Cpop Vs. Kpop

[Guest min_60]

I'm a chinese myself, and I listen to Kpop almost 24/7. I used to be fan of Cpop like Jolin Tsai and Jay CHou. For Jay Chou,I would have to admit he's really talented as a musician. But due to the fact that I like to listen to groups better than solo artists, I pick Kpop.

Kpop have better groups in my opinion compared to Cpop. I mean compare the countries two biggest boygroup, Fahrenheit for Taiwan and DBSK for Korea, it's obvious who would win. even if you compare SJ to fahrenheit, SJ would still win. SO does Shinee.

Sorry I am not trying to start and arguement. I just happen to like groups better so there explains my above example.

[Guest absolutezeronow]

Alright, I've read literally all the comments on this thread and saw a lot of misconceptions about Cpop. Being Chinese-American (from Taiwan), I'll try and clarify some stuff up and inform people who keep bashing Cpop.

Cpop = Chinese Pop = Cantopop (from Hong Kong) + Tpop (from Taiwan) + just plain Cpop (from China). Cpop would also include Chinese music from overseas Chinese from Malaysia or Singapore too but they don't really make up a majority of Cpop. I saw a lot of people, Chinese included, who seems to think that Cpop = Cantopop only or that Cpop = Tpop only. THIS IS NOT TRUE GDI!!!

But historically, Cpop started in Hong Kong with cantopop and in Taiwan with Tpop. Though, in the end (I'm not trying to be biased), Tpop seem to "bloom" more than Cantopop. This is actually somewhat of a history lesson. A majority of people in Taiwan have grandparents/parent who were born and/or raised in different regions/provinces/Chinese ethnic groups in mainland China but left for Taiwan because of the whole Communist Party and Guomindang party mess. In a way, Taiwan was a "melting pot" of different Chinese regional cultures with their own sometimes-understandable provincial dialect. Mandarin is what brought Chinese people together. It's "universal" in Chinese culture because has lighter accents compared to other dialects like Cantonese. Cantonese, like Fujianese, are very ancient dialects compared to Mandarin. That's probably why so many people complain how they don't like Cantopop. Cantonese has heavier tones and "accents" and it sounds choppy to others. I personally enjoy old school Cantopop like many people because my parents used to listen to them when they were young and they actually knew how to sing back then. I hate the new Cantopop singers, like many, because they just plain suck. BUT, I LOVE JACKY CHEUNG. He's definitely one of the best Cpop singers out there but he's kind of in retirement LOL. I don't understand Cantonese at all, I think Cantonese is a choppy-sounding dialect and I don't care for the dialect but I still enjoy old school Cantopop. Just because music, language-wise, doesn't sound "smooth" doesn't mean that it's unpleasant. Seriously, guys =___=

Tpop seems to be the mainstream Cpop genre because of the whole "melting pot" culture and because they speak Mandarin rather than Cantonese, which many mainland Chinese people don't understand, so it was easier to sell Tpop to mainlanders and for Tpop to "bloom." But there are definitely some excellent mainland Chinese artists popping up recently. Cpop from China isn't as popular or well known because China was closed off for so many years. Just imagine how many generations of people have never touched "modern" music. Their parent probably mostly listened to Chinese folk songs or listened to very old school Cpop from Hong Kong and Taiwan. That's assuming that they even had a radio back then. Therefore, it's really hard for mainlanders to rise as real musicians and be taken seriously in the Cpop industry. This kind of thing would take time. Mainlanders have to be exposed for longer periods of time to the modern world. They may be very technologically advanced in many areas but this need YEARS of exposure to more generations and for those generations to actually grow up and make a career out of music.

