A few years ago, we talked about how the K-Pop, the Korean synthetic pop groups manifestly prefabricated and whose background is so fascinating or more than their music, were sweeping the international panorama, after decades kneading millions in their country of origin. Currently, however, signals of exhaustion are detected both in financial and creative. Are we seeing the principle of gender decline or is it only an occasional bump?
2020, turning point. It was in that year, as The Guardian remembers, when BTS, perhaps the most popular K-Pop group in the world, cast its theme ‘Dynamite’ on the most sold lists in the United States. It was a first time for the K-Pop that seemed to consolidate in 2023, when the Blackpink were a sign in Coachella. Since then, soloists like Jennie and Lisa (Blackpink outputs), the new sensation of the genus Tomorrow X Together, Ateez or Twice have entered the North American list: seven of the 10 most sold CDs in the US in 2024 were K-Pop. And this presence in the American lists is perhaps what is precipitating a certain crisis … in Korea.
Sound internationalization. When Korean bands have detected the possibility of expanding their already huge market, they have applied an internationalizing roller to many of their successes, without a doubt derived from the success of ‘Dynamite’, sung entirely in English, perhaps essential requirement to succeed in a list as Anglocentric as that of US successes. This has not liked, the Guardian tells, the fans of a lifetime, who are also seeing how an older fandom enters: the K-Pop has ceased to be a strictly youthful phenomenon (as phenomena such as the tour ‘Forever Young’ tour of Day6 this year, aimed at a mature audience), and more than integrate, that alienates the usual fans.
Songs in English, little Korean sound. This internationalization goes through a series of elements that are not well seen in Korea. For example, singing in English: ‘Dynamite’ has been a success in the United States, as we said, precisely thanks to the fact that it is sung entirely in that language, an absolute first time for gender. But not only that: the last viral success in networks like Tiktok of the K-Pop, ‘APT’, by Rosé (another Blackpink member) is not only sung in English and is a duet with Bruno Mars, but its sound is absolutely produced in the American style, as a kind of accelerated goga and punk-pop.
Korea looks at J-Pop. And we do not talk about success strictly from the United States: in Spain, without going any further, COLDE, AESPA, KISS OF LIFE AND TXT have played and in the rest of this year the visits of Lun8, Kisu, Wave to Earth, Stray Kids or Blackpink are planned in the rest of this year. More and more international, increasingly related to international tastes, it is logical that Korean fans themselves turn their backs: current idols generated synthetic.
And meanwhile, the industry is atomized. Traditionally, K-Pop groups have been created by seals through castings, and have controlled absolutely all aspects of their career: their public image, their personal relationships, etc. In 2022, a group of the most praised in the scene, Newjaans, tried to disconnect from their seal, Hybe, as a protest for the treatment they had given them and the dismissal of their producer and responsible for their sound, an unclassifiable mixture of jazz, pop and advanced electronics. They talked to their fans in direct on the Internet and unleashed a public discussion about the labor rights of K-Pop artists.
A business in crisis. Newjaans’ action served as wedge so that the industry, which is becoming more rigid, gives crisis symptoms, or at least exhibits certain cracks in its structure. As proof, sales: Korea Music Content Association has observed that after nine consecutive years of crming, in 2024 discs sales fell 19% in Korea.
An image crisis. A revealing detail both about the crisis in the industry in Korea and the fall in sales is that two of the groups that traced the industry (in the words of the ‘Korea Times’), BTS and Blackpink (some doing military service, the others focused on their international careers) have paralyzed their activity in the country. Hybe, the seal with which Newjaans collided, and the most important in the Korean industry, has been reporting losses and is immersed in an image crisis that has led him to apologize to rival seals, artists and the public. Everything points to a sign of the times that may be the beginning of an inevitable change.
In WorldOfSoftware | If you listen to K-Pop, forced labor: North Korea is battling the cultural hegemony of its neighbors without regard
