The American music industry is founded on the principle that you have an ability to sing. If not then you ability to lip sync is greatly appreciated because then producers can use you as the image for the group/brand as was the case in C+C Music Factory. Zelma Davis was found out to have been lip syncing their hit “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” in the music video to Martha Walsh vocals. In South Korea the process is different. Children from a young age go to audition to train to be an idol. If they are selected then they spend the rest of their childhood and adolescent days training to debut. During this process, they must attend regular school as well as classes for handling the media, acting, dancing, singing and maybe even songwriting. If the trainee has a special skill such as playing an instrument, then they are encouraged to further develop this as it will become part of their image. If not then hopefully, they can find one before they debut as most of their TV appearances will ask about this in their early appearances. Apart from their training, the trainees have no say in how their image will be presented to the public until their debut. The company decides whether they debut as an individual idol or as part of a group. Most group members usually haven’t met each other until they start training as a group to debut. The company’s decisions do not stop there. They employ hundreds of song writers and usually picks and chooses the song in which the group has to sing for their album from them. They even pay for the music video that goes along with their title track. The idols themselves do not start making any serious money until well after they’ve established themselves. So the company pays for everything and in return the idol is under a strict contract with the company. Years of training and hard work is put on display when an idol debut. So the next time you see a k-pop music video remember that.
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