Melon, the biggest music platform in South Korea officially announced that they are going to remove the real-time charts and ranking. Besides, they will set shuffling as a default playing method. These changes are to remove the bad custom such as chart manipulation that is inherent within the Korean pop world, and ultimately to secure the diversity of music chart. The problems of illegal music hoarding and the ranking culture based on the size of fandom have incessantly been raised as a stumbling-block that tampers with the true ranking of music.
In the K-pop world, a real-time music chart has traditionally incorporated an important meaning to both producers and consumers from the onset of the 20th-century, the quickening period of the music industry. By regularly ranking music based on its popularity and opening it to the public, the music chart enabled consumers to fathom the popularity and accept the music just like the “best seller” of the publication industry and the “box office” of the film industry. In view of pop music as one solid field of industry, a music chart has played a role as a guideline that reflects upon how the music itself laced into the needs and wants of consumers. For this reason, a current change made by Melon is likely to give a substantial impact on the pop music market.
How is a real-time chart being manipulated?
- Music hoarding
One prominent way to manipulate chart rankings is to buy the music records illegally. Park Kyung, a Korean singer, boldly came forward to touch upon how the problem of hoarding has misplaced the previously chart-topped songs. Other singers like Sultan of the Disco, Tiger, MALVO also revealed that they have received an offer for hoarding by the related brokers in the past. This suggests that the brokers that engage in the process of manipulation exist in reality and therefore hoarding is somehow pervasive within Korean pop culture. Albeit a series of implications that convict of hoarding, the problem has remained untangled up until these days due to a lack of tangible shreds of evidence. This is why the attempt of Lee Seung-hwan, the 1990s singer to bring the matter out into the open through Section TV Entertainment News, one of the famous talk shows, had failed when he divulged several cases of hoarding he had witnessed.
- Idol streaming
Another custom that impedes the real-time chart’s function of true ranking stems from K-pop idol fandom culture. Namely “All-kill”, it is commonly known that idol fans regularly stream music videos and songs of the idol group they support to raise their rankings. Hence, it is not at all at odds to witness a great deal of rivalry between different fandoms of idol groups to compete for higher records of streaming. The reason why fans hang on higher music records and video views is fairly simple: it is because high music records and music video views are an effective way to promote and thus exalt the fame of the idol group they root for. In respect to such custom, a number of music critics have rebuked that “a real-chart is nothing but a kind of commerce that instigates fandoms to pour more and more of their money on downloads and streaming.”
What are the changes?
In light of such an issue, Melon proclaimed to get rid of the aforementioned customs that lie within the K-pop culture through some changes. The changes are as follows:
1. Removal of a real-time chart ranking
2. Increase in the period of chart aggregation from one hour to 24 hours
3. One person counts for one song at one time for chart records
4. Shuffling as a default playing method
The essential cause why such customs pervade within K-pop culture traces back to the fact that the music industry itself is built upon the commercial mechanism to seek profits. It is indeed startling to realize that a gap between each rank can cost from 100 million KRW up to 1 billion KRW. For such reason, music ranking serves more than a yardstick that estimates the popularity of music but also a fount of opportunities that decide the size of profits that the singers get in the future.
Following the incipient move made by Melon, other music platforms also proposed to make alterations to their previous systems. For example, VIBE, another big streaming platform proposed the new system called the VIBE Payment System. Also known as the VPS system, the system forwards the payment to the copyright holders of music which were listened by the platform users. Alongside the advent of a new system, the profit distribution method will change from a platform-centered system to a user-centered system. As such, the platform users will now be able to check out the process of how their fee is being distributed. VIBE said that such changes were made in hopes of making the connection between artists and fans clearer.
In conclusion, it is never enough to stress the importance of attaining a credible and trustworthy chart ranking system for the sake of the development of K-pop culture. One best example to take as a role model is the Billboard. Namely the most prestigious chart in the world, the prototypical platform presents the topography of American pop music at one view. The authority of Billboard is rooted in the aggregation method that complies with its stringent guidelines. They sum up the number of broadcasts and the amount of sell-through of digital music downloads or albums for a ranking. Also, the way they rank entirely differs from that of Korea rank charts. For a single chart, they select up to 100 songs based on the number of times they were broadcasted (55 percent), the number of downloads (40 percent), and the number of streaming (5 percent). The volume of sales is mainly taken into account for a record chart. Most of all, every step of the aggregation process depends on the Nielsen SoundScan, which counts the sales of 90 percent of the United States (U.S.) record retail market, and the Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems (BDS), which counts the number of broadcasts of 120 U.S. radio stations nationwide. As such, there is never room for controversy for the Billboard’s way of ranking. South Korea’s music platforms should assiduously make efforts to get rid of corrupt customs.
Kim Seon-mi