The group's attempt to jump across the Pacific is not without precedent. Several Asian artists including Utada, Teriyaki Boyz, and BoA have made similar stabs at breaking into the American market, usually with middling success. As a fellow Korean, BoA's career is perhaps best at illustrating the difficulties associated with this kind of move. Debuting in Korea in 2000 and expanding into Japan the following year, BoA quickly gained notoriety in both countries. In 2008, she released a self titled album under the newly created SM Entertainment USA label. The CD peaked at 127 on the Billboard Top 200 charts and despite high hopes to work with artists such as Justin Timberlake and T-Pain, BoA returned her focus to the Japanese market the next year. Though not attributed as a direct cause for her return, BoA did mention the difficulty she was having learning English and making friends.
Girl's Generation has had a similar, if somewhat slower moving, career. Debuting in Korea in 2007, the group didn't make the hop over to Japan until 2010. There are a number of notable differences in the way they are approaching the move to America as well. For starters, rather than crafting a new CD for the states, The Boys is simply a re-release of their best selling 2011 album with a few remixes thrown in to help sales. They may also have a leg up on the language barrier that BoA found so daunting in that two of their members, Jessica and Tiffany, are from America.
As I said, the CD is a varied arrangement of the type of music I've come to associate with this group. Buried between the dance beats of songs like "The Boys" and "Mr. Taxi" are slower moving, melodic tracks like "How Great Is Your Love" and "Sunflower". The songs "Trick" and "Oscar" are probably best compared to the groups earlier "Run, Devil, Run", which kicked off their move into darker sounding music. I feel "Lazy Girl" has the kind of sound that will appeal to western audiences despite its foreign nature. For some reason, it reminds me of Katy Perry.
If there's one complaint I have with the CD, it's the end. I expected an English and Korean version of "The Boys" to be included, but not four additional remixes. Though I understand the logic behind the choice to pair Girl's Generation with notable American artists in an effort to boost sales, only one of the four remixes does anything for me. The first, a collaboration with Snoop Dogg, is by far the worst, with no effort whatsoever to make the two artists mesh. Suzi's remix fares a bit better, but the overall effect is still a negative in my mind for reasons that are hard to explain. The last two are a David Anthony and Teddy Riley remix, respectively. I like the David Anthony version, which manages to speed the song up a bit while adding an unobtrusive and enjoyable techno beat. The Teddy Riley mix is a close second, but relies a bit too heavily on the tired remixing technique of repeating the end of lines and has a few balance issues.
At the end of the day, I fear the language barrier will once again be the deciding factor of this CDs success stateside. But we don't need to understand music to appreciate it. So I encourage anyone reading this to go take a listen to Girl's Generation. The CD is available on iTunes, which has samples of each song and includes a nice digital booklet. Alternatively, you could just look them up on Youtube. If you like what you hear, there are plenty of other k-pop artists whose CDs are available for download. My favorites include f(x) and 2NE1.
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