At the end of 2010, KPop became the sole genre of Korean music scene, having eliminated ballads, trot, and everything else you could name, except for one single high school junior.
KPop could have shunned her, who was not from a major company, without any kind of company mates, following a style of music which died with Seotaiji's rise in 1992 and hell bent on restoring Kpop back to the bad old days.
However, some people befriended her, and the inauspicious song 'nagging' led to the reintroduction of the old order into Kpop.
It is not too much different form a story I told a few times. A man marries a woman , found out that she had an older daughter from a previous relationship, and in an act of kindness he takes the woman's daughter and raised her as his own child, but when it became time to inherit properties she, being the oldest of the family claims everything and kicks out the man's own children to the streets, since she NEVER felt that he had anything to do with her.
Worse, she had the control of Melon's digital charts, which was unfortunately watched by manyu Kpop watchers who did not have better sourcs (Hanteo/Circle charts are also affected by Melon), giving her an unprecedented influence over the international KPop fans who could care less about whatever she was doing.
Her being a fixture at Melon chart meant every act prior to 2024 had to deal with her at a given time, sooner or later, and no act could ignore Korea altogether, which significantly skewed KPop in a very negative way.
What led to her downfall is hard to say. The defeat by Bibi was a symptom.
The failure of her to appear in spotify and Billboard Hot 100, the inability of her to have a world tour (till 2024 when it became too late to matter) when acts lesser known than her having it like having lunch, and her crowding out everyone probably weakened her influence among the younger generations , some of them just debuting born AFTER the singer in question, who became KPop's Senior Singer in Dec 3, 2014, by MAMA which gave her a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Now, Illit is probably the last of the acts who fear her at all, and BabyMonster, Meovv, Izna, Hearts2Heart, Kiiikiii, etc are being the first generation of KPop without an ingrained fear of the Senior Singer.
Which means less emphasis on Korean listeners, less time spent in Korea, etc.
More than anyone else the Senior Singer prevented the EPLization of KPop , meaning KPop being the clearinghouse of all the Asian figures entering the world of Pop, by requiring them to speak and sing at least a passable amount of Korean lyrics and demanding at least a passable singing ability. Now the Senior Singer is weakened beyond recovery and not being able to force these to the newer generation, the Korea-free model i have advocated for years is finally going to be dominant, although that might be too late for its world domination dreams.
