K-pop’s impressive rise to international popularity

Over the past five years, the K-pop phenomenon has proven to be much more than just one musical style among many others. Currently, South Korean pop music has reached impressive levels of popularity around the world. The most recent data provided by Spotifythe most powerful streaming music platform in the world, demonstrate this dizzying rise.

According to the company’s data, global K-pop streams have skyrocketed by 362 percent between 2018 and 2023, consolidating the presence of some of the most prominent groups on international charts and in the music industry in general.

The growth of K-pop has been particularly notable in regions such as Southeast Asia. Views in this region increased by 423 percent in 2023, compared to the same period in 2018.

On the other hand, in the West, specifically in the United States, one of the largest music markets in the world, the popularity of the genre has also seen an impressive increase: 182 percent.

During “K-pop dialogue session” recently organized by Spotify in Seoul, Park Jung-joo, head of Spotify Korea’s music team, spoke about it. She highlighted the way in which this wonderful genre has ceased to be an exclusively South Korean phenomenon and has become a truly “global success.”

According to Park, this achievement is due, in part, to the fact that the world of K-pop has a wide range of artists and musical groups, each with a unique genre and style. This has allowed more and more people to feel attracted to this type of music: there is a variety for all types of tastes.

Although K-pop itself is a musical genre, its songs usually combine a great diversity of styles, such as pop, hip-hop, R&B, among others. However, this phenomenon is much more than just music. It is a whole particular way of relating to this medium of artistic expression and to the people who listen to it: the aesthetics, the elaborate choreographies, the events for fans, the attention and prominence given to them, the intensive training of artists, and much more.

Due to the clear impact that this genre has had on the international music market, several songs of the genre have been included in Spotify’s prestigious “Billions Club.” This is an exclusive club in which songs that have exceeded one billion views are recognized. Among the songs that have achieved this fact are “Like Crazy” by Jimin, a member of the famous male group BTS; “Money” by Lisa, a member of another of the most famous K-pop groups in the world, BLACKPINK; and “How You Like That”, also by BLACKPINK.

On the other hand, Jungkook, another member of BTS, broke records with his single “Seven”, which reached one billion views in just 108 days. Thus, this song became the fastest production to achieve this in the history of Spotify.

Another key factor in the expansion of K-pop in the world has been the collaboration between South Korean artists and other international artists. These works are clearly strategic, since they allow South Korean artists to be known to new audiences and for their music to be introduced into markets that, perhaps, would not have discovered K-pop otherwise.

A recent and very original example is Tomorrow X Together’s (TXT) collaboration with Brazilian star Anitta on the song “Back for More.” Another similar case was the song “New Woman” published by BLACKPINK’s Lisa together with the renowned Spanish singer Rosalía.

Beyond the most famous groups with a greater reach such as BTS, BLACKPINK or StrayKids, Spotify has also highlighted the growing success of emerging groups. In the first half of 2024, four of the five most played South Korean songs internationally belonged to rookie groups. ILLIT, for example, ranked first on the list. Le Sserafim and Babymonster also managed to place third and fifth place, respectively.

On the other hand, Spotify data shows that these newer groups on the K-pop scene are attracting an increasing number of monthly listeners. An example could be Babymonster, which has 7.5 million international listeners or Kiss of Life and ILLIT, which have managed to reach 6.7 million and 10 million listeners, respectively.