Taylor Swift is now in resurgence, but she would rather let no one remember the inconvenient fact that she was mostly absent during 2017-2020 , while BTS conquered the world and
This had occurred even before BTS had reached the top.
In 2021 she returned, but BTS had a complete chokehold of Pop by that point time, so she remained in the junior position along with Olivia Rodrigo, Dua Ripa and someone I always have to mention in most of my posts.
So, although her career began in I think 2007, she was not dominant for all of these years and she was certainly not dominant 2017-2020.
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BTS was dominant 2017-2022 but not in 2023-at least 2025 . So just 6 years.
BlackPink began to be prominent in 2018 with Ddu-du-du-du , and is dominant to this year (although it took a very painful hiatus in 2021), but its future is far from certain.
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In Korean history, until last,year, there was no singer who was dominant for more than 10 years.
Cho Yongpil was dominant 1981-1985, took a hiatus in 1986-87, and returned in 1988 but was no longer really dominant. He faded away in 1989, although he made a surprising return on 2013 to shoot Psy from the back.
Speaking about Psy, he took lots of hiatuses. He had 3 albums in his first 2 years , then because of his military issues the 3rd album did not come out till 2006, and then he released albums in 2010, 2012 (Gangnam Style), 2015, 2017 and 2022. So he was not dominant for the whole 21 years, and on his latest album he had to put Suga on it to rekindle foreign interest on him.
Unfortunately, the singer who attained the longest dominance in Korean Pop history contributed very little to the Expansion of KPop around the World.
Cases like IU are extremely hard to find around the world; few singer remains consecutively dominant for 10 years. She did take a hiatus in 2016, but had a #1 song every year from 2010-2015 then 2017-2022 (including the collabo with Jay Park) and is expected to return later this year, extending her dominance for the 13th year.
Although she had to use Suga herself in 2020, she did recover from it in 2021 to wrest Korea from BTS, a feat no one else had done in BTS' heyday which eventually dragged BTS to the military, for which she contributed significantly so it can be said taht she did defeat BTS in the end.
That, combined with her complete irrelevalency in the ranks of world-famous stars , her extreme hostility against KPop's worldwide expansion and still the necessity of acts operating in Korea to somehow acknowledge her because of her dominance in the Melon chart, which is owned by the same company which owns IU, makes her extremely hard to place in the hierarchy of KPop; as far as the world is concerned she is a non-entity, but if Korea gets involved, she is in the same rank with BTS and BlackPink.
tl. dr. It is hard to maintain 10 years plus of dominance, and in Korea the first singer who managed it is curiously someone who made virtually zero contribution to the expansion of KPop to the world.
