BTS, SuperM, Girls’ Generation, and Blackpink. All names the K-pop fan base know and love. Having multiple fans and streams across several different countries, there’s no doubt that K-pop is taking the world by storm. But what is it that made K-pop as popular as it is today?
While K-pop, according to sources including ononestudios.com, has been around since the late 1990s and early 2000s, its popularity seemed to significantly increase since the release of BTS’s “Dynamite”. Once they started to get their name known, BTS began making appearances on shows such as “America’s Got Talent”. Meanwhile, their music was played on stations that don’t normally promote K-pop. While K-pop was somewhat known before BTS, I feel as if it’s this band in particular that made it more known to the general public.
I’ll be honest, before BTS, I hardly knew K-pop existed. While not my personal favorite, I can understand why fans like it. The artists have a lot of energy, both during concerts and in music videos. Fans need this energy when watching their favorite band, it gives them a sense of excitement and further reason to love the performers. The choreography is also extremely impressive, keeping viewers captivated and making them unable to look away.
While obvious, another significant aspect of K-pop’s popularity is how catchy the melodies of the songs are. Even if you’re not a K-pop fan, you have to admit that the songs have a way of burrowing into your memory and staying there. This is a very clever move on the part of the bands. When a song is very catchy, to the point that it can get stuck in someone’s head, there’s an increased chance of them replaying the song. This, in turn, increases the amount of streams, listens, or views, depending on the platform, and the artist’s popularity.
Like anything that has a big following, K-pop also serves as a makeshift community. The people within the fan base are almost, if not just, as important as the artists themselves. If everyone involved gives off a friendly, welcoming vibe, more people will be inclined to listen to the music and join the community. Gaining popularity in the music industry isn’t a one-step process. It takes, in fact, multiple steps and a lot of dedication, as the K-pop surge clearly shows.
