1.
Extended play
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An extended play is a musical recording that contains more tracks than a single, but is usually unqualified as an album or LP. EPs generally do not contain as many tracks as albums, and are considered less expensive, an EP originally referred to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play and LP, but it is now applied to mid-length CDs and downloads as well. Ricardo Baca of The Denver Post said, EPs—originally extended-play single releases that are shorter than traditional albums—have long been popular with punk, in the United Kingdom, the Official Chart Company defines a boundary between EP and album classification at 25 minutes of length or four tracks. EPs were released in various sizes in different eras, the earliest multi-track records, issued around 1919 by Grey Gull Records, were vertically cut 78 rpm discs known as 2-in-1 records. These had finer than usual grooves, like Edison Disc Records, by 1949, when the 45 rpm single and 33 1⁄3 rpm LP were competing formats, seven-inch 45 rpm singles had a maximum playing time of only about four minutes per side. Partly as an attempt to compete with the LP introduced in 1948 by rival Columbia, RCA Victor introduced Extended Play 45s during 1952. Their narrower grooves, achieved by lowering the levels and sound compression optionally. These were usually 10-inch LPs split onto two seven-inch EPs or 12-inch LPs split onto three seven-inch EPs, either separately or together in gatefold covers. This practice became less common with the advent of triple-speed-available phonographs. Some classical music albums released at the beginning of the LP era were distributed as EP albums—notably the seven operas that Arturo Toscanini conducted on radio between 1944 and 1954. These opera EPs, originally broadcast on the NBC Radio network and manufactured by RCA, in the 1990s, they began appearing on compact discs. During the 1950s, RCA published several EP albums of Walt Disney movies and these usually featured the original casts of actors and actresses. Each album contained two seven-inch records, plus an illustrated booklet containing the text of the recording, so that children could follow along by reading. Some of the titles included Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, and what was then a recent release, because of the popularity of 7 and other formats, SP records became less popular and the production of SPs in Japan was suspended in 1963. In the 1950s and 1960s, EPs were usually compilations of singles or album samplers and were played at 45 rpm on seven-inch discs. Record Retailer printed the first EP chart in 1960, the New Musical Express, Melody Maker, Disc and Music Echo and the Record Mirror continued to list EPs on their respective singles charts. The Beatles Twist and Shout outsold most singles for some weeks in 1963, when the BBC and Record Retailer commissioned the British Market Research Bureau to compile a chart it was restricted to singles and EPs disappeared from the listings. In the Philippines, seven-inch EPs marketed as mini-LPs were introduced in 1970, with tracks selected from an album and this mini-LP format also became popular in America in the early 1970s for promotional releases, and also for use in jukeboxes
2.
Girls' Generation
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Girls Generation, also known as SNSD, is a South Korean girl group formed by S. M. The group is composed of eight members, Taeyeon, Sunny, Tiffany, Hyoyeon, Yuri, Sooyoung, Yoona, originally a nine-piece group, Girls Generation debuted in 2007 with their Korean eponymous debut album. Girls Generation further consolidated their popularity on the South Korean music scene with follow-up singles Tell Me Your Wish, Oh. and Run Devil Run, in mid-2010, Girls Generation signed with Nayutawave Records to venture into the Japanese music scene. The groups third Korean studio album The Boys was released in October 2011, an English version of the single The Boys was released by Interscope Records in an attempt to expand the groups endeavor to the global music scene. Their fifth Korean studio album, Lion Heart, was released in 2015, Girls Generations signature musical styles are characterized as electropop and bubblegum pop, though their sounds have varied widely, incorporating various genres including hip hop, R&B, and EDM. They have sold over 4.4 million albums and 30 million digital singles as of 2012, the groups immense popularity in their native country South Korea has earned them numerous accolades and the titles The Nations Singers and The Nations Girl Group. Girls Generation is also deemed one of the prominent figures of the Korean Wave and they are the first Asian girl group to achieve five music videos with over 100 million views on YouTube, Gee, I Got a Boy, The Boys, Mr. Taxi, and Oh. Because their name consists of Chinese roots, the name is similar in Chinese and Japanese, in Japan the groups name is pronounced as Shōjo Jidai. Prior to the debut, some of the members were already involved in the entertainment industry. Yoona had gone through about 200 auditions for music videos, dramas, Sooyoung was exposed to the Japanese music scene as a member of a pop duo named Route θ, which disbanded one year after its debut in 2002. The first member of the group to join S. M, entertainments training system was Jessica in 2000, after she and her sister, Krystal Jung, were scouted in a mall in South Korea during a family vacation. That same year, members Sooyoung and Hyoyeon were cast into S. M. s training system through the 2000 S. M, Open Audition, in which Hyoyeon danced for her audition. Yuri was the next Girls Generation member to become an S. M. trainee after coming second in the 2001 S. M, Yoona was cast the following year through the 2002 S. M. Saturday Open Casting Audition, where she sang and danced to her favorite singers, BoA, Seohyun, the groups youngest member, was scouted in the subway by an S. M. scout, she then auditioned in 2003, singing childrens songs. The groups leader, Taeyeon, was cast in 2004 after winning first place in the S. M and that same year, member Tiffany auditioned at S. M. s Starlight Casting System in Los Angeles, and joined the company in October 2004. The final member of the group to be added was Sunny, at Starworld, she trained to debut in a duo named Sugar, which never debuted. In 2007, on the recommendation of Japanese singer Ayumi Hamasaki, Entertainment and became a member of Girls Generation. In July 2007, Girls Generation had their first stage performance on Mnets School of Rock, on August 5,2007, the group officially made their debut on SBSs Inkigayo, where they performed the same song
3.
