Kpop in crisis

It's ok

Because there is Day6

And Day6 is the best

Quote from bbgc

Is it as big a threat to Kpop as the Senior Singer?

If not, then no.

The Senior Singer and Day6 are BFFs

They will take over the world together

K-pop has always been a niche, a big niche with a large audience but smale recognition.

But the fact that these major American awards invented the K-pop categories already indicates the value of K-pop in the music market. A big step

It's not too late, maybe we'll have someone to take over, who knows

Saw this article a few days ago. it makes some good points

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Even back home the genre is struggling. “K-pop has lost a lot of market traction in South Korea – the music is not being written to appeal to a Korean audience, but more to this homogenised, globalised audience,” says Sarah, the host of the Idol Cast podcast, who uses a pseudonym for fear of reprisal from K-pop fans. “It’s trying to be all things to all people, and ends up being sort of nothing to no one.”

In trying too much to break into Western markets and ride the huge peak of the huge Korean pop-culture wave from the pandemic on, kpop has started losing it's identity and what made it unique and stand out from Western sounds.

Which means instead of being an alternative to Western music, it's now competing with Western music. It's not selling itself strongly enough to audiences that already have plenty of choice in the West.

But... I also think theres another aspect at play, at least in terms of Kpops consumption outside of Korea and thats... Japan.

Japan is a huge hot commodity again. Record tourism. People wanting to either go to Japan or engage in Japanese culture and pop-culture. Japan closed itself off during the pandemic, even getting any Japanese goods was difficult because they made shipping stupid impossible and it was one of the last countries to fully reopen, so a lot of travel and pop culture hungry people went looking elsewhere and found kpop, kdramas and Korean culture as a good alternative. The fact that Korea opened way earlier than Japan and marketed itself as a great alternative helped a lot.

But with Japan fully re-opened and pumping out pop-cultural exports again, the publics general imagination has shifted there and I think kpop is one of the things that is going to be discarded by that same general public.

Whats pretty funny after reading the article is the suggested/related articles at the bottom

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An article from only a year ago talking about Koreans cultural power abroad, primarily through kpop and kdrama, a funny irony given this article.

And the article about being a mid-30's BTS fangirl, which is funny after this comment in the main article:

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K-pop made by obsessed-over “idols” – performers hot-housed in training camps by entertainment agencies – is no longer seen as cool in trend-conscious South Korea. “A lot of older fans have entered the fandom, including older women. I’m not bashing them, I’m one myself,” she says, but these newcomers have alienated young would-be fans.

With Gen-Z seemingly turning on millennials, is it a good thing for kpop to start being seen by Gen-z as a millennial or worse... "old people" thing?

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The US loves to invest attention into certain artists – once you have it, you become the [sole] representative of [K-pop],” says Herman. “We don’t care for the hottest thing – we want the artists we’ve followed since high school, like Taylor Swift.”

I don't know what kind of drugs they take but it's powerful. The US market is absolutely like all the others with a few rare artists who have a loyal and huge fanbase, but the vast majority will only have 1 or 2 hits and will be quickly replaced.

This is another sloppy journalistic work for me, typical of Western journalists. There's no real investigative work, it's like they gathered information from discussions on reddit, twitter and akpop and condensed it into one article.

This is just my opinion, but the "crisis" that the Korean music industry is going through is exactly the same as the one that Europe went through years ago when they wanted to import into the US and global market.

Artists and companies are so focused on pleasing everyone and are so obsessed with conquering this or that market that it ends up completely transforming a single industry and causing it to lose its entire identity. Eventually, the industry dies or becomes completely insignificant, and the local market in the country in question ends up dying.

Hot take but I don’t think any other kpop artist is really going to take off in the west like BTS or BP.

Newjeans could have but that ship has sailed.

Quote from citron-icy

This is just my opinion, but the "crisis" that the Korean music industry is going through is exactly the same as the one that Europe went through years ago when they wanted to import into the US and global market.

It's just a "wave" I guess, just like how every other decade or so the world gets taken over by a "Britpop" wave of British pop groups and artists making it big time then fading away again.

Or the late 90's "Latin music" wave spearheaded by Ricky Martin, Shakira, Enrique Iglesias and for some reason Jennifer Lopez, among others. They were the biggest music stars on the world for a while. Then they weren't.