As for Kpop, I've only started getting into it recently. It's good and it's catchy, I won't dismiss that fact. I LOVE F(X)!! LOL. As many people have said, many Cpop songs are copied from Kpop songs. Well, I got news for you: many Kpop songs are copied from American songs. And you can't really make a fair comparison between Cpop and Kpop because:

1. Hardly enough of us understands either language
2. Kpop is made of largely of boy and girl GROUPS. They don't really have that many popular individual singers. Cpop is made up of mainly individual singers. There's really not that many Cpop groups out there when you do a population comparison between people in Korea and people in China/Taiwan/Hong Kong

But if you must make a comparison....

Kpop singers/groups nowadays are trained to be stars. Talent takes training but training is NOT the same as talent. People seem to mix/confuse those two terms up quite often. Although Kpop music/beats itself is more Americanized, Cpop singers themselves are more Americanized. Like Cpop, American music have more mainstream solo artists than group artists. Like Cpop, American musicians are not trained from childhood to become stars/idols in the future. Cpop and American music follow more of a natural progression when it comes to picking out artists. Everything in mainstream Kpop came out of training. Honestly, if you train yourself hard in anything for a long period of time, you would LOOK talented because "Practice makes perfect." That's why Kpop artists are so popular. Kpop, as a group culture, is easier to market. If one member of a group isn't good at singing, there will always be someone else in the group who can cover that area of interest. If one member of a group isn't that good at dancing, there will always be someone else in the group who can dance. If one member of the group isn't particularly good-looking, there will always be someone else in the group who's good-looking for the masses. DJing being hosts on radio shows/variety shows does not make them SINGERS. Singer are people who can sing. Singers can be good dancers too but that's not necessarily a requirement, or at least, it shouldn't be. Most of the members in Kpop aren't really SINGERS. There are real singers but they number in the few in Kpop. There will always be people who will say that the non-singers of some groups sing really well. To that, I would like to say that that's not singing. They were trained in singin but you would never see them sing out of their comfort zone. Those "singers" have limited vocal ranges and they have no liveliness/energy when they sing. Their voices sound nice and light but that's just it, nothing else more. And it's like what another person (I forgot who you are, sorry) on this thread said, Kpop has this whole thing down to an exact science. Kpop looks good because they have groups, and those groups look good because they can dance/sing. This looks more appealing overall than Cpop singers who can't really dance for the most part. Honestly, Cpop singers mostly focus on talent rather than non-singing related aspects. I'm not saying Kpop singers don't have talent. I do agree that Cpop singers should try and instill some dancing into them for marketing because it catches people's eyes/attention. Cpop singers can't dance LOL. The Kpop industry knows how to market themselves really well while Cpop singers don't really need to market themselves that much. The fact that Cpop singers sing in Chinese and speak in Chinese fluently already opens up the entire greater-Chinese listener market. With Kpop singers, they have to find other ways of breaking into other foreign markets so they would try harder by training and looking better. Cpop singers don't have that problem/need.

There are many people on this forum who watch idol dramas from Taiwan and only know about Cpop through those dramas. THAT'S A TERRIBLE SOURCE OF CPOP!!! Idol dramas have the word "idol" in them because they look good, nothing else. Cpop artists like FLH/F4/Fahrenheit shouldn't even be considered as musicians. People, including some Chinese people on this forum, don't know where to look for real Cpop music other than from idol dramas. Guys, look outside the box!!

Here are some really great Cpop artists (in my opinion):

