Do you still think KPop and JPop would be that different to eachother nowadays?

I just had this random thought tho. I mean sure, some artists are still different in both countries, but the mainstream acts in both seem to become closser by style more and more these days, even tho some are still different (especially the solo-artists are quit more unique to eachother than groups). What do you think? Are both countries getting closser by their music or not?

Here are some examples of 2024 songs from Japan

I also did do a video that shows a few songs comparing the both countries music

Quote from patrik-k

But I'm still suprised jpop still have so many groups simliar to AKB48 and that kind of style.

Yeah but most won't even make it, since these newer groups are often founded by smaller lables with barly any money, which causes most groups to have not even any promotions and often attend events where they can't even make any income from. Saw a video once where a girl explained everything from the group she used to be in. And yeah, you really notice it, these groups, often called "underground idol" are not doing it, especially not if they are from small and barly funded companies, do not attend events who give them money, don't promote, only work by focusing on a city or prefecture. The last part is common among groups who can't afford traveling to other cities or prefectures and therefore often just perform in their hometown or where its easy and cheap to travle to since they have no good income to make them attend more and better payed events or give concerts in other places. That is also why you find so many cafes who have a dedicated idol group (mostly girlgroup) cause this type of entertainment helps some groups to earn more money than just attending cheap or free events or do concerts all few months. But some groups gave up on their cafes. I knew a group from Korea who was based in Japan who run a cafe, but they realised after some years it was not doing much for them since most of their fans never came to their cafe, but they realised it was better for them to travle around Japan to give concerts, but this also caused them to lose most members since they started with 35 members and ended with 8.

Most of the famous groups in JPop (outside of Starto-groups who still sell the most in JPop) most groups changed a lot. The most streamed group in JPop on all of the streaming platforms is BE:FIRST, they are also one of the most famous boygroups in Japan at the moment and their style is extremly different from your typical classical JPop-boygroup. This is also a thing that other companies have with their groups. I mean you can also see it on the artists of companies and how different older to newer acts could come off like let's see older artists of Avex who still make music vs. newer. There is often also a big difference in style and these with more traditional or outdated sound often won't make it now. The people who also think you need to be a band or soloist to make it are not right there, because many acts who are famous in Japan are not just only bands and soloists. Just cause mostly a few soloists or bands got viral online and reached foreign fans, dosn't mean that Japan was only about them. Look at the 100 most famous artists in Japan and you see that there are so many groups in the list (mainly boygroups these days) and not just only bands and soloists.