From sex scandals to BTS and BLACKPINK’s global success, what’s next for K-pop in 2019?
K-pop is enjoying the international spotlight, thanks to a breakthrough in the United States and collaborations with music stars like Nicki Minaj and Dua Lipa. But what does the future hold?
There’s no doubt that K-pop broke through in the United States in 2018.
After years of slow advancement in coastal capitals like Los Angeles and New York, the sleek yet busy sound from South Korea finally reached a mainstream American audience last year thanks to BTS, the seven-member boy band that became the first K-pop group to land an album at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart – then did it again with another record just a few months later.
But what happens after a breakthrough?
That’s the question K-pop is poised to answer in 2019, as some of its biggest stars take up positions in this country’s musical institutions – and others face a troubling sex scandal at home that could threaten the style’s global momentum.
On April 13, BTS notched another first for K-pop when it performed on the NBC television show Saturday Night Live, a day after the release of its highly anticipated album “Map of the Soul: Persona”.
That same weekend, BLACKPINK – a female foursome from Seoul heard last year in a collaborative single with Dua Lipa – became the first K-pop girl group to play the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California.
What these bookings indicate is the beginning of the second phase of K-pop’s American adventure, in which the music answers its embrace by opening itself up to influences from its new surroundings.
K-pop was shaped from the start by Western sounds. In an interview with BTS in spring 2018 in a hotel meeting room in downtown Los Angeles, the band leader, RM, was quick to acknowledge the importance of acts like the Backstreet Boys.
The way he sees it, BTS is “re-exporting” the classic boy band style “to the rest of the world where we had initially drawn much of our inspiration”.
But much of K-pop’s appeal lies in the way it diverges from that blueprint – in the bold collision of rhythms and textures that defines a song like BTS’ Fake Love, for instance, which has a chaotic energy nobody ever got from NSYNC.