K-pop
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K-pop is a music genre originating in South Korea that is characterized by a wide variety of audiovisual elements. The more modern form of the genre emerged with one of the earliest K-pop groups, Seo Taiji and Boys and their experimentation with different styles of music reshaped Koreas music scene. As a result, the integration of foreign musical elements has now become common practice with K-pop artists, K-pop entered the Japanese market at the turn of the 21st century and rapidly grew into a subculture among teenagers and young adults of East and Southeast Asia. Although K-pop generally refers to South Korean popular music, some consider it to be an all-encompassing genre exhibiting a vast spectrum of musical and visual elements, the French Institut national de laudiovisuel defines K-pop as a fusion of synthesized music, sharp dance routines and fashionable, colorful outfits. Songs typically consist of one or a mixture of pop, rock, hip hop, R&B, Management agencies in South Korea offer binding contracts to potential artists, sometimes at a young age. Trainees live together in an environment and spend many hours a day learning music, dance, foreign languages. This robotic system of training is often criticized by Western media outlets, in 2012, The Wall Street Journal reported that the cost of training one Korean pop idol under S. M. K-pop is a product that features “values, identity and meanings that go beyond their strictly commercial value. ”It is characterized by a mixture of Western sounds with an Asian aspect of performance. It has been remarked that there is a vision of modernization inherent in Korean pop culture, for some, the transnational values of K-pop are responsible for its success. Many agencies have presented new idol groups to an audience through a debut showcase, groups are given a name and a concept, along with a marketing hook. Sometimes sub-units or sub-groups are formed among existing members, an example subgroup is Super Junior-K. R. Y. Which consists of members Kyuhyun, Ryeowook, and Yesung, and Super Junior-M, online marketing includes music videos posted to YouTube in order to reach a worldwide audience. Prior to the video, the group releases teaser photos. Promotional cycles of subsequent singles are called comebacks even when the musician or group in question did not go on hiatus, modern K-pop is marked by its use of English phrases. In 1995, the percentage of song titles using English in the top 50 charts was 8% and this fluctuated between 30% in 2000, 18% in 2005, and 44% in 2010. Similarly, increasing numbers of K-pop bands use English names rather than Korean ones and this allows songs and artists to be marketed to a wider audience around the world. An example of a Korean song with a proportion of English lyrics is Kara’s Jumping. Increasingly, foreign songwriters and producers are employed to work on songs for K-pop idols, such as will. i. am, musicians, including rappers such as Akon, Kanye West, Ludacris, and Snoop Dogg, have also featured on K-pop songs
4.
