants who take part in the production,” she says.
“That’s not to say that things didn’t exist before 2021, but there are a lot more regulations now.”
Another key difference created by the new Ofcom code is the requirement to demonstrate to audiences that there is a duty of care to participants, she adds.
This means that the curtain is pulled back to show the audience some of the behind-the-scenes production processes to ensure they understand what is going on and can trust that attendees are being properly cared for.
A Made in Korea spokesperson told the BBC: “The well-being of the band members has been at the heart of their training process,” adding that a “strong support team is in place” and that the band’s well-being “remains our highest priority.”
Reese says they also supported each other.
“We (the band) have grown closer together over the last few months. As great as it was to have welfare there, there were many moments when we didn’t have to go there because we were strong enough as a group.”
Blaise Noon, 19, from London, is the youngest of the band, but seems to take everything in his stride. He is a Brit School graduate and seems the most confident.
He says they were really “lucky” to have had the advantage as a British band to be able to immerse themselves in the Korean training program: “There are a lot of really good things we can take with us to create this hybrid fusion.”
Interestingly, most of them have never had the desire to join a boy band.
James Sharp, 23, from Huddersfield, is one half of the Sharp twins, whose TikTok account has 5.5 million followers.
He says he found boy bands “embarrassing.” Blaise laughs as he recalls feeling “too cool” for them, even though Dexter was always a fan. And Olly got some K-pop training from his aunt, who runs K-pop fan sites.
However, everyone agrees that this is too big an opportunity to pass up.
But how did they come up with the band name?
After Olly’s suggestion of eating British Bulldogs was quickly dismissed (I don’t know why), they stumbled upon a restaurant in Seoul called Dear Alice.
Everyone liked it and it stuck.
“The ‘Favorite’ is like a letter to the fans” and ‘Alice’ stands for ‘a love I can’t explain,'” says Blaine.
More importantly, according to the guys, the restaurant sold “the best Beef Wellington in the world.”
Not necessarily a classic Korean dish, but Dear Alice hopes that a similar cultural fusion is the secret to their success.
The first episode of Made in Korea: The K-pop Experience premieres on Saturday 17 August at 5.15pm BST on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
Additional reporting by Ruchira Sharma.
