What was the crucial factor for the defeat of KPop and the ultimate victory of Reactionaries in Korean Pop Scene?

JHope's new single did not do too well.

Given he invited a bunch of people to celebrate his single, I think he probably believed it would do well, but that was not the case.

Other members will do their own solo numbers, but I don't see a Harry Styles coming forth from Hybe, given the environment.

It seems the entire Kpop Revolution, while retaining some afterglow like aespa, will fade away once BlackPink begins to decline. aespa's new album showed the tendency of SM to only concentrate on its own fanbase and not expand.

If historians write a history of KPop, they will probably write that the End of KPop Revolution came forth on September 18, 2022, when the Greatest Reactionary of All in Korean Pop will have her Victory Procession in the Olympic Stadium, where only EXO and BTS had it before.

On 2010 she was the last remaining Reactionary and 12 year later she gets to lord over Kpop, quickly negating all of its successes in a lightning speed. She recently exacted Filial Duty from Jang Wonyoung and Lee Hyunseo (better known as Leeseo) of IVE.

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What led KPop to this fall from grace?

First, the lack of songs might have been a good reason.

The three most popular songs of 2021, not counting Rollin which was a 2017 song, were

Butter - BTS (by Jenna Andrews, RM, Alex Bilowitz, Sebastian Garcia, Robert Grimaldi, Stephen Kirk, and Ron Perry,)

Next Level - aespa (by Yoo Young-jin, Adam McInnis, Mario Marchetti, and Sophie Curtis, originally a soundtrack for Fast and Furious)

Celebrity - The Greatest Reactionary of all (by IU, Ryan Jhun, Jeppe London Bilsby, Lauritz Emil Christiansen, Chloe Latmer and Celine Svanback)

All three songs heavily written by foreign composers.

Which made it kind of indistinguishable with other Pop numbers.

So, barring mass buying, they begin to not do well in the digital charts outside of Korea.

2. The Greed of the Companies

The company owners went for immediate buck, often overusing the idols, promoting at questionable times and mismanaging the titles.

SM's obsession on China is legendary.

Other companies got obsessed on some other things, and YG, happy on having the rights to distribute BTS' music in Japan, did nothing to BlackPink, robbing valuable time to build an empire .

Also there is the tendency of the company owners to suppress idols who might become bigger than the company . (Ironically, the only person who was exempt from this was the Greatest Reactionary of All, who owned her own company from Jan 2020 to Apr 2022. During that period she rose to the #9 singer in the world and the last remaining rival of BTS, despite of not doing anything outside of K-O-R-E-A.)

3. Koreans getting older and leaning towards the reactionaries

Trot targetted mostly the older pop of Korea, and while it did not directly harm KPop it did undermine a lot of resources, and it is indeed tilting quite a lot of youngsters who had KPop dreams to turn into trot. Success in trot is not guaranteed, but it is at least lesser competitive than KPop and if one becomes popular in trot it lasts for quite a while, unlike KPop where success is often ephemeral.

In addition, as seen in LeeJuck writing a trot-ballad song to Lim Youngwoong, Trot's biggest star (his trot songs are often hard to distinguish from ballads, since he was a balladist who turned to trot after his career was going nowhere), the reactionaries are turning into trot as well since that's where the money is. Older fans have plenty of time and money to support the trottists and they tend to be loyal for life.

4. Melon not owning a big Kpop star but owning the Greatest Reactionary of All

Although some people dismiss Melon, it is still Korea's biggest digital music service.

And it is too heavily associated with the Greatest Reactionary of All, making it kinda tilted towards ballads and now trot.

Basically all Kpop acts have to play with loaded dice, which started Kpop from a very heavy disadvantage.

I think these four factors contributed to the ultimate fall of KPop.

Quote from desdesdes

It's done.
She already collected all the necessary homage. Even the so-called young dark horse, IVE, couldn't escape from her ever present grasp of K-O-R-E-A.

The end is nigh.

Yes. The inability of the Kpop figures to shake out Korea altogether will be the cause of their downfall

Quote from BlackpinkHouse

One of your better threads yet. Someone really needs to send the links to your threads to the GROA, i think her English is good enough to be able to read and understand your rants.

Korea is getting older and older by the day, i think demographics will play the biggest role in the evolution of Kpop. Kpop is boyband music of the 90s updated to fit modern times and Korean aesthetics. It is not aimed at boomers, except for those boomers who have entered their middle age crisis and are feeling nostalgic about their 1st and 2nd gen faves.

And the SECOND i saw that clip of WY and the twin doing the IU cover, i thought of you lol. Filial Piety indeed. Everyone under Kakao will eventually do it.

The greatest negative factor is that newer talents are drying up and often foreign help is needed. Itzy had a brave concept with no foreigners, but acts newer that that all contain at least one foreigner because Korean talents are drying up.

Boomers are getting older, and while they grew up listening to earlier gen of KPop, when they reach a certain age they tend to fall to trot-ballads.

Yes she wields a great deal of power among newer gen. No denial about it

Quote from bbgc

Well let's hope she releases a new song for her September V-Day

And a long list of idols turn up to pay their filial duties to the Dae-Sunbae

It is likely that she will release a new song on the concert field and yes, I do think she will assemble quite a lot of idols since her concert is likely to be the last big concert held in Korea for quite a long time.

In the history of the world reversals like this are extremely rare. On June 14 KPop appeared to be due for another expansion , another glorious phase; less than 100 days later, it is now hanging on a very thin thread, with the vengeful Strange Creature about to extinguish it.