Korean language
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It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Changbai Korean Autonomous County of the Peoples Republic of China. Approximately 80 million people worldwide speak Korean and this implies that Korean is not an isolate, but a member of a small family. There is still debate on whether Korean and Japanese are related with each other, the Korean language is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax. A relation of Korean with Japonic languages has been proposed by linguists like William George Aston, Chinese characters arrived in Korea together with Buddhism during the pre-Three Kingdoms period. Mainly privileged elites were educated to read and write in hanja, however, today, the hanja are largely unused in everyday life, but in South Korea they experience revivals on artistic works and are important in historic and/or linguistic studies of Korean. Since the Korean War, through 70 years of separation, North–South differences have developed in standard Korean, including variations in pronunciation, verb inflection, the Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North Korea and South Korea. In South Korea, the Korean language is referred to by names including hanguk-eo Korean language, hanguk-mal, Korean speech and uri-mal. In hanguk-eo and hanguk-mal, the first part of the word, hanguk, refers to the Korean nation while -eo and -mal mean language and speech, Korean is also simply referred to as guk-eo, literally national language. This name is based on the same Chinese characters meaning nation + language that are used in Taiwan and Japan to refer to their respective national languages. In North Korea and China, the language is most often called Chosŏn-mal, or more formally, the English word Korean is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to Western countries. Korean people in the former USSR refer to themselves as Koryo-saram and Goryeo In, the majority of historical and modern linguists classify Korean as a language isolate. Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolians exhibition of gender agreement can be used to argue that a relationship with Altaic is unlikely. Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese–Korean 100-word Swadesh list, a good example might be Middle Korean sàm and Japanese asa, meaning hemp. Also, the doublet wo meaning hemp is attested in Western Old Japanese and it is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Among ancient languages, various relatives of Korean have been proposed. Some classify the language of Jeju Island as a distinct modern Koreanic language, Other famous theories are the Dravido-Korean languages theory and the mostly unknown southern-theory which suggest an Austronesian relation. Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in countries including the Peoples Republic of China, the United States, Japan. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea
5.
S.M. Entertainment
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Entertainment is a South Korean entertainment company established in 1995 by Lee Soo-man. It is currently one of the largest entertainment companies in South Korea, the company operates as a record label, talent agency, music production company, event management and concert production company, and music publishing house. The label is home to prominent K-pop artists such as BoA, TVXQ, TRAX, The Grace, Super Junior, Girls Generation, SHINee, f, EXO, Red Velvet, NCT, and formerly to pioneering groups H. O. T. Fly to the Sky, and Shinhwa and it also manages a number of actors, including Kim Min-jong and Lee Yeon-hee. Entertainment co-publishes Avex Trax releases for artists including Ayumi Hamasaki, Namie Amuro, Entertainment had reported revenues of KR₩325 billion and a net income of KR₩21.7 billion. After graduating from California State University, Northridge in the United States, Lee Soo-man returned to Korea and established SM Studio in Apgujeong-dong, Gangnam, the business changed its name to S. M. Entertainment and set up its capital fund in February 1995 with Jung Hae-ik as CEO, Kim Kyung-wook became CEO of the company in 1998. In December 2000, S. M. became affiliated with Fandago Korea, in January 2001, the company founded an overseas division, S. M. Around the same time, the company was approved for listing on KOSDAQ, the subsidiaries BM Entertainment and Cid. K Entertainment were also formed, but later became defunct as the groups disbanded, April 2002 saw shares increase by 1,341,180, and in June, an additional 61,048 as a result of third-party capital. In late 2002, S. M. was awarded the Grand Prix of Ministry of Culture, in 2003, S. M. became affiliated with Starlight Corporation Ltd. and C-Cube Entertainment Corporation. The same year, the company debuted five-member boy group TVXQ, the following years saw the debuts of artists such as TRAX, The Grace, and Super Junior. In 2005, Kim Young-min became the companys third CEO, under whom several artists debuted with a view to promoting outside of South Korea. Artists debuting under S. M. at this time were solo singer of Chinese descent Zhang Liyin, Japanese-language soloist J-Min, Girls Generation, SHINee, in April 2008, a Mandarin-language subunit of Super Junior was formed, Super Junior-M. In October 2008, S. M. announced plans for a debut in the United States for BoA under subsidiary label SM Entertainment USA, in May 2008 the SM Art Company was formed with Pyo In-bong as co-CEO, aiming to produce musical and theatre works. Its first production was of Xanadu, which starred Super Junior members Heechul, in March, KMP Holdings was established as a joint venture between S. M. Entertainment, YG Entertainment, JYP Entertainment, Star Empire, Medialine, CAN Entertainment, the firms first release from S. M. was Super Juniors fifth studio album, Mr. Simple, which marked the end of S. M. s self-distribution. In May, S. M. announced its highest ever first quarter operating profits, at KR₩10.4 billion, gross revenue was reported at KR₩22.7 billion, a 58% increase on the previous year
6.
