Has the time to expand the K-pop idol group concept worldwide finally arrived?

  • Europe does not have the active fandom culture America has (let alone East Asia), there is also a lot more variety of languages, cultures and everything depending on the country. Europe can be okay for touring and that's it but the demand and potential isn't as big as the US tbh. I'd be surprised to see a K-Pop company trying something like that on Europe rn.


    i think an Europe unit is just impossible

    America is great because the whole country speak the same language

    but Europe is one of the most diversify continent , you can't make a European unit because you don't know in which language you'll make them sing

    and i doubt SM will debut a french unit, a spanish unit, a russian unit, a german unit, an italian unit etc..

    ✩We Born with the X-Gene✩

    #aespa from Chill Kill #aespa from Chill Kill

  • Honestly I don't know why companies aren't pushing soloists in the West instead of groups. Groups are dead in the West(unless you're a band) and soloists are just more marketable. It's like they're asking to fail.

    Because Soloist are even more dead

    By debuting group in West they are trying to surf on the trend that Kpop is now, and the kpop of now is represented by Groups

    it's you would not be markeable to say " This Kpop company is debuting a soloist in America"

    ✩We Born with the X-Gene✩

    #aespa from Chill Kill #aespa from Chill Kill

  • Honestly I don't know why companies aren't pushing soloists in the West instead of groups. Groups are dead there(unless you're a band) and soloists are just more marketable and tend to be taken more seriously. It's like they're asking to fail nnn

    atp sm isn't even doing it for money, if they get publicity thats enough for them

  • TBH i'm looking forward to an American version of NCT with combinations of Asian Americans and non-Asian Americans in the unit. Of course, this plan is quite experimental but if it succeeds it can be really promising, they already have the NCT brand anyway and making it as a unit won't be a really distant concept.

  • Honestly I don't know why companies aren't pushing soloists in the West instead of groups. Groups are mostly dead there(unless you're a band) and soloists are just more marketable and tend to be taken more seriously. It's like they're asking to fail nnn

    I think that is the reason why. There's already a lot of domestic soloists, so it's just going to be one among many. Idol groups are a "novelty" (not really) that doesn't exist domestically anymore.

  • i think an Europe unit is just impossible

    America is great because the whole country speak the same language

    but Europe is one of the most diversify continent , you can't make a European unit because you don't know in which language you'll make them sing

    and i doubt SM will debut a french unit, a spanish unit, a russian unit, a german unit, an italian unit etc..

    I read an article that SM actually planned to make NCT Europe version (not NCT unit but the whole brand)


    https://www.allkpop.com/articl…-with-all-foreign-members

  • I guess they've thought all this through, but on the face of it it looks like "Westerners really love pop groups doing choreography in designer clothes. For some reason they forgot how to do this themselves so we'll step in!" And that's not it. K-Pop has


    - the Korea fetishists

    - the more specialized "this particular group of Koreans only are special, the others are ugly losers" tokeners

    - the "not like other girls" girls who think K-Pop is superior because it's in a language they don't speak

    - the puritans who really believe in 28 year old popstar virgins who sit in the dorm every single night gaming with their members

    - the individuals who get some complex inner need met by crying over the perceived suffering of their faves


    The west can't tick these boxes.

  • I mean this was literally in the original NCT presentation years ago, so it shouldn’t really come as a surprise.


    I think overall music has become very nichefied, accelerated by the growth of streaming - people are not stuck to only what plays on the radio but can explore the tastes and types of things that interest them. There are many many successful artists in the west that sell albums or tours without being a darling on the chart, so I disagree that the market doesn’t exist in the US. It’s just not the big mainstream market, so it depends on what you are looking to achieve in the West - even capturing a portion of the US market is still larger than many other regions..


    I always find it so strange when people who don’t even live in Korea or often don’t even speak Korean try to say it’s “not being Kpop, if they’re not singing in Korean,” but whatever. Kpop is a genre that has its own flavor and style that is not just “it’s a pop song sung in Korean.” (In fact, like many genres, there are sub genres within this genre, but I digress.) I don’t see a song as less Kpop because it’s sung and danced to in English any more than I do when it’s sung and danced to in Japanese or Mandarin.


    I also find it particularly weird since most of 3rd and 4th Gen Kpop, and even a large chunk of 2nd Gen has a mashup of Korean...and...English. Plus Kpop has a long history of creating English, Japanese and Chinese singles...

    ..............................................................................................................perfume

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  • Honestly I don't know why companies aren't pushing soloists in the West instead of groups. Groups are mostly dead there(unless you're a band) and soloists are just more marketable and tend to be taken more seriously. It's like they're asking to fail nnn

    also even though you're in a group only just one member stays relevant like jusrin timberlake or beyoncé

  • its not kpop not because its sung in another language, what makes kpop kpop as a genre its system and overall how it works with all its promotion etc. overall, companies have to adopt to the country they're in. for america case kpop standards can't exist in america basically and its not marketable at all. they will definitely have to adapt and from that moment it won't be kpop.

  • i think an Europe unit is just impossible

    America is great because the whole country speak the same language

    but Europe is one of the most diversify continent , you can't make a European unit because you don't know in which language you'll make them sing

    and i doubt SM will debut a french unit, a spanish unit, a russian unit, a german unit, an italian unit etc..

    now I remember there is a kpop girl group based in England Kaachi lol

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