1. Wang LeeHom (Wang Li Hong): He's just awesome. Period. This guy can do everything and anything.
2. Jay Chou: I don't even like him but I like his lyricist Wen Shang and how he incorporates traditional Chinese music with mainstream beats. I honestly only like three of his songs LOL. This guy can't sing but he's a great composer.
3. Jane Zhang (Zhang Liang Ying): THIS GIRL SINGS LIKE A BLACK GIRL!! LOL. She's from China and I absolutely love her. Now, how many Asian artists can sing like a black person? Honestly, how many can you claim to sing like one? Exactly. Not many. She's just lovely.
4. Zhou Bi Chang (aka Bibi): This girl can be mistaken for a guy a few years ago since she had a tomboyish look plus a low, husky voice. I love her voice. But lately, I stopped liking the songs she's been singing. Idk, her recent songs disappoint me.
5. JJ Lin (Lin Jun Jie): This dude's from Singapore. He has a really unique voice and I love some of his older songs, like "Cao cao" and "After a Thousand Years." I don't love his more recent songs as much though.
6. Da Mouth: This is a group with three guys and one girl. They're known as the "Black-Eyed Peas of Asia." They have more party/techno/disco/upbeat kind of songs. They're not really "singers" but they sound good.
7. A-mei: Old school singer. Awesome voice. I don't know if she's off the radar or not these days...
8. Jacky Cheung: The only Cantopop and the only one of the "Four Heavenly Kings" I still listen to. You just can't say no to his voice. He's old school but a classic.
9. Harlem Yu: Old school singer from Taiwan. His classic "Qin Fei De Yi" is just <3
10. Steph Sun: From Malaysia or Singapore? Sorry, I forgot 8( She has a very distinct voice too
11. Anson Hu: His voice is on the high end of the range so a lot of people don't like him and calls him girly LOL. I liked his "Yue Guang" (aka Moonlight) song though.
12. Zhang Yun Jing: A total tomboy, probably lesbian or bisexual LOL. Her voice is really unique too. She's more of a rocker type. Check out "Pian Ai" (aka Must Love). She's cool too.
13. Su Yongkang: IDK where he's from but he has a deep, manly voice. I loved "Xiang Yu Tai Zhao" (aka Met Too Early)
14. S.H.E.: They're so overrated but I did like some of their older songs as a kid. They're more of a bubble gum type of group though. :/
15. Khali Fong: He's an awesome man in general. <3
16. There's more but this post is already getting too long and I have homework to do LOL.

I have never listened to Jpop before so I can't comment on what I don't know. Jpop isn't even the title of this discussion anyways so idk why people keep bringing it up. I'm sure Jpop is awesome though.

Any music industry has its downsides. Every industry has talented singers. What I said above are just generalizations and probably won't apply to specific cases that you might think of to refute me. Please remember I'm on this forum because I love Kpop too. I just wanted to clarify some stuff up through my observations and from what I know. This is just my two-cent. Sorry this is so freakin' long LOL

[miss_vicky]

^ mad props to you!

at least now i understand why i know many groups from taiwan instead of mainland china.

honestly, this topic really shouldn't matter does it.

you like music because it's something enjoyable...

you don't listen to music just because of how a group looks or dances (well unless your a dancer and all that and you can dance to the song).

it's universal, and if you don't like something, don't say anything about it, don't listen to it.

just focus on what you enjoy.

[Guest jawjuhh]

lol, while I wouldn't say that Jane Zhang sings like a black girl, she is certainly amazing.  Her range is so incredible, but she makes some really bad music.

In general, I prefer K-pop.  I feel like when I listen to pop music, I'm not necessarily looking for amazing vocals or deep song meanings.  What usually makes my ipod are super catchy dance songs.  IMO, a lot of popular Chinese/Taiwanese artists have more of a wispy vocal quality, which I'm not totally into.  That being said, the Chinese songs I have on my iPod are all songs that I LOVE LOVE LOVE.  like Jane Zhang's Painted Heart, which sends my soul to the heavens.  

[mintcracker]

There are more chinese singers that are more musically talented and unique.

Korean songs can be catchy, but it's generally alot more contrived and manufactured. Alot of the groups sound similar and solo singers all have similar sounding voices. =/ (I'm being honest, I used to be a huge fan of kpop)

While if you listen to Cpop, there's alot of it where you just *know* exactly who is singing, and the lyrics are generally more meaningful and less cliche.

[Guest bigmonkey2382]

All pop sucks, I don't see the point.

