What songs do you show a K-Pop n00b?

K-Pop is getting more and more popular with each passing day especially with all these groups trying to break into the International market. I mean, Billboard has a K-Pop Hot 100 chart, SNSD were on The Late Show with David Letterman a couple of weeks ago, 2NE1 are working with Will.I.Am, and Hyuna had so many comments from foreigners on her Bubble Pop video when it came out on Youtube (mostly because of not-so-innocent and non K-Pop related reasons).

I'm sure Bill Murray feels the heat!

But what songs do you show someone who’s never listened to or given K-Pop a chance?

I believe K-Pop isn’t too different to Western music. There’s something for everyone. This is just my opinion but I don’t think you can limit K-Pop to just straight pop. You have Big Bang for your Hip Hop lovers, CN Blue & FT Island for the rockers, Clazziquai for the Jazz Cats, (Some) Park Bom for the Balladeers, Wondergirls for the Motown folk, and SuperJunior for the “Big Band” fans (lel) … the list is endless.

I think all you have to do when you’re showing someone K-Pop for the first time is match their music tastes to the K-Pop group. Obviously you wouldn’t show an acoustic fan a B.A.P. song and you wouldn’t show a heavy rocker dude an SNSD song. It’s all just a matter of matching the music to the person.

B.A.P.

Anyway, the reason I came to writing this post was because I had an assessment at uni today. What we had to do was choose a song we like and re-arrange it into a new genre. Most of the people in my class have not listened to K-Pop (if they’re listening to world music, it would most likely be Latin) so what I did was sing “The Boys” by Girls Generation and I re-arranged it into a Motown shuffle feel. I got a few giggles from the class when I said I took a K-Pop song but in the end I definitely enjoyed it and I’m sure other people liked it too.

So here’s a list of what I think are some great introductory K-Pop tunes in no particular order:

1. Nobody – Wondergirls
   
   How can you go past this song? This song started my K-Pop journey for me, and along with the Korean version, there’s an English version too to slowly ween people onto the genre.
2. Fiction – B2ST
   
   
3. Trouble Maker – Hyuna & JS
   
   Two words: Sex Sells.
4. Hate You – 2NE1
   
   I put this one in the list more for the video clip. It’s different and I’m sure people will appreciate it.
5. Gee – Girls Generation
   

6. 직감 – CN Blue
   
   
7. Haru Haru – Big Bang
   
   Don’t think I’m going to finish this post without adding at least one Big Bang song. (VIP!) If you haven’t already checked out their  new tracks “Bad Boy” and “Blue” from their new album “Alive” do so now!

Anyhoo, these were just the songs that popped into my head as I wrote the post. There are so many more songs that I could add (but I’m sleepy now). Let me know what songs you would show a K-Pop n00b in the comments below!

Annyeong~!