Make Believe Bonus: The Barberettes Interview 2015

Revisiting The Ways K-pop Intersects With The West

Recently, there has been a lot of talk about the ways K-pop interacts with the West, and what it all means. The New York Times Popcast devoted a whole episode to it, which resulted in a whole mini discourse on the topic. That spun out partially from Bang Si-Hyuk talking about “K-pop without the K.” A sensitive vein has been hit from all of this.

I’ve got many thoughts on it…main feed post coming sometime…but it also made me think of The Barberettes, a throwback pop group from Korea that walked a tightrope between Western sounds and South Korean history. I loved the way they played with musical lineage, nodding to the past but highlighting the ways the two nations intersected. Recent social media rumblings reminded me of this playful approach to Pacific-connected sounds, and the rich history of exchange between the two sides that so often gets glossed over in the history of K-pop.

I interviewed the then-trio at South By Southwest 2015 in Austin, Texas, for MTV Iggy. We met in a hotel lobby the day after they performed their first American show ever, chatting for a little over 30 minutes. This feature was erased from easy access for almost a decade now after the good folks at Viacom wiped Iggy off the face of the Earth, but I’ve decided to share the original feature for premium subscribers…inspired by recent discussions.

This piece originally ran on MTV Iggy in the spring of 2015.