[TVBuddy]

Because Cpop has bad singers now, if the old singers were still singing, I would NOT have to turn to kpop. In addition to that, I guess because Chinese singers are just using what they are naturally born with (like there's no training for them, they get signed based on what talents they got) that they aren't as good in dancing and the music composed...I think Korean music have a more American feel to it, yet still Asian but it's kind of getting repetitive. And definitely because Korean celebrities are like wayyyyy pretty. And vocal wise, the Chinese singers now a days T.T; I could sing better than some of them and their lyrics are super retarded...another thing about kpop is I have no idea what the hell they are singing so.....I can't call it retarded. But all in all, I think Kpop excels in that their singers have to be a triple threat, looks, vocals, and dance. Though I like their looks and dance more than most of their vocals as well. Except DBSK they really got everything going on.

Oh and the Cpop I listen to is just Cantopop. China singers are quite amazing, some of them, but not my cup of tea.

[Guest zepandy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gWu5Y6yY4E&feature=related

Just found this on youtube.

Maybe that's one of the reasons why Korean people don't listen to Cpop ~

(I'm a Chinese myself, btw)

[Guest milkychew]

i am from taiwan and i love my asian music in general LOL but i do my have preferences according to genre hahah

i really love mandopop ballads in particular though. i'd have to say my favorite cpop ballads are JJ Lin's 'She Says,' and A-Mei's 'Remember,' and Aska Yang's 'Onion'

[Guest WaffleZ42]

Bump- because I won't rest easy until I've ran my mouth off about this subject. You can skip down some because I'ma rant about the whole "C-Pop copies K-Pop" thing first.

Now, I'm incredibly irritated when people say C-Pop has stolen elements from K-Pop.

One MV I've seen this on lately is Luo Zhi Xiang's "Only You". You can watch it here if you don't know what I'm talking about yet.

Another claim from a while back, Top Combine's MV for "Arrival" was ripped directly from DBSK's "Purple Line", despite the fact that it was due to the same director who worked on both MVs.

A brief timeline:

Pop music originated in the UK and US in the 1950s after the jazz era.

C-Pop gets it's origins in the 70s. Singapore launches a "Speak Mandarin" campaign that gets Mandarin to replace most Hokkien and Canto songs. Most pop you hear from Taiwan or China is actually "Mandopop", but we'll continue referring to "C-Pop" to keep things simple."

K-Pop as we know it debuts in 1992 with Seo Tai-ji and Boys.

Korea develops the idol concept which gives increasing popularity to the pop industry.

China/Taiwan adopts this idol concept in the early 2000s.

It sickens me that people say C-Pop copies K-Pop. Both C-Pop and K-Pop are interpretations of a music genre that had it's origins in the West some 60 years back. Looking at pop culture in general and seeing how so many things that are "in" are universal, it seems completely unreasonable that you spot a similarity between a Korean MV and a Mandarin MV and automatically judge an entire industry because of your own preferences.

Yes, there HAVE been cases of Chinese artists plagiarizing Korean songs. The reason for that is K-Pop is more widespread throughout Asia, so it's as accessible as C-Pop is in much of China/Taiwan. But that's not saying C-Pop is built on thievery. Every music industry no matter WHERE you look will have cases of copying other music. The only difference being in this case, some K-Pop fans tend to get extremely butthurt over spotting a few minor details they've seen in a K-Pop video.

Referring back to the "Only You" MV I linked, it got criticism for copying SuJu's style in their MVs for BONAMANA and Sorry, Sorry. Are you kidding me? Black and White is such a universal idea that it's bound to be re-used in various places. My brother's prom theme was black and white, for Chrissakes. Illuminated dance floors is not exclusive to the Korean industry either. Jay Sean did that in "Down", and I'm pretty certain K-Pop has very little influence on the American industry.

And when SHINee's song LUCIFER pretty much mirrors 2NE1's "Please Don't Go", people turn a blind eye.

"UHHH, NOPE. DON'T SOUND SIMILAR AT ALL."

As for the actual subject of the two genres:

(Getting my flame shield up)

I'd have to prefer C-Pop to K-Pop.

