The Retro Concept’s Second Coming

The Western media owes something to those science fiction novels and films set in some dystopic future Japan or alternate universe China since they seem to be the source of those techno-Orientalist tropes used to describe k-pop. According to the news articles, the k-pop industry produces pop stars that are more post-human than human, “manufactured” in “factories” that produce perfect “robots” which are consequently left with little agency. They sing to someone else’s songs and perform someone else’s dances. It is only a matter of time before there will be a story in The Onion about said k-pop robots inciting a war against humans or turning on their handlers and becoming the new world overlords.

This is one of the unintended consequences of the k-pop industry’s branding campaign, which positions k-pop as perpetually on the cusp of newness, musically, technologically, and stylistically. But this image that k-pop has been promoting in other countries is at best more of a half-truth. Belying this otherwise future-centric image is a penchant that runs to the contrary: a fondness for retro chic.

Listen to a few k-pop songs released in the past few years and it is more than likely you will find songs not only befitting 2013, but also more than a few that quote from music trends of yore, be it cabaret jazz, doo-wop, or trot. Lo-fi technology, like typewriters, record players, and tube televisions, populate the sets of music videos that otherwise seem set in the twenty-first century. This trend has even left its mark on physical albums. G-Dragon released — and sold out in less than a day — a limited edition LP version of his latest album, Coup D’Etat, while the Reply 1997 OST and f(x)’s Pink Tape come in an album case that simulates a VHS tape.

Then there were all of those retro concepts that were once popular among girl groups. There was SNSD’s “Hoot” in 2010, and then in 2011, Dal Shabet’s “Bling Bling,” T-ara’s “Roly Poly,” Nine Muses’ “Figaro,” and from Secret, “Shy Boy” and “Starlight Moonlight.” Although unlike the nostalgic flourish of an analog device, having lost their sheen of newness, these concepts have not aged well. Few groups try to rework or revive the trend, lest they be seen as overdone or boring, met with laments of “not another retro concept” and those that do, present a more watered-down version that is is dubbed ‘retro,’ but is not as tightly tied to an era or decade.

Recently though that over-the-top retro concept of bygone years has been having something of an, albeit mini, renaissance, with the most prominent example being IU’s latest album, Modern Times. The guiding theme for her comeback the ‘Roaring ‘20s,’ makes itself known on the album tracks in both conventional — references to Charlie Chaplin and the nod to the 1920s’ moniker as the Jazz Age with the use of the jazz style — and unconventional ways — “Havanna” may be a reference to Havana’s reputation as a tropical paradise in the interwar period. Likewise, those visual elements of her teaser images and album cover that inspired comparisons to Baz Luhrmann’s film, The Great Gatsby, are in actuality markers of the aesthetic of the ‘Roaring '20s,’ the Art Deco style.

Such is the new reality of the retro concept: more sophisticated than its predecessors it requires a certain level of visual literacy to parse it. But this is not to say that this concept is the domain of idols managed by agencies like LOEN Entertainment who have a reputation for creating k-pop that is outside the box. Star Empire’s Nine Muses, who are known for their appearance and sexy image than deep songs, recently returned with their album, Prima Donna have also tried their hand at a retro concept for the video for their lead single, “Gun.” In the video, a man on a motorcycle arrives at a gas station resembling one that Ed Ruscha captured in his 1963 book, Twenty Six Gasoline Stations, which featured photos of gas stations along US Route 66 between Los Angeles and Oklahoma City. While Rusha’s gas stations are devoid of people, Nine Muses mans this particular gas station all the while evoking the pin-up aesthetic they flirted with in the member photos for their singles, “Figaro” and “Ticket.” Here they partake in activities whose unifying theme is that they are the stock activities of the pin-up girl: drinking cokes, leaning over a car, posing on a motorcycle, riding a bike, and blowing bubbles.

There is no descriptive name to apply to Nine Muses retro concept as there is with IU’s concept. The only evidence that fans even understood that they were perhaps channeling a late 1950s-early 1960s America comes from a remark Kyungri made during an interview in regards to their music video saying, “Some people thought we did this in the US.“ But since this is concerning idols whether fans ‘get it’ is mostly immaterial. The appeal of the retro concept has never been the deeper meaning it imbues the song with, especially since it rarely if ever has that effect. IU’s album is still mostly about love and bad days and Nine Muses’ “Gun” is still about flirting.

Rather their appeal is mostly due to their ease. In an industry that fetishizes novelty, the retro concept offers a ready made template of styles, colors, and sounds that have already proven popular from which to cherry pick and cobble into something that seems ‘new,’ if only because most k-pop fans are too young to have experienced it for themselves. All an entertainment agency has to do is add the idols.