00:00
Welcome to Kevin's English Room Podcast!
Hello!
And today, we have a special guest on this episode.
First time ever, a guest for the podcast.
First guest.
Right. Our first guest for the podcast, Tim from Amazon Music!
Hi everyone, I'm Tim from Amazon Music.
Hi!
So the reason why Tim is here on our show today is because he helped us set up this audio session.
You know?
These fancy professional microphones.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know if it's any better, but I hope so.
I'm sure it is! I'm sure it is.
It was a lot, like, crispier.
And a lot, like, less, like, this fuzz noise.
I'm glad. I'm glad.
Yeah.
It's really clear.
Yeah.
Could you introduce yourself to us a little bit?
Of course.
And for the audience listening.
Of course, of course.
Yeah, so I am on the Amazon Music programming team.
And what the programming team does is we basically do all kinds of curations for playlists and for stations.
And in terms of genre, I'm in charge of international genres, so pop, R&B, but also, most importantly, K-pop.
K-pop!
Yes, all of our global playlist offerings on Amazon Music is actually all curated here in Japan.
So, yeah.
Wait, what? All curated here in Japan?
Wait, wait, wait. Could you say that again?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, what? The whole Amazon Music playlist is curated here in Japan?
For K-pop.
For K-pop?
Yes.
Wow.
So, what the audience in the U.S., U.K., or Germany see is all curated here in Japan.
Yeah.
I mean, curated by...
Tim.
Yes.
Wait, you, yourself, wait, is it like a whole team or is it you, Tim?
It's just myself.
Oh my god.
For K-pop.
What?
Wait, he is the boss.
Oh my god.
Of this whole wide world.
No.
K-pop industry.
He controls everything.
I do not control.
Wait, wait, hold on.
I have a question.
Why not in Korea though?
Like, why in Japan?
Right.
Okay, good question.
First of all, we don't have an office in Korea.
Of Amazon Music?
Yeah, Amazon Music.
Oh, okay.
Our service is not available yet.
So, Japan is kind of, location-wise, the closest to Korea, right?
Okay.
And, I mean, when we have to talk with Korean agencies and stuff like that, time difference
can be tricky if you're based anywhere else.
True.
But Japan and Korea, we don't have any time difference, so, you know, it works out perfectly.
Wow.
Yeah.
Wow.
Okay, so, since Tim is here and you're a curator for K-pop.
Yes.
Do you know how important the role is in this music industry?
03:00
No, no.
Curator.
No, we basically just put in whatever music we want to listen to and we're like, "All
right, you listen to the same thing."
Wait, so, does he have the power to, like, so if he puts a song in one of the playlists
and that playlist, of course, gets a lot of, you know, attractions, right?
Gets a lot of views.
He basically controls which artist pops, which artist, like, sells a lot.
Yes.
Right?
Yes.
You basically kind of have the power to do that, right?
Well, no, I would say it's more on the supporting side, right?
So, like, for example, with our playlists, we usually feature new releases, right?
So, again, you release information from labels and agencies.
I then kind of pick which artists to support that week and give them the exposure, right?
And introduce their music to our customers.
Yeah, that's kind of where we're coming from instead of kind of controlling, I guess, yeah,
like the plays or anything like that, you know?
So, yeah, it's more for the customers.
Yeah.
Right.
Okay.
So, me, myself, I create some music and I pitch to the, you know, those curators.
Oh, do you?
I do.
And that's really important for the musicians if my song will be in the playlist or not.
Right.
Because that will change the whole thing, you know?
The playlist as in like K-pop 100 kind of playlist?
Yes, K-pop 100.
We also have our, I guess, our frontline playlist called K-pop Now.
Okay.
Yeah.
It's updated weekly.
We have different artist features on there every week.
So yeah, that's the playlist you want to go to if you want to find, you know, the newest
discovery in K-pop.
Right, right, right, right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, so tell me about the latest K-pop trends.
Sure, sure.
Anything, any artist, like upcoming artists you have in mind?
I don't know.
Coming artists, okay, yeah.
See, I feel like what you're going to say kind of has power.
So like, I know that you kind of have to really be careful with how you word things or like,
showing your stands really kind of makes kind of, you know, it's, you have to be careful.
Of course.
So within that parameter, like, can you tell us about like the industry or like, which
artist like is like, you know, coming and...
Of course.
Well, so a relatively newer group called IVE.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
You don't know IVE?
I'm sorry, but is that your favorite group?
Well, one of your favorite groups.
Yeah, one of my favorite groups.
They're all taller than me, by the way.