K-Pop, it's quite easy to find a healthy number of catchy songs. The image it spins off is pretty cool too. My only problem with it is the same problem I have with most of the American industry- it's too sensationalized. Most of the popular artists are groups. B2ST, Super Junior, SHINee, MBLAQ, T-Ara, Girl's Generation, etc. etc.

It focuses more on glam than individual talent, in my opinion. Smart marketing move since pretty faces sell, but don't confuse looks for talent. DBSK is (or was, I haven't kept up to date with their recent happenings) an extremely talented group. 5 lead singers? That's impressive, especially considering the vocal range they can cover. Other groups however... ehhh. As much as I like the sound of autotuned singing, don't think it automatically makes someone a good singer. K-Pop is definitely catchy and it definitely takes talent to be an idol, but I think most of the groups out there don't deserved to be lionized the way they are. Super Junior debuted with 13 members. THIRTEEN. That's not a boyband- that's a freaking choir, and a bunch of pretty faces is bound to get attention. Don't get me wrong- their songs are good. "No Other" is actually one of my favorites. But looking through their MVs, it's painfully obvious that they try to give Shindong the least amount of screen time possible. Why? Because his face just isn't pretty as the others.

C-Pop has a large number of individual singers. This sort of idea sits better with me because the singer is given more of a personality when on TV and whatnot, as opposed to "here's a group of pretty faces, which one do you find prettiest?", which I feel like K-Pop almost borders sometimes. Jay Chou isn't the best looking guy around, but the guy's got talent. He raps, he sings and lately, he dances.... and mumbles a bit. These artists also generally tend to cover more than one style. The artists famous for their quick, poppy music are just as famous for their ballads. There aren't a lot of artists out there in the C-Pop industry worth listening too, but the ones that ARE worth listening to have some of the most amazing voices and composition around. The groups like the aforementioned Top Combine are... okay. They only really produce 1-2 songs worth listening to per group, but whatever adds to your library to good music. Definitely not of K-Pop caliber though.

I'd think it's almost fair to say that for every good K-Pop song, there's a good C-Pop song. The reason I prefer C-Pop being that solo artists generally tend to shine more, accomplishing in one person what groups do in five, and the subject matter is usually deeper. I don't speak a lick of Korean, but even I know that "michyeo" means crazy from all the times that I've heard it and the subbed MVs I watch.

Again, this is just my opinion. Don't trash me because I have one- like I said before, I LIKE K-Pop. It's just that it's impossible to view either industry objectively, and there are a few things people tend to ignore that I wanted to bring up.

[Guest Spicaa]

The only Cpop-artist I'm listening to is Taiwanese artist Amit/Amei. Even then, I only like her rockish songs.

[Guest bravo_my_life]

I listen to both. I know a lot of people believe that cpop copies kpop. But from what ive seen everybody copies everybody. I actually love mostly any type of asian pop. I believe there is room for all. But what makes me angry is when chinese kids say they wish they were korean or that cpop is a rip off of kpop. Its like wow you really diss your own country for kpop? I could never do that.

[Guest snowolb]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gWu5Y6yY4E&feature=related

Just found this on youtube.

Maybe that's one of the reasons why Korean people don't listen to Cpop ~

(I'm a Chinese myself, btw)

@_@ Oh my god. D:

Even if she's not overweight, she still looks porky, and that's a baaaaad cover of Bopeep.

[Guest j.a*star]

@_@ Oh my god. D:

Even if she's not overweight, she still looks porky, and that's a baaaaad cover of Bopeep.

lol the lady is 40 something and i hope you don't judge her based on the standards people have for idols. It's just a song that has a music video that is meant to be taken lightly.

[Guest ShrimpCrackerrr]

QUOTE (영원한 사 @ May 18 2008, 02:18 PM) I'm korean but I've listened to alot of c-pop songs (through my chinese friend) and honestly I have never been able to click with the music.  Japanese and Korean is better.

