There is now no one in KPop who has the power to counter Lee Jieun , who has become a true Senior Singer of KPop

Hybe said BTS will perform as one in 2025, but their contracts will end in 2027 (it is not known whether that includes their military services or not.)

But Jungkook appears to have soloist dreams and he can drag it out till 2027. He will be the big factor for BTS continuing as a whole for a long time, especially when the person named at the title of this post might use her influence.

I do not agree with those who think BTS' empire will still be there in 2025. It might be there it will have significantly contracted by that point of time. Some fans will stay loyal, but the days when it was the movers and shakers of the world would be gone.

For the first time since Cho Yongpil, with the debatable exception of SNSD (whose control Iu broke at early 2012), someone has an absolute control over KPop and that is an anti-KPopper who has plotted to destroy KPop for all her life.

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There is now a new Korean show named Under the Queen's Umbrella, in which a fictional queen tries to defend the throne for her children, against the Dowager Queen, who has the power to decide the next King, who might have a different mind. It all comes down to the current Queen, played by Kim Hyesoo who is now 53 year old, overcoming the Dowager Queen, played by Kim Haesook who is now 66 years old.

In other words, even at 53 years the reigning queen can't find peace against the dowager queen who was at that position for quite a while.

Something like that happened in Japan, when Empress Michiko, the wife of the previous emperor Heisei, had to fear all the timeher mother-in-law, Empress Kojun, who died in 2000 at the age of 97 (Michiko was from a business family and not from a noble one, and Kojun and her maids looked down on Michiko all the time). Michiko was 66 at the time. However Michiko paid it back to her daughter in law Masako, who doesn't have a son so she can't have a revenge.

In KPop, with the effective end of BTS' control,

Lee JIeun has become the ranking singer of Korean Pop despite of she not being from KPop.

And, because she had the largest concert held in Korea in the 2020s, her power can't really be challenged by those who sell a lot of albums but have smaller concerts.

Although she became the Senior Singer on 2014 because MAMA gave her the Lifetime Achievement Award , she now has obtained the absolute power she craved for all her life. With no one strong enough to challenge her (Laboum effectively disbanded and although its name still will remain it is unlikely that it will ever gain a traction to challenge the ex-owner of Edam), she is going to lead KPop back to its bad old days, and after the afterglow of BTS begins to fade away near the end of 2023, when (if) BTS ever returns in 2025, it will face a much bleaker, and probably a much more isolationist, atmosphere by that time.

Quote from n_u_g_u

Whatever you IU fans are called, speak on her and her alone. Ain't no army out here knowing a clue what this lady does from day to day. But if you want to speak on BTS at least have the facts straight, Their contracts end in 2024.

As far as I know their contracts were extended in 2018 to last till 2027. It is not known whether military service time extended it or not.

Quote from nrnl

is there any chance for senior singer to enlist in the army? She's again reigning over kpop. this is not fair.

She already completed her service back in 2011

Quote from icyruios

OP's been waiting for this day for god knows how long

King Charles II , after 11 years of out of throne, returned on 1660

King Louis XVIII, after 25 years of interregnum, returned on 1814

The old of KPop , after being kicked out by Seotaiji in 1992, finally returned on 2022. returned with a red-hot vengeance in 2022. Historians will probably record Lee Jieun's concert at the Olympic Stadium as the beginning of the domesticist restoration.

Quote from bbgc

Ho hum..

All this is irrelevant at this point,

Even if BTS goes away forever, no Korean act is anywhere close to what they achieved internationally, even Western acts.

Even if BTS does not enlist and IU stops music entirely, they or any other Korean act is anywhere close to beating her records in Korea.

They both have far too much lead in each case, for any such thing to happen.

BTS did not counter IU, in the last 5 years in Korea- they both held to their own, so why would their enlistment make a difference.

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The difference is IU gets to call the shots about how the future of Kpop will go, given her enormous domestic power and influence.

When Cho Yongpil dominated, no one else said anything to him. It is said he was the only one who could smoke with the music director in the tv stations while others had to wait, like vassals in old samurai movies, to get an audience from the powerful directors who could kill any career at whim.

SNSD had the same power but they were not sovereign and was subject to the whims of SM. IU is sovereign and is beholden to no companies, and when BTS was powerful its great power limited her from abusing her power, but now there is no restraint remaining.

Quote from bbgc

So WhyKnock in your opinion, since that fateful day in December of 2010, who all had a chance to stop that "Digi-bane of Kpop", but failed to do so?

Funny to read Laboum and BTS, side by side as such challengers.

BOL4 maybe.

Twice with their run of back to back #1s?

Well, although we don't know what it was , Solbin did have something to do with Seokjin.

IU has truly become the Dowager of KPop, someone no one really can disrespect, and she will use her power to drive KPop in the direction she wants.

Quote from bbgc

Followed by Cho Yong Pil concerts in Nov and Dec..the Ancien Régime Redux

A fitting finale to the fall of grace of KPop in 2022