Universal Music Group
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Universal Music Group is an American-French global music corporation that is a subsidiary of the Paris-based French media conglomerate Vivendi. UMGs global corporate headquarters are in Santa Monica, California and it is considered one of the Big Three record labels, along with Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment. Universal Music was once the music attached to film studio Universal Pictures and its origins go back to the formation of the American branch of Decca Records in September 1934. The Decca Record Co. Ltd. of England spun American Decca off in 1939, MCA Inc. merged with American Decca in 1962. The present organization was formed when its parent company Seagram purchased PolyGram in May 1998, however, the name had first appeared in 1996 when MCA Music Entertainment Group was renamed Universal Music Group. The PolyGram acquisition included Deutsche Grammophon which traces its ancestry to Berliner Gramophone making Deutsche Grammophon UMGs oldest unit, UMGs Canadian unit traces its ancestry to a Berliner Gramophone breakaway firm the Compo Company. With the 2004 acquisition of Universal Studios by General Electric and merging with GEs NBC and this is the second time a music company has done so, the first being the separation of Time Warner and Warner Music Group. On June 25,2007, Vivendi completed its €1.63 billion purchase of BMG Music Publishing, after receiving European Union regulatory approval, doug Morris stepped down from his position as CEO on January 1,2011. Former chairman/CEO of Universal Music International Lucian Grainge was promoted to CEO of the company, Grainge later replaced him as chairman on March 9,2011. Morris became the chairman of Sony Music Entertainment on July 1,2011. With Grainges appointment as CEO at UMG, Max Hole was promoted to COO of UMGI, starting in 2011 UMGs Interscope Geffen A&M Records will be signing contestants from American Idol/Idol series. On January 2011, UMG announced it was donating 200,000 master recordings from the 1920s to 1940s to the Library of Congress for preservation, in March 2011, Barry Weiss became chairman & CEO of The Island Def Jam Music Group & Universal Republic Records. Both companies are restructuring under Weiss, in December 2011, David Foster was named Chairman of Verve Music Group. Among the other companies that had competed for the music business was Warner Music Group which was reported to have made a $2 billion bid. However, IMPALA has said it would fight the merger, coincidentally, UMG sister company StudioCanal has owned the EMI Films library for several years. On September 21,2012, the sale of EMI to UMG was approved in Europe, UMG divested Mute Records, Parlophone, Roxy Recordings, MPS Records, Cooperative Music, Now Thats What I Call Music. Jazzland, Universal Greece, Sanctuary Records, Chrysalis Records, EMI Classics, Virgin Classics, the Beatles recorded music library was allowed to remain with UMG despite being considered part of Parlophone and is now managed by UMGs reorganized Capitol Music Group worldwide. Robbie Williams, who had recorded for Chrysalis, had his transferred to Universals Island Records
7.
Record producer
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A record producer or music producer oversees and manages the sound recording and production of a band or performers music, which may range from recording one song to recording a lengthy concept album. A producer has many roles during the recording process, the roles of a producer vary. The producer may perform these roles himself, or help select the engineer, the producer may also pay session musicians and engineers and ensure that the entire project is completed within the record companies budget. A record producer or music producer has a broad role in overseeing and managing the recording. Producers also often take on an entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules, contracts. In the 2010s, the industry has two kinds of producers with different roles, executive producer and music producer. Executive producers oversee project finances while music producers oversee the process of recording songs or albums. In most cases the producer is also a competent arranger, composer. The producer will also liaise with the engineer who concentrates on the technical aspects of recording. Noted producer Phil Ek described his role as the person who creatively guides or directs the process of making a record, indeed, in Bollywood music, the designation actually is music director. The music producers job is to create, shape, and mold a piece of music, at the beginning of record industry, producer role was technically limited to record, in one shot, artists performing live. The role of producers changed progressively over the 1950s and 1960s due to technological developments, the development of multitrack recording caused a major change in the recording process. Before multitracking, all the elements of a song had to be performed simultaneously, all of these singers and musicians had to be assembled in a large studio and the performance had to be recorded. As well, for a song that used 20 instruments, it was no longer necessary to get all the players in the studio at the same time. Examples include the rock sound effects of the 1960s, e. g. playing back the sound of recorded instruments backwards or clanging the tape to produce unique sound effects. These new instruments were electric or electronic, and thus they used instrument amplifiers, new technologies like multitracking changed the goal of recording, A producer could blend together multiple takes and edit together different sections to create the desired sound. For example, in jazz fusion Bandleader-composer Miles Davis album Bitches Brew, producers like Phil Spector and George Martin were soon creating recordings that were, in practical terms, almost impossible to realise in live performance. Producers became creative figures in the studio, other examples of such engineers includes Joe Meek, Teo Macero, Brian Wilson, and Biddu
