The Korean Wave, or Hallyu, is a term that represents the global popularity of Korea’s cultural content. Since the late 1990s, Korean TV shows and pop music have drawn considerable attention in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan.
Today, Korean content and artists are expanding their influence, garnering enthusiastic responses from across the world. The Korean Wave continues to captivate people around the world with the beauty of K-Culture.
Korean pop music, or K-Pop, has consolidated itself as a legitimate genre in the global pop music market. Korean Wave consumers outside of Korea chose K-Pop as the image that they associated with Korea the most for five consecutive years.
One of the main characteristics of K-Pop is that it is led by the so-called ‘idol’ bands. These idol bands include BTS, BLACKPINK, TWICE, EXO, Red Velvet, SF9, NCT, and Monsta X. Recently, the “fourth-generation idols” led by ITZY, Aespa, Stray Kids, and NewJeans have enjoyed huge popularity.
BTS
The idol group BTS, representing the Korean Wave in music, reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with each song they released, paving the way for K-Pop to be recognized as a genre by music fans worldwide.
BTS and BLACKPINK are representative of the Korean musical wave. The seven members of the boy band BTS made an essential contribution to K-Pop’s recognition as a genre among music fans across the world. BTS came into the global spotlight by winning the Top Social Artist award at the 2017 Billboard Music Awards. After landing atop the Billboard 200 chart in February 2020, their album Map of the Soul: 7 maintained high rankings for 23 consecutive weeks. Their seventh EP BE, released in August, also topped the Billboard 200 chart. In August 2020, the band became the first Korean musician/group to top the US Billboard Hot 100 Chart with their English single “Dynamite.”
BLACKPINK
The choreography video of BLACKPINK’s “How You Like That,” famous for its unique choreography, surpassed 1.3 billion views in December 2022. BLACKPINK has a total of four videos with more than 1.3 billion views.
2021 was a monumental year for BTS, the Korean Wave, and Korean pop music in general. BTS released two singles, “Butter,” and “Permission to Dance,” and both rose to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. “Butter” stayed at the top for ten weeks in total, which is the longest record among songs released in 2021. In fact, “Butter” was ousted from the top position by none other than their ew single “Permission to Dance,” which was once again replaced by “Butter” when it reclaimed the top.
BTS is the first musician/group to have their songs alternately top the Hot 100 chart for two weeks. This achievement, among others, led to the group winning the Artist of the Year award at the 2021 American Music Awards.
The four-member girl band BLACKPINK has been leading the golden years of K-Pop. The group’s second album Born Pink, released in September 2022, rose to the top of the Billboard 200 chart, and No. 1 on the UK Official Album Chart. BLACKPINK became the first girl band to top Billboard 200 since 2008, and the first-ever Asian female artist/group to win both charts. In August 2022, for the first time for Korean girl groups, BLACKPINK won two awards at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards (VMA): Best Metaverse Performance and Best K-Pop Song.
K-Pop has been expanding its influence across the world. In 2019, the MTV VMA added Best K-Pop as a new category, and the American Music Awards created its own K-Pop category in 2022.
The Korean Wave also swept across the classical music scene. As a result, 37 Koreans, including Lim Yun-chan, ranked among the top 3 in 25 international music competitions in the first half of 2022 alone.