They're really tall.
They are really tall.
06:00
Yeah.
Yeah, and they're really young too.
Yeah, they are.
Yeah, you know, they have a lot of momentum.
They I guess they made their debut last December.
Wow.
Yeah, so it's only been like four months, four months, right?
But they're getting a lot of traction.
You know, on all the music streaming services on YouTube, their music videos are getting
a lot of views, right?
So I love IVE.
Yeah.
Yeah.
IVE.
IVE.
IVE.
Okay.
And they recently just released a new song called Love Dive, which is a song dedicated
to their fans because their fan base is called Dive.
So love Dive, right?
They love their fan base.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I would say, yeah, the performance, the vocals, the songs, everything is just super
on point.
Wow.
Right.
And their music videos too, the visuals, right?
They really work really hard on that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And actually, Amazon has also done something with IVE before.
I think I saw that video.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's on their YouTube channel too.
It's a performance video of their debut single, our debut song, Eleven.
Yeah.
It's basically something that they filmed for us, but it's available everywhere.
Wow.
Yeah.
Wait, did you meet them?
No.
I know.
I wish I did.
I wish I did.
I wanted to fly to Korea and just be there while they're shooting.
No, it was all done remotely.
In Korea.
It was done in Korea.
Yeah.
They filmed it in Korea while the team here is, yeah, of course, based in Japan.
Okay.
So did you see the video?
Yeah, I saw the video.
Yes, I saw the video.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, really the whole production and it was super fast too.
Oh, really?
They worked within a really tight timeline.
They delivered.
So we're like, wow.
This is why K-pop groups are succeeding everywhere in the world.
Right?
Yeah.
The professional class.
Yeah.
Top class production.
Wow.
What would you say is the most difficult part about being a curator?
Let's say in terms of like Korean music.
Right?
Sure.
Sure.
I would say the hardest part would be to gather all this information.
Right?
Even though we do receive information from say the agencies and labels, but sometimes
K-pop information can be very last minute.
Right?
They want to keep all the say deep information very confidential.
Yeah.
So kind of as a surprise to their fans, right?
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So I kind of have to somehow pick up this information whether through an internal route
or external route, right?
In order to be ready to deliver those contents to the customers.
Yeah.
I think that's one challenging point.
But another one is I'm trying to learn Korean.
Right?
Wait, you don't speak Korean?
No, I don't.
Well, probably like elementary level, right?
Okay.
I'm still learning.
And I feel like being able to speak Korean with the agencies directly would really help
because right now they're speaking English to me.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
English is obviously not their first language.
So communication wise, I feel like I'm kind of giving them a burden.
Right?
So if I can kind of have that Korean conversation going on, maybe yeah, the relationship will
be closer.
I don't know.
We'll see.
I'm still working on it.
About your own external source of information about new K-pop.
Is there any sites that you can share with us?
Because I kind of want an external source of information.
Sure.
Right?
Of course.
The sites, I mean, I definitely follow all kinds of their social channels.
Right.
And YouTube, right?
Right.
They put a lot of release information on their Twitter, Instagram.
But aside from that, there is a site called K-pop database.
K-pop database?
Yes.
It has a lot of information like the group introductions and different articles.
But every month they update their release calendar.
So you can see a list of releases say they're coming in May 2022.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
So I also check the site, but of course this site also only has information that are already
released.
Right.
So for anything that's pre-released, of course I have to kind of, you know, go through the
internal route.
Yeah.
Like, does this site tell you like, see like another thing that I want information, not
only the release dates, but also like this group is getting attention because the vocals
are great.
This group is getting attention because a former IZ*ONE member, two of the former IZ*ONE
members there, like all those kind of like context information, right?
That like deeper commentary.
I actually don't know if there's any site that, you know, does that kind of commentary.
We could do that.
We could do that.
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We could do that.
That's true.
Right.
I mean, obviously I'm a K-pop fan.
You're a K-pop fan.
I already know.
Yeah.
You can become a K-pop fan.
Of course.
You can, Yamajan.
Of course.
I can learn things.
Yeah.
Right.
So, you know, there's, I feel like there's a lot of opportunity there.
Wow.
Hold on.
Wait.
I was so.
Ah.
Do you have, you have meeting from one, right?
Yes.
Can we do another episode with you?
Of course.
Is that okay?
Talk to you about something.
Yes.
Yes.
We have a lot of things that we want to hear from you.
Okay.
What you have.
Yeah.
For me.
Yeah.
Mostly from me probably.
Yeah.
But for now.
Yep.
For now.
Thanks for listening.
