It seems my thesis of APT. finishing off Kpop was correct.
APT. showed that all the progress of Kpop was nothing, just a house of cards.
Bruno Mars did not use too much effort - he put more effort in the collabo with Gaga.
And, like Gulliver stepping over Lilliputian villages, all of the Kpop acts, including aespa, was stampled over it.
Now Melon is infested with the likes of 10cm, Woodz, Zo Zazz, Woody (a known cheater), Hwang Garam, Ovan, Lee Mujin, etc. Their songs can be described as 'adult contemporary', easy to listen to at cafes, but not that relevant for the international market.
And it is very skewed over older song - Lee Mujin's older songs are in Melon but his new song did not chart.
In the daily chart I see Love Wins All still at #39. It is more than 1 1/2 years old. Same for a lot of older songs still showing no signs of going away anytime soon.
But the producers at stations are precisely the kind of people who like such style of music.
I have said a few times that Korean men of 30s-40s are the population most toxic to KPop. They voted IU, Im Changjung and Yoon Jongshin to the top of Gallup in 2011, 2016 and 2017, hindering Twice decisively.
The introduction of trot separated the 30s and 40s so that kind of practice ended, but now they skew Melon in their own way, away from KPop.
Unfortunately youtube music, which is now used by the most number of Koreans, does not have real time charts so it is hard to follow what song is popular at a given time. Plus , again, the producers are more familiar with Melon so they are unlikely to abandon what they already know.
So, although Melon is now only relevant for a specific segment of Korean population, the adult contemporary genre, which has captured melon but completely irrelevant as far as KPop is concerned, will continue to accelerate the decline of KPop.
