The use of English phrases is a feature of modern K-pop. Among
Korean lyrics one can hear some English words or even whole sentences. The
whole songs in English happen as well. Artist names, song titles, and lyrics
have exhibited a significant growth in the usage of English words.
But it wasn’t always this way. No singers in the top fifty charts in
1990 had English in their names: people who worked in the Korean music industry
viewed using Korean names as standard. After the 1997 financial crisis, the
government stopped censoring English lyrics and Korea started to have a boom in
English. Since the late 1990s, English usage in singers' names, song titles,
and lyrics has grown quickly.
This phenomenon is primarily the effect of Korean idols who were
born or used to live in the USA or another English-speaking country. The Korean
Wave has enabled K-pop artists to get into music market outside Asia. Thus,
Korean agencies apply the technique of English in K-pop to gain more popularity
in the West. Most idols learn English, because it’s a common (similar trends
are found in the case of Japanese). More and more K-pop bands use English names
rather than Korean ones. Analogously, idols chose English stage names.
Korean names (e.g. Baekhyun and Jeongyeon) are seen less frequently,
and many K-pop singers have English names (e.g. I.U.and GOT7). Notably, until
the early 1990s, musicians with English names would transliterate them into
hangul, but now singers would use English names written with the roman alphabet.
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| EXO's Baekhyun |
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| I.U. |
