In 1553, England's king Edward VI was about to die.
The 16 years old King had no heirs and he feared when he died his Catholic older sister Mary would take over and undo everything, including the foundation of Anglicanism, with cold blood, knowing Mary was very, very, very angry about what was done to her mother and herself.
So he summoned his distant relative Jane Grey, and named her the next Queen.
Although Mary had a higher claim to the throne, he knew what would happen when she became the Queen, and wanted to prevent it as much as possible so he had to find someone who was at least not going to launch a bloodbath.
Jane , at a young age, was married to Guildford Dudley, a son of the Duke of Northumberland so she would have a viable backer.
However that actually led to disasters. The nobles feared Northumberland more than Mary, because Northumberland would use this opportunity to become the effective ruler of England and punish his many enemies.
So the nobles organized a coup, fearing Northumberland more than Mary and probably not thinking too much about the future, and removed Queen Jane and Northumberland who were later executed.
the Catholic Queen Mary was installed, and she paid those who put her to throne by executing them as well. Her bloody and revengeous reign was only interrupted by her own illness, and if she had been healthier and could leave children(she couldn't), Anglicanism would have been a word only found in old dictionaries. (Catholic writers tend to write sympathetic pieces about Mary, but it can't be denied that she created a huge divide in England which was only kind of pacified 200 years later when the last Catholic attempt to take over England in 1745 was stopped, after two centuries of religious and civil wars.)
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It seems YG appears to be negative about BlackPink re-signing and will launch a final world tour to milk whatever it can from it.
If BlackPink does not re-sign next year, as predicted by many, have you thought about who would be the ranking person in KPop?
IU.
01. BTS
02. BLACKPINK
03. IU
04. BLACKPINK’s Lisa
05. PSY
06. TWICE
07. EXO
08. BIGBANG
09. Girls’ Generation (SNSD)
10. BIGBANG’s G-Dragon
The figures speak for themselves.
With BTS gone from competition and BP possibly going next year, and all others in the list either related to these acts or older generation acts, there is simply no one who will have the power to stop IU. Even though most of her numbers come from China, the newer acts have a lot of spaces to catch up to remove even her.
The days I have feared for years have finally arrived.
Next year, the afterglow of BTS will be strong so the individual members will rank high. However, BTS was always an act where the sum was more than the individuals, unlike Beatles where John Lennon and Paul McCartney were always prominent.
The newer acts are rising,
2024 will be a different story, and 2024 is now only 18 months away.
Someone who never believed in KPop, and always tried to undermine it as often as she could, and someone who can't even hold a world tour is about to become Korean Pop's ranking act , if BlackPink does not re-sign next year.
You can only imagine what will happen after that, since she will show no mercy on the 4th Generation, filial duty or not, and will begin to promote vocalists like her as much as she feels like. With she gaining an absolute power like Cho Yongpil in the 1980s, and with the burning desire to end Kpop and re-design Korean Pop according to what she feels like with the full backing of Kakao, I can only imagine the hardship coming to the 4th Gen of KPop which might be the hardest gen of all.
The only way to avoid it is the fans of 4th Gen uniting and driving IU and her followers out of KPop, ignoring the opinion of the K-O-R-E-A-N-S who have repeatedly shown that they don't deserve KPop.
Maybe the 5th Gen , which will come online after the vengeful Senior singer enters her late 30s (human age) , will have it better but I don't think the halcyon days enjoyed by the 3rd Gen will come back after IU takes over.
List of leaders of Korean Pop
Wonder Girls, 2007
SNSD, 2009
Psy, 2012
Exo, 2013
Big Bang, 2015. It was prominent for long but it reached its biggest extent in that year.
Twice, 2016
BTS, 2018
BlackPink, 2022. Again it was prominent for long but it reaches its biggest extent in this year.
and
(if BlackPink does not re-sign in 2023) IU, 2024
