One of my big regrets
The pollution generated by the K-POP industry

In South Korea, the domain of music is more than provided. So much so that a term is used to encompass all the genres that can be found there: we speak of K-POP, literally "Korean pop". But the main problem of this industry is the pollution it generates: both by the manufacturing and distribution process and, above all, by the fans who enjoy it.

The music dedicated to digital

In the world of music, in general, fewer and fewer people are buying CDs. Even if some listeners remain adulators of vinyl and its retro style, they are dying.
Indeed, at a time when digitization has made great strides and where the trend is now "all digital", many users have abandoned CD players and record players to turn to online streaming platforms.

However, despite this context, K-POP stands out as one of the last survivors and still records countless CD sales. To understand this, we have to look at the marketing strategy of K-POP agencies, the way they proceed to sell their albums.

Albums and their marketing

When a new album of a group is going to be released, it is first announced on all the networks with its pre-order and official release date. So there are two purchase periods: the pre-order period, and the normal purchase period, as soon as the album is officially released.
To understand this regret that I have about the pollution generated by K-POP, you have to look more closely at the content of an album.

A K-POP album, no matter the group, is materialized by a book of photos of the group members (in glossy paper), called "photobook". This book contains the CD of the album and a small card "to collect", representing a member of a group and distributed randomly for each album, called "photocard". Not only that, each album has several concepts (themes): each theme has a different CD design, contains different photos and different "photocards". Finally, in addition to all this, during the pre-order period, different elements are randomly added to the album ("extra photocards", poster, "postcard", ...).

The drifts generated

Thus, many fans, enthusiasts, buy a lot of albums in mass, especially during the pre-orders, to get all the additional contents to the CD itself that are distributed randomly. Some of them resell their duplicates, but most of them throw everything away and generate huge amounts of waste. This may seem like a small thing, but more and more people are doing it, and when you think about the process of making the CD and everything that goes with it, and the fact that it all comes from Korea and is flown in on planes and ships, it's a big hit to the planet.

Even if this situation is far from ending, a big agency: JYP, has taken the initiative to dematerialize the next albums of the bands it manages. Let's see what the future promises: maybe with the success of this method, smaller agencies will be influenced and do the same...