With artists like BTS topping the Billboard 200 this year and fetching higher ticket prices than any other artist in the United States, it’s safe to say that K-pop is more than just a trend or obsession of people who enjoy foreign culture. Beyond that, K-pop has opened the doors for artists other than conventional pop stars to reach into the now accessible Western market.
It’s true that rock music’s diminished cultural popularity makes it difficult to imagine any band making a significant impact on the American charts — much less a band from Korea — but HYUKOH, a four-piece band that has been recording since 2014, are hoping to surpass the circumstances. HYUKOH spent the beginning of their career slowly building an audience with regular performances in Hongdae, Seoul’s prominent music and arts district, before a 2015 appearance on the massive Korean variety show Infinite Challenge propelled the band to stardom throughout Asia. In 2018, they’ve released 24: How To Find True Love and Happiness, a new EP meshing the band’s interactive shoutalong choruses with mostly English lyrics, and had their song “Citizen Kane” featured in an Apple commercial. As the band wraps up their first full length tour of the United States — on which almost all dates have been sold out — they’ve shown what K-rock’s Western breakout might look like.
HYUKOH is largely driven by Oh Hyuk, the band’s soft-spoken and camera-shy lead singer and guitarist who’s easily recognizable with his bald head, multiple facial piercings, and slacker fashion. When I sat down with Oh Hyuk in Seoul, he was forthright about the band’s commercial ambitions. “There was always a thought of going overseas and being international. As a rock band there is an allure to making it where rock music started,” he said. “Once HYUKOH started as a full time band that became a goal of ours.” Oh Hyuk’s husky wail, booming choruses, and wildly creative arrangements snugly pair pop sensibilities with moments of cinematic rock fervor. The onomatopoeic choral effect of their emotionally charged oohs and woahs cuts through any language barriers, infectiously rewarding participation.
Unlike the West, rock music in South Korea has never had a stranglehold on the charts, which makes HYUKOH’s rise to fame all the more novel. “Rock music has always lived on the fringes (in South Korea),” Oh Hyuk told me. “The market and budget here is so small and always has been that way.” Numbers only tell part of a band’s story, but nonetheless here are some numbers: HYUKOH have achieved 250,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, over 9 million streams of their top single “Wi Ing Wi Ing,” and chart placement as high as number 4 on Billboard’s world music chart. The band has garnered numerous awards from the South Korea’s top music award shows including “Rookie of the Year,”“Song of the Year,” and “Best Rock Album.”
Rock music came to South Korea via Western military bases during the Korean War. “Due to the war and its aftermath, there were many U.S. soldiers in Korea,” Grace Jeong, Editor-in-Chief of the Korean pop culture site Soompi told The Outline. “These soldiers preferred rock music since it was also popular in the U.S. during the 1950s. Korean musicians played rock music for these U.S. soldiers in order to make a living.” But for most of the century, it was a fringe interest compared with Korean pop, ballad, and folk music. The genre’s burgeoning popularity was stifled by the 1975 imprisonment of Shin Jung Hyun, a key figure of South Korean rock music, and the scene never significantly recovered.
“Maybe to some people we’re becoming role models for rock music in Korea,” Oh Hyuk said. “I do think it’s important that rock music has a representative like that here in Korea. There are so many good musicians here in Korea right now and not having a larger market to support them all is frustrating.” Although HYUKOH was already a big name in the Korean indie scene before appearing on Infinite Challenge, they were relatively unknown to the general public. Their inclusion was due to the show’s directors looking to showcase a wider variety of music as well as the buzz surrounding the band, including industry support from K-pop ballad extraordinaire IU and veteran hip-hop producer Tablo.
Oh Hyuk, who is tri-lingual, wrote How to Find True Love and Happiness almost entirely in English — a drastic change from the band’s past work, which is mostly Korean with bits of English and Chinese sprinkled throughout. “That wasn’t entirely my intention,” Oh Hyuk said, when asked if he was reaching for a Western audience. “For these songs to be played in America, I know it would be accepted more easily if they are in English, but that’s not the entire purpose.” How To Find True Love And Happiness is the band’s strongest material to date, seamlessly traversing a wide dynamic range. Oh Hyuk’s vulnerable lyrics depict young love and anxiety with a stark heart-on-your-sleeve sensibility, and he displays newfound maturity on tracks like “Graduation,” where he quaintly illustrates the awkward small talk exchanged between crushes sharing a smoke break.
The perfect formula for a Korean artist to crossover from the East to the West doesn’t exist, but it’s a fair guess that record label executives are intensely studying the success of BTS, who in the last year have become legitimate superstars in the United States. “BTS has had such a cross-over success due to their focus on story-telling through their music,” Grace Jeong said. “The story grows and progresses in a cohesive manner as the members grow, and that story is continued in their music videos and other content they release … BTS makes fans feel very involved in their success and proud of the group’s achievements, and in turn, their own achievements as fans.”
Writing music connected with youth culture and developing a brilliant social media strategy is certainly imitable, but pop and rock fandoms aren’t necessarily into the same things. Retaining their authenticity while going for the brass ring is a tight rope to walk, especially without a local scene to enmesh themselves in as they navigate their career. Both Oh Hyuk and the band want to cross over, something it isn’t always easy for musicians to admit. Korean television often portrays Oh Hyuk as shy, aloof, or careless, which Oh Hyuk himself does not believe is totally out of character. “(You know how) if you meet someone for the first time, you’re not totally you? You don’t really know what to say so you don’t say much? That’s how I feel a lot of the time,” Oh Hyuk said. “I am a shy person. Even my bandmates would describe me as shy.”
Still, it takes confidence to attempt success in a market that has never propped up a K-rock act. “Part of the success of K-pop and BTS outside of Korea comes from the way it’s seen as something different from what’s available in the US,” Jeong said. “Korean rock music is not immediately marketable as unique (in the West), but also not as widely palatable as pop music. HYUKOH must tread the fine line between mainstream popularity and (their sound’s) niche marketability to have a successful cross-over.” (More succinctly, when I asked Oh Hyuk what it would take for a Korean act to cross over, he said: “I don’t know.”)
Recently, I had the chance to see the band on a sold out date at Chicago’s Lincoln Hall. (Capacity: A little over 500.) The date had been sold out for months. When they arrived on stage, the crowd hurled an eruption of cheers and exclamations in both Korean and English. Oh Hyuk was quiet, and seemingly unsure how to show his gratitude. The band was confident and rehearsed, but took opportunities to break their stoicism and feed off the energy of a vibrant room that seemed aware this was a rare opportunity. Between songs, the singer often leaned into the mic as if he was ready to engage with the crowd, but would just chuckle to himself. The crowd roared with cheers every time this happened; they understood what he was trying to say.
