About

I am so excited for where and what K-pop is doing and how it’s growing. In the music industry it’s not a trend, it’s not a quick ‘oh this is cool for a minute,’ this is a full genre, which is exciting and cool.

– Eric Nam

Here’s Where It All Started.

Chances are you’ve heard of a little song called Gangnam Style. Or you saw on the news that BTS broke another music industry record. K-pop is quickly spreading throughout the globe and taking over magazine covers and radio airwaves. But how did music from South Korea get so popular?

K-pop as we know it started in the early ‘90s with the group Seo Taiji and Boys, bringing elements of hip hop and rap to the Korean music scene. Most popular music was limited to Japanese and American influence, which dated far back to the late 1800s. The innovation of new music remained stagnant for almost a century until the late 1980s when the country removed travel restrictions for its citizens and the rest of the world came floating in. With the fusion of Korean lyrics and American music style, Seo Taiji and the Boys excited the general populace and jumpstarted the K-pop genre.

Through the years that followed, several key members of the music industry formed entertainment companies and started recruiting artists and young people to drive the rising popularity forward. The “Big Three” companies that formed in the late ‘90s—YG Entertainment, SM Entertainment, and JYP Entertainment—have produced some of the most powerful K-pop groups to perform throughout the last few decades. HYBE rides hard on their heels as the company that houses BTS and—very recently—Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, due to an acquisition.

Auditioning for an entertainment company or a survival show remains the most common method for a young person to rise into the world of K-pop. If they make it, these high schoolers and middle schoolers start training with the company that selected them. Daily practice includes singing, rapping, dancing, language skills, etiquette, and more. Each company aims to produce entertainers capable of handling any parts of their schedule—even interviews. Through this strenuous training process, a recruit hopes to join a concept group within their company and eventually debut as idols (a short-hand term used to describe artists within the industry).

Support from one of the “Big Three,” however, does not guarantee success for a group. Some groups from smaller labels have been quite successful (i.e., BTS and Monsta X). Everything is a bit of a gamble in the industry, as many groups fail and disband within a year or two if the public does not engage with their concept or music.

One of the greatest successes of K-pop is the wild diversity of group concepts. Ranging from hip hop to bubblegum pop to ballads to rock bands, music styles exist for practically any preference. As K-pop spread around the world, fans increased by the millions, driving astronomical growth in both the entertainment and tourism industries of South Korea. A large selling point of K-pop idols is an individual’s personality and image. The vast majority of groups promote their new material on domestic variety shows and—depending on their international success—appear in videos from several publications in Western media. Many idols also film vlogs and other content for their YouTube channels, as well as regularly engage in social media, allowing fans to bond with them and get to know them on a more personal level.

In the last few years, the world has seen K-pop groups overtaking records long held by Western artists. BTS, at the forefront of this movement, has recorded several collaborations with Western musicians, collected dozens of awards and nominations from Billboard and the AMA, and even received a Grammy nomination. The recent release of their first all-English single broke dozens of records and garnered several million more fans, proving their success will stick around for a while. BLACKPINK, a girl group from YG Entertainment, is another example that language doesn’t have to be a barrier for fans through their recent collaborations with Lady Gaga and Selena Gomez.

K-pop is big. And it’s getting even bigger. The power behind a relatively unknown Korean production company acquiring world-famous North American celebrities proves that. So, let me introduce you to some new things.