Trends and fads come and go. I think kpops time will definitely fade faster now this year becuse worldwide, countries are becoming more insular again, due to economic issues and politics, and the people on those countries are following suit .

Kpop is and always has been niche outside Korea. It was just the existence of BTS and BP that made it seem otherwise, but both groups have been on hiatus for a couple years so we're feeling the absence. Those groups are anomalies and not representative of kpop's popularity as a whole. If there is a new group with the potential to take kpop to the next level overseas, I haven't seen them.

The more accurate title would be: "Mainstream Kpop in Crisis!"

Why? Because normal Kpop is still shining, but the rest trying way too hard to be a Western artist, and it won't last for long, like it or not. Kpop fans love Kpop because it's different. If groups want to be the next American band, there's nothing to love about them or make different, and the Western audience will get bored with them eventually.

Quote from sanas-armpits

Kpop is and always has been niche outside Korea. It was just the existence of BTS and BP that made it seem otherwise, but both groups have been on hiatus for a couple years so we're feeling the absence. Those groups are anomalies and not representative of kpop's popularity as a whole. If there is a new group with the potential to take kpop to the next level overseas, I haven't seen them.

I think one of the more interesting angles of the article is how K-pop is falling out of fashion in Korea as well though.

That as companies rushed to push their groups out to Western markets, they failed to keep grasp of Korean fans, who seem to also be moving on

Kpop was never going to take over the west.

It does make good money in the West, they will continue to do so.

Quote from ThePhantomThief

I think one of the more interesting angles of the article is how K-pop is falling out of fashion in Korea as well though.

That as companies rushed to push their groups out to Western markets, they failed to keep grasp of Korean fans, who seem to also be moving on

Which is sad because I fell in love with kpop when it still had that distinctly Korean flavor. I hope kpop companies realize that there's no use in trying to make music that's identical with western top 40 radio. If kpop needs to tank to return to its roots, so be it.

Quote from sanas-armpits

Which is sad because I fell in love with kpop when it still had that distinctly Korean flavor. I hope kpop companies realize that there's no use in trying to make music that's identical with western top 40 radio. If kpop needs to tank to return to its roots, so be it.

They will not that's what happened for Europe. Songs will have more and more english lyrics, and songs will sounds more and more like what's trending in the United States. They want to make as much money as possible, without realizing that they are chasing a pipe dream and that today's easy money is endangering the entire long-term sustainability of the industry.

And that's exactly why the market will die, firstly the national public will no longer want them because they look too much like copypasta of US artists. And secondly where the real perverse effect is is that they will have unwittingly conditioned the national audience to US music and the public will therefore turn directly to their artists abandon the artists of the country.

Well, most of us know kpop would never get really big or main stream in "the west", so I don't think anyone is suprised, only journalist outside of kpop maybe. Harder competion in SE Asia from other contries in SE Asia that also copy the concept make it more difficult. How it goes from this point and forward is hard to tell. Maybe kpop will keep it current popularity or the "idol" type of groups will slowly die away and with that kpop as a concept. But I guess it's too big and too much money in it to go away any time soon.

Quote from bbgc

Then what about "BTS paved the way"

If nobody can follow them?

Idols have followed them....to western magazines, talk shows, awards shows, etc etc. The thing is, no one was able to replicate the number of fans they have.

Quote from bbgc

https://www.theguardian.com/mu…can-k-pop-overcome-crisis

Take aways:

Kpop is not taking off in the West, as it looked to poised in 2020.

Instead its Western lean has alienated Korean audiences.

The next big hope after BTS, BP - NJZ is mired in legal disputes.

Bonus:

So the Senior Singer IU, will again be left holding the field, while others rise and fade. As WhyKnock doomsaid.

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The very reason there is something called a 'Korean audience" is solely because, I have to say (although most of you would have guessed when you saw my moniker), of IU.

It is commendable that KPop companies act as if the Korean market, which is now getting smaller as the younger pop dries up, does not exist.

IU remains in power, at least in Korea, for all these years, because of a lack of alternatives.

It was txt not doing as well as the expectation given to them which turned the entire situation. txt not doing well means BTS would have no successors, and enhypen did not fill the gap.

Without IU what is remaining in Korean market would have died by 2012 and the entire Korean market would have been integrated with international market.