Megan Thee Stallion. Patti LaBelle. Kylie Minogue. Two-fifths of the Spice Girls. These are just a smattering of the multiplatinum sellers in the all-singing, all-dancing trailer for KPOPPED, which, honestly, looked epic. If I had been reviewing this new Lionel Richie-produced singing contest based on those 109 seconds alone – complete with roaring stage pyrotechnics and Megan performing a K-pop version of her smash hit Savage – it would have been an easy five stars.
Sadly, the series that follows isn’t quite as irresistible. Each of the eight episodes sticks tightly to the same format: an established Korean boy or girlband is split in two, with each half paired with a different “western” solo artist to reimagine one of the guest’s hits. They then perform said cover together, along with military-precision dance moves. At the end of each episode, a studio audience decides which song was “kpopped” the most effectively (exact metrics aren’t provided, but it essentially boils down to “which is the most up-tempo, and maybe a little menacing to boot”). Where bands like Boyz II Men are involved, the show forgoes having two guest artists, and each group just performs twice (once with each half of the Korean outfit), effectively competing against itself. I know, I know, it doesn’t make sense. Take that up with Apple.
So the star power is high but the action forced and formulaic. There is usually some kind of acknowledgment from the guest stars that K-pop is “the in thing”, something their children or grandchildren know more about than them, while the Korean contingent talk vaguely about how iconic the guests are. There are low-stakes cultural exchanges, such as Megan eating unbearably spicy ramen; Kylie Minogue learning a traditional Korean dance; and Emma Bunton and Mel B attending a tea ceremony. Two artist-approved covers are then magicked up, with lyrics and dance moves mastered in a mere 48 hours. Then it’s on to the live performances in front of starstruck audiences, who would surely listen to the likes of ITZY and Ateez belting out the phone book. Gangnam Style star Psy, billed as a co-host, is actually confined to prerecorded cameo appearances; it is the indefatigable Soojeong Son, a Korean-American actor, who comperes on stage.
The result is harmless but also largely vibeless, and a fairly blatant attempt to cash in on the ubiquity of K-pop. I’m not suggesting that we go back to the bad old days of Simon Cowell crushing the hopes and dreams of terrified normies on primetime TV. But KPOPPED shows that singing contests need friction, drama and maybe the occasional botched high note. Here, everything feels frictionless, even though the logistics must have been wild (“Did you make Patti LaBelle do this?” asks Tell It to My Heart singer Taylor Dayne, as she cooks snails). Unless you’re already a K-pop connoisseur, you’re unlikely to learn much here, except that the people involved work very, very hard, Korean girlbands are liable to give you body dysmorphia, and Korean boybands have the most impressively rigid curtain haircuts known to man. Megan – who does the odd bit of hosting here, too – describes K-pop as being “like boot camp”. Besides Jess Glynne describing it as a “system”, this is the nearest we get to any acknowledgment of just how regimented their counterparts’ pop careers are. (Maybe that’s not surprising, considering that Korean entertainment powerhouse CJ ENM co-produced the series).
The best moments, then, are the ones that are a little chaotic. Boy George attempting to sing in Korean. TLC’s T-Boz struggling to keep up with a high-energy dance break. Mel B deciding that synchronised choreo isn’t for her and just doing her own thing. Vanilla Ice amending the dance moves for Ice Ice Baby back to his original 1990 routine, leaving the members of Kep1er (pronounced kepler) in a tizz. And yet, these issues are quickly resolved, and performances go off without a hitch. Karma Chameleon in translation is even – shockingly – pretty decent.
The final episode is a revelation, but not in a way that has anything to do with K-pop. Boyz II Men – it turns out – sound as excellent as they did 30 years ago, and their version of End of the Road with Blackswan singer Nvee (who is herself American) is truly a delight. It does sound suspiciously like the original, though. Not so much “kpopped”, then, as simply made in Korea.
• KPOPPED is on Apple TV+ now