Just because you cant "click" into a certain kind of music . It doesnt mean one is better then the other. Its just a matter of what you like.

IN HIS/HER OPINION, Japanese and Korean are better. He/she can't have his/her own opinion? He/she didn't blatantly say that Japanese and Korean are better AS A FACT.. he/she said it after saying that c-pop doesn't click with her, so of course he/she would THINK that j-pop and k-pop are better.

QUOTE (jaejoongie <3 @ May 19 2008, 09:56 PM) it's because when I listen to music, I want to understand it.

I understand english, I understand korean, and I understand 30~50% japanese, but I don't understand chinese at all.

only wo ai ni.

so when I'm listening to chinese music I get tired of listening because I can't understand. ><

So only because of your own incompetence that you dont like to listen to cpop..... interesting. So how did you learn Japanese ?  Was it because you WANTED to learn it? Well if you WANT to UNDERSTAND chinese music , then maybe you CAN  LEARN it? Just like how you CAN understand 30-50% of Japanese.

She might not want to learn/understand Chinese, LOL. She could have learned those languages because she had an interest in them, but maybe she does not have an interest in learning Chinese?

QUOTE (teukhaee @ May 23 2008, 04:49 PM) KPOP pwns. CPOP

if you mean CPOP, is that mainland?

taiwanese attracts my attention more IMO!

like fahrenheit. but i still dont listen to them except one song

I suggest you look deeper if you are basing Fahrenheit of representing cpop( and one song   ). I can already tell that you dont even know much about the cpop industry. cpop= mainland,taiwan,hk.

This is a k-pop forum, 95% of Soompiers will probably not have a deep knowledge of c-pop like you seem to have.

[Guest myboyRobin]

Does it even matter which genre is better? At the end of day we're all going to listen to our bias genre anyways. No amount of "this genre has more talented singers than this genre blah blah blah" is going to change anyone's mind.

 Ahem excuse me back on topic.

What I like about CPOP: I like that it isn't drowning with idol groups. I like the fact that there are a lot of talented solo singers (as well as talented groups). I'm still trying to learn more about CPOP, even though I have been listening to Jay Chou and Jolin Tsai since 2006, but only recently have I decided to expand and listen to more CPOP groups/artists.

What I like about KPOP: I only listen to Super Junior, H.O.T  and B2ST. Been of fan of SUJU since 2007, H.O.T only recently and B2St since their debut in 2009.

Yes I agree that CPOP is still maturing for a lack of a better word, but I do like where they are at. I hope they don't start to debut many idol groups. As for KPOP I hope they will recover from the millions of debuting idol groups and eventually have a nice balance of groups and solo artists, but hey KPOP is maturing as well. Only time will tell.

[Guest WaffleZ42]

As long we can all agree that Asian pop in general is infinitely superior to the crap playing in American radios nowadays. :v

[Guest Jessmonde]

The Chinese people are more traditional and their music is less commercialized, I don't think it's fair to compare. In any case here's a Korean pop singer who decided to focus her music career solely in China for 3 years. She's back in Korea with 2 new singles proving she enjoys and can do one or the other: Kan Mi Youn

[Guest OhmygoditsRicky]

I thinks it's because Chinese people aren't as good at singing as Koreans. I'm not trying to troll or anything as I'm 100% Chinese.

Takes this for example.

(Chinese version)

and

(Korean Version

I personally thought that the Chinese version was better.

[Guest myboyRobin]

I thinks it's because Chinese people aren't as good at singing as Koreans. I'm not trying to troll or anything as I'm 100% Chinese.

Takes this for example.

(Chinese version)

and

(Korean Version

I personally thought that the Chinese version was better.

I don't get it. You said Chinese singers can't sing as well as Korean singers, but you chose the Chinese singer?

I personally think Chinese solo artists sings better than most Korean solo artists. But that's my opinion and that's yours, we can't change each other or other people minds. :/