The last few years have brought the publication of several edited volumes on Korean popular music (K-pop). As someone who teaches an entire class on this topic each semester, I am always searching for new readings to assign. The chapters in K-pop: The International Rise of the Korean Music Industry fit the bill, as they are well written and tightly edited, and although the writing is thoroughly academic, it is not theoretically taxing. The book will prove somewhat challenging for undergraduates with little experience reading academic work, but because the subject matter is so interesting I would not hesitate to assign it. However, even though all the chapters are informative and of good quality, some are a bit esoteric, while others are already becoming somewhat outdated—a continual problem with research on popular culture.

The volume's ten chapters are not divided into separate sections; however, chapters 4 to 7, 9, and 10 are focused on K-pop beyond South Korea, while chapters 1, 2, 3, and 8 are more concerned with how domestic issues inform K-pop's international rise. In the introduction, co-editors JungBong Choi and Roald Maliangkay explain their interest in exploring K-pop consumption and reception in various contexts and how the phenomenon has achieved a cultural reach far beyond the region. They clarify that K-pop must be understood as part of the broader Hallyu phenomenon of Korean cultural products, from films and music to games, that have gained a following around the world. Choi and Maliangkay explain that K-pop is “augmented entertainment” (pp. 4–5), a term they prefer over variations of “hybridity,” as it better explains the genre fluidity, industrial multidimensionality, and government connections that contribute to the final product. They argue that K-pop is a “meta-commodity that can commodify a host of other cultural goods as pseudo avatars of K-pop idols” (p. 8). Perhaps most interesting is their assertion that the questions of “why K-pop?” or “why Korea?” are themselves rooted in colonialism, racism, and profound discomfort with how K-pop upends the conventional cultural flows that privilege the West.

The first chapter starts off strongly with Maliangkay's proclamation of K-pop not only as music but as an entire package that relies just as much on visuals and fan attachment to specific groups and idols. Furthermore, in stressing the importance of understanding K-pop not from the perspective of outsiders to the industry, but rather from the perspective of the fans, he provides the background and context necessary for understanding K-pop's deep roots in various types of popular music in Korea originating in the twentieth century.

Next, Stephen Epstein addresses the complementary and contradictory representations and receptions of the long-running super group Girls’ Generation, which has been repeatedly used to promote South Korea, Seoul, and various Korean products. This is not the first time Epstein has written about this hugely influential act, particularly its ability to attract not just male fans, but also female fans who see them as role models.

Inkyu Kang then analyzes the political economy of idols. After explaining how the government became involved in the popular culture industry, Kang discusses how concepts from political economy, such as standardization, rationalization, and commodification, can be applied to K-pop. The idols are, in his interpretation, an entertainment labor force that offsets the reality of despondent youths in the depressed job market of contemporary South Korea.

Kim Ju Oak's contribution (chapter 4) provides a historical account of how TVXQ broke into the Japanese music industry despite not being represented by the powerful agency Johnny and Associates, which dominates male idol marketing in Japan. Eun-Young Jung (chapter 7) takes up these threads to track both the ambivalent reaction to K-pop's success in Japan and the tense love-hate relationship with Korean things. She explains how “Japan's contested national pride is played out in the realm of popular culture” (p. 128), which is particularly remarkable since the Japanese already have their own well-established boy and girl idol groups.

Liz Guiffre and Sarah Keith also study a specific setting by examining the K-pop programming on SBS PopAsia in Australia. Their chapter illustrates the effective methods employed by the broadcaster to highlight K-pop as visualized music while also educating the Australian audience about the music and Korea. Choi's chapter, meanwhile, addresses K-pop in Latin America, briefly explaining how the popularity of K-dramas contributed to local K-pop success before arguing that Japanese popular culture has served as an intermediary between K-pop and its young fans in Latin America. This interview-informed chapter reveals the barriers that K-pop has to surmount to become a major cultural force in the region, including the high cost of authentic CDs and concert tickets. Consequently K-pop fandom in the region is based on “cultural enlisting” through cover dance (p. 109) and local K-pop-themed parties.

Shin Haerin's contribution is particularly well written, if highly focused on what is hopefully a singular incident—the online witch hunt seeking to prove that Tablo of Epik High could not possibly have earned the degrees from Stanford University that he did, in fact, earn. Shin discusses spectatorship instead of fandom or audience, and how spectators may derive “transgressive enjoyment” (p. 134) from a case like Tablo's. She castigates an industry that “structurally condones or even actively promotes voyeurism as a lucrative add-on commodity” (p. 137). This chapter will be particularly helpful in giving students more precise rhetorical tools by which to discuss how netizens affect the lives of idols.

In chapter 9, Gaik Cheng Khoo analyzes the Malaysian parodies of “Gangnam Style.” Although the chapter clearly connects to K-pop, it teaches us much more about Malaysian politics and says nothing specifically about K-pop. It is interesting, but placement in a different volume would have made more sense. Similarly, the final chapter by Maliangkay and Geng Song discusses male beauty ideals in China, but it does not confine itself to self-proclaimed K-pop fans. The authors are conscious of regional differences in K-pop reception in China, demonstrating how the Chinese-Korean population in Jilin, for example, finds male K-pop idols good looking but shows a preference for Chinese masculinity, while the population in Hong Kong deems Korean idol masculinity worthy of emulation. They conclude, however, that time may push the population in Jilin, as well, to aspire to images of Korean masculinity.