I would like to understand K-pop better, as I believe it is very popular with the kids. That sentence is a hard-working one: it introduces the information that I have spent this week watching the new Apple TV+ show KPopped (from Friday 29 August), while suggesting I am too old to have any hope of success. But it’s nowhere near as hard-working as a Korean pop star.
This battle of the bands-style show aims to raise awareness of K-pop in the west like it’s lymphatic filariasis or something. The format reminds me of PE lessons. You know how gym teachers split groups of friends up, so they concentrate? Here, Korean boy and girl groups such as JO1 and Blackswan are split in half. Each half works with a famous western pop artist, re-tooling their best-known song in K-pop mode. The resulting performances are voted for by the studio audience, and the winner gets – well, nothing. An injection of relevance.
