K-pop’s recent 30 years

1.K-pop’s status

When ‘Gangnam style’ hit the worldwide market in 2012, that catchy music and addictive dance got 100 million views on Youtube in just 51 days of its release. Now, in Sep 2019, it is marking a tremendous 3.4 billion views (Yes, it’s billion. It’s almost half of the world population, 7.7 billion). Of course, K-pop had broadened its realm on the world music market, especially in Asia, even before Gangnam style. The massive popularity of that song in 2012 was not the start of all the ‘K-pop to the world’ history. But it was the most prominent figure in the headwaters of big ‘K-pop river’ now expanding its width at enormous speed.

Korea’s music industry is estimated $5 billion annually, according to the Korea Creative Content Agency in 2017. And K-pop is now bringing Korea into the spotlight for its cultural excellence, not the technological supremacy which is already firm and well known.

2. K-pop in 90s

When Seo Taiji and Boys performed for a live weekend TV show on Mar 14, 1992, few noticed that this would occur an enormous change. It was a rookie tournament show where aspiring singers came out and sang a song they wrote. The professional judges evaluated their possibility to be a successful entertainer. Seo Taiji’s song was so different from other songs so far as to make the judges feel uncomfortable. They criticized the melody of it, which is not music to their ears, but just a fast, noisy talking awkwardly mimicking the foreign culture, rap. But strangely, the song caught the teenagers called X-generation. That generation born in the early 70s also had wanted to be way different from older people who had strongly resisted the military dictatorship and usually sang a protest song. Seo Taiji became Korea’s emerging cultural syndrome in the 90s and acted as the catalyst to change K-pop to more diverse directions.

The characteristic of the 90s also involves the uprising of boy and girl dance groups. HOT(1996), Sechs Kies(1997) (The two famous boy groups), and SES(1997), Fin.K.L(1998) (The two well-known girl groups) came up. At first, people compared them with the Japanese idol groups, which had been trained in a well-organized system run by a big management company. The concept that singers can be coached like athletics was strange in Korea back before the 90s. Singers and composers were considered as an ‘artist’ who is not made but born. However, Korea’s newly introduced training system of boys and girls groups were so effective that it started to carry a lot of successful groups. And behind them, three new significant agencies, SM(established in 1995), YG(1996), JYP(1997), emerged and began to lead the market. In the early 2000s, dozens of boy and girl groups got their popularity while opening a new era of K-pop.

3. To the world

The three big agencies now seek to expand their market to earn more profits. Well-prepared K-pop groups and singers started to penetrate  Asia market first. BOA debuted in Japan in 2001 and succeeded. The four-member girl group Kara entered Japan in 2010 and gained a sensational reaction with the song ‘Mr.’ Besides them, Girls generation, Jang Keun Suk, Yoon Ha, SS501, TVXQ achieved excellent results in Japan. Gradually the popularity of K-pop grew up all the way to China and Southeast Asia, taking K-pop to the significant cultural stage in the world market. Some group recruited the member from a foreign country to promote their song to the world. 2PM, U-kiss, Super Junior had their members from Thailand, the US, China, etc.

 In the US, though K-pop singers fiercely tried to enter the market, it had taken more extended time than in Asia. In 2009, Korea’s top girl group at that time, Wonder girls, knocked the door of competitive US market after several unsatisfactory results of other former singers like BOA, Seven, Rain, G.Soul, etc. Wonder girls had a hard time to promote their name and achieved a meaningful result of hitting the top 76 in the Billboard chart. But their Korean fans are unhappy with how far short their accomplishments had fallen of their ambitious goals. After their hard-earned partial success, many singers continuously attempted to hit the US market.

4. Rise through new technology

In that situation, the popularization of smartphones and the launch of Youtube(2005) slowly changed the whole environment. People gradually become noticing that K-pop has unique music of good quality, and it can be easily accessed via Youtube. Until then, it was necessary to dominate the distribution network and performance stages to make themselves known to the world. But now they can show themselves on everybody’s easily watchable space.

 It’s a massive chance for Korean singers who have great talents, but no access to the existing network. You don’t need to go to the US in-person to promote you anymore. Youtube makes it possible to do that while you are in Korea. Blackpink(YG), Bigbang(YG), iKON(YG), 2NE1(YG), EXO(SM), Girls Generation(SM), Twice(JYP) followed Psy, gaining their popularity. And finally, there comes BTS. BTS debuted in 2013 and began to raise awareness abroad in 2015. In May 2018, they marked the first in billboard 200 chart, which is the first time for Korean singer. That was a sweet fruit from long years of sweats.

 K-pop is now making its unique color. Actually, the success of BTS revealed a sign of a small change in K-pop. They are not just well-trained idols who are good at some skills like dancing and singing, but they have their taste for the various music genres and styles. In addition to that, they continuously and gallantly show their growth throughout Youtube. People can accompany them on the journey to the world. And their fans all around the world are absolutely enjoying that trip. K-pop is now changing and meeting a new bright era. And K-pop is also making a meaningful impact on the global content market.

Oct 1, 2019