[Grace Kao] Kitsch from DEVO to K-pop

Korea Herald

19-05-2025

I have one big regret from my college days at the University of California, Berkeley. I chose to attend my Japanese class rather than watch a free concert by the 1980s New Wave Group Devo. There are costs to being a serious student.
Earlier this month, I remedied my mistake. I attended their concert, part of their 50th Anniversary tour. Devo is an abbreviation of the term de-evolution, and refers to the decline of humanity. The members hail from Ohio and they were art students at Kent State University when they formed the group. Devo had one Top 40 single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with 'Whip It' in 1980. In the music video, they wore red hats that looked like inverted plastic flower pots, called energy domes. Devo is probably best known for these hats. Lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh cracked a whip in a low-budget 80s cowboy set. The cast included a cross-eyed East Asian woman, an older woman whipping cream, young white men and women in cowboy hats, and another woman with a long cigarette. During the music video, various articles of clothing are whipped off the woman who is smoking. The video looked cheaply made, even for the 1980s. Back then, people thought the song referred to S&M (sadomasochism), so it was quite a risque song to watch on MTV or hear on Top 40 radio.
Only as an adult did I realize that they purposely used their songs and costumes as a commentary on consumerism and modern US life. Their songs were simple and synth-driven, and their singing generally relied on short staccato notes. Unlike punk groups from the UK, their shows were heavily planned with video installations. They always wore identical outfits on stage. In fact, along with the B-52s, they exemplify Kitsch in American pop music.
What is kitsch and what does this have to do with K-pop? Kitsch originally referred to art that is seen as low-brow, cheap, trashy and ugly. In terms of American art, these can be objects that are poorly made and in bad taste — think of garish mass-produced imitations of art, velvet paintings of dogs playing poker, Queen Elizabeth salt and pepper shakers, Thomas Kincade paintings or the reproductions of famous structures in Las Vegas. These are items that are 'so bad' they can, sometimes ironically, be enjoyed by the masses.
Devo's identical outfits range from the flower pot hats, yellow jumpsuits (as worn by nuclear plant workers), full latex bodysuits to pantyhose over their heads. These objects are all associated with modern life, and Devo is purposely critiquing but also participating in the commodification of art.
K-pop groups also make very effective use of kitsch in their music videos and outfits. In fact, they regularly rely on it. Crayon Pop wore helmets for the song 'Bar Bar Bar' and donned them for many of their promotional interviews. Perhaps the kitschiest K-pop video I can think of is 'Catalina' by Orange Caramel. Here the group members are offered as platters of sushi and sashimi as they rotate around a sushi bar. In Astro's 'Breathless,' bottles of orange sodas personify the members as they are carried in a cooler by the lead character. K-pop idols are literally commodified for the pleasure of the consumer. GOT7's 'Just Right' where the members appear as miniature men in a young girl's bedroom, is also kitschy. SHINee's 'Married to the Music' shows the members at a Halloween party losing various body parts. That motif appears a year earlier in EXID's 'Up & Down,' where members have lost different body parts, or are stuck inside a wall or inside boxes.
In fact, the most viewed K-pop video of all time is Psy's 'Gangnam Style,' which celebrates kitsch. The song itself is about bad taste, and Psy's character shows off all of the worst stereotypes of a man from Gangnam, Seoul. In fact, Psy's songs 'Gentlemen,' 'Daddy' or 'New Face' are all kitschy. It is Psy's calling card.
While not as well-known and certainly not an idol K-pop group, Norazo fully celebrates kitsch. Recent songs use everyday objects as song titles — including 'Bread,' 'Curry,' 'Mackerel' and 'Vegetables.' It also relies on exaggerated versions of these objects in the music videos.
My sense is that trot songs performed by K-pop idols are more likely to rely on kitsch. Young idols using kitsch may be the most effective method of converting old-fashioned tunes to contemporary pop songs.
In fact, Ive has a recent song named 'Kitsch.' This song is about a 19-year-old girl's sense of taste. I discovered that the Korean use of kitsch refers to something that is cheap and plastic, but childlike. When I looked for objects that Koreans define as 'kitsch,' they do seem to match my sense of cute, kitschy objects for girls. Still, it doesn't seem to carry the same pejorative or ironic connotation, at least not in the song.
While I don't know if K-pop professionals are familiar with Devo or The B-52s, they are using kitsch similarly. Compared to classical music or jazz, K-pop and pop music in general is often considered by the public as low-brow. So, what better way to respond than by being kitschy?
Grace Kao is an IBM professor of sociology and professor of ethnicity, race and migration at Yale University. The views expressed here are the writer's own. — Ed.