K-pop at home: glocalization in the Korean version of “Mercy”

Abstract

In the last ten years K-pop has become increasingly globally popular as one of South Korea’s biggest export products. Within the production of K-pop songs, there is a phenomenon of localizing Western pop songs to K-pop songs. Localization is a process where a product is adapted to fit the local market and audience of a country. Having K-pop songs localized to the Korean audience both indicates a clear Koreanness in these songs, while also embodying foreign aspects. One of K-pop’s biggest girl groups, Girls’ Generation, released one of these localized Western songs in 2012 called “Dancing Queen”. “Dancing Queen” is stated to be a remake of the popular song “Mercy’ of British singer Duffy. Alongside the song, the accompanying music video of “Mercy was also localized. Interestingly, the localization process also included the lyrics of the iconic song “Dancing Queen” of Swedish pop group ABBA, as well as using the same title. By including Western songs into one K-pop song, there is a case of “double remake”. This double remake shows how female sexuality, youthfulness and empowerment is both expressed through the use of English code-switching, as well as suppressed through the process localizing to a Korean culture that still strongly adheres to traditional Confucian values. The double remake does not only reflect upon the K-pop success formula that is mostly based on commercial business calculations, but also on Confucianism, contemporary Korean culture, globalization, American imperialism and glocalization. This analysis shows that Korean identity is everchanging and transcendent, and that K-Pop’s Koreanness reflects the different cultural influences that create Korean identity.