The 21st century is the golden age for K-pop. YG’s Blackpink and Hybe’s BTS have gained sensational popularity worldwide. Today’s K-pop is not only releasing songs, but also focusing on globalization and localization of the system to the next level in different parts of the world. K-pop is undergoing many changes through the transition period to establish such a system. With the efforts of localizing K-pop in the Asian market, the entertainment agency chose the method of recruiting members of the target country. In the beginning, members of the Chinese community emerged as the main pillars of the strategy. It was a way of targeting the Asian market with a small amount of capital by recruiting members of the target country, starting with Han Geng of Super Junior, Fei and Jia of Miss A, Victoria of F(x), and EXO-M, which were Chinese groups. However, it soon ended, leaving most of them to China without being able to handle China’s capital.
What about the Western market? Unlike targeting of the Asian market, which directly introduced members of the target country, Western countries indirectly reduced the sense of cultural differences by adding plenty of English lyrics to songs or using Western producers. In fact, after Blackpink’s global success in 2020, the girl group market focused on the domestic market expanded overseas. Accordingly, the number of English lyrics increased significantly to target fandom and the global public.
The problem arises in this process. The number of people participating in the production has also increased considerably compared to the past, with up to 10 composers contributing to a single song to keep up with rapidly changing music trends. However, in the process, as foreign composers became preferred to domestic composers, the ratio of song rights was set in favor of overseas composers, which turned out to be unreasonable. Currently, foreign composers take 87.5% of the shares in songs in the market, while lyricists take only 12.5%. However, basically the share of songs made by domestic composers is 50 percent for each composer and lyricist. Korean song pies are more advantageous to foreigners than Koreans, reflecting the reality of the domestic music industry, which is finding difficulty in keeping up with the rapid growth.
What is sure, even under this environment, is that K-pop is growing exponentially, exporting a system that combines ideas to foster idols and continuing to expand the base of the Korean pop culture industry. ‘Produce 101’ was a great success after evaluating it fairly with skills without discrimination between large and small-sized agencies. Viewers can also express their opinions. Mnet introduced ‘Produce 101 Japan’ in partnership with Japanese broadcaster TBS and entertainment agency Yoshimoto Kogyo. Moreover, apart from the survival program, ‘NiziU,’ the debut team of ‘Nizi Project,’ which JYP conducted in partnership with Sony Music to produce a Japanese group, was a huge success, triggering a paradigm shift in K-pop. The global girl group ‘VCHA’ was selected through ‘A2K,’ a global girl group launch project jointly with a local label in the U.S. It is preparing to make its official debut.
Now, the agency says K-pop is open to more than just Korea. Still, it is essential to have expandability by discovering artists localized in each region through the planning method and the system of K-pop around the world.
Lee Hyun-jun (ST Reporter)
ace309314@soongsil.ac.kr
