K-Pop is an abbreviation for Korean Pop. Traditionally, it stood for Korean Popular
Music but now shortened to Korean Pop. This genre consists of hiphop, electronic, rock and R‟n‟B, pop and ballads originating from South Korea.
Throughout Asia, expanding onto USA and Europe, K-Pop subculture has grown
exponentially between teenagers and young adults. People all over the world
enjoy listening to K-Pop even though many of them don‟t necessarily understand
the language.

The history of K-Pop is very short, yet quite exciting. It‟s profoundly influenced by Western pop
music hence why it‟s quite popular.
It can be traced back to 1885 when an American missionary, Henry Appenzeller began teaching
American and British folk songs at a school in Korean. These songs were called changga in
Korean and they were typically based on Western melodies that were sung with Korean lyrics.
The 1990s was the great turning point of K-Pop. Korean pop musicians incorporated various
styles of American pop music such as rap, rock and techno in their own music. In 1992, the
emergence of a boy band called Seo Taji & Boys brought this turning point to K-Pop, enable KPop to become more well known. Their debut song “I Know” (Nan Arayo, in Korean) was
extrememly successful. MTV Iggy stated, “K-Pop music world would never be same again. It‟s
New Jack Swing-inspired beats, catchy rap lyrics and memorable choruses took Korean audience
by storm”.
The lyrics of I know dealt with the issues and problems of the Korean society, which other artists of
the decade had failed to address. Seo Taji & Boys‟ footsteps were followed by surge of extremely
successful hip hop and R&B artists such as Jinusean and 1TYM.

In 1995, entrepreneur Lee Soo-Man founded Korea‟s largest talent agency and record label, SM
Entertainment, which account world-wide famous artists including TVXQ, Super Junior and Girl‟s
Generation.
The immense success of Seo Taji & Boys brought in a new audience to K-Pop – teenagers; which
lead to the emergence of the terms “idol bands”. H.O.T (now a legendary boy band) were
considered as the first K-Pop idol boy bands, debuting in 1995. They were followed by many more
renowned bands such as Sechs Kies, S.E.S, Shinhwa, Fin.K.L and G.O.D.
Towards the beginning of the 21st Century, K-Pop began spreading out other reigons of the
world, contributing to the Korean Wave. In 2002, BoA became the first K-Pop singer to reach No.1
on the Japanese Oricon Music Chart (equivalent to the Billboard Music Chart). Since the mid
2000‟s a large proportion of East Asian music market is dominated by the K-Pop idol groups. For
example, TVXQ‟s concert Tohoshinki Live Tour in Japan sold well above 850,000 tickets, with an
average cost of $109 each, generating a total revenue of $92.6 million.
In October 2009, girl group Wonder Girls entered the US Billboard Hot 100 with a single called
Nobody which became famous due to the viral spread of the music video for this song after it had
surpassed 50 million views on YouTube.

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In October 2009, girl group Wonder Girls entered the US Billboard Hot 100 with a single called
Nobody which became famous due to the viral spread of the music video for this song after it had
surpassed 50 million views on YouTube.
In November 2011, Big Bang won the MTV Best Worldwide Act against Britney Spears and the
German singer Lena Meyer-Landrut.
Girl‟s Generation appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman and Live! With Kelly in January
and February 2012.
September 2012 – B.A.P has topped and ranked within the top 10 in the German K-Pop Music Chart
for 17 months straight.
Psy‟s Gangnam Style because the most viewed video on YouTube in November 2012. After topping
the record charts of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canda, Czech
Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Honduras, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Mexic
o, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland
and UK, it was awarded the Best Video Award in the MTV EMAs. It also became the first video to hit
a billion views on YouTube.
2NE1‟s performance in New Jersey in December 2012 was selected as one of the “Best Concerts of
2012” by The New York Times.
Girl‟s Generation won the “Video of the year” award for their music video “I got a boy” on the first
YouTube awards in November 2013.

Wonder Girls topping the Billboard
Chart
B.A.P’s mini album One Shot in the
top-10 iTunes Hip Hop albums.
Bi Rain – MTV Movie
Awards - Biggest Badass Star
for his hollywood film Ninja
Assassin
Big Bang – MTV EMA Best
Worldwide Act

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Shinhwa
TVXQ
JYJ
Big Bang
Se7en
Rain
2NE1
Super Junior
SHINee
Lee Hyori
F(x)
Girl‟s Generation
B.A.P
BoA

The main audience of K-Pop
consists of teenagers, mainly
females, aged 15 – 20; although
there are also few women in their
30s. However, due the
widespread of K-Pop all over
world, the number of fans in each
age category is growing
regardless of religion or
nationality. This is due to fact that
many artists are having overseas
concerts in regions such as
Germany, LA, Peru and
Singapore. The increase in
popularity of K-Pop has led fans
to also take interest in Korean
Dramas and the Korean Culture
and food.

There are quite a few sub-genres
within the main genre of K-Pop.
Those are:
• K-Hip Hop (e.g. Supreme Team,
Dynamic Duo, Outsider)
• K-Indie (e.g. Urban Zakpa, Nell,
Busker Busker)
• K-Rock (generally pop rock; e.g.
Toxic, Trax, Ft Island, CN Blue)
• K-R&B (e.g. Taeyang, Se7en,
Wheesung)
• K-Jazz (e.g. Younha)
• K-Ballad (e.g. K.Will, Lyn, Sung Shi
Kyung, 4Men)

Public perception of the genre, is it a
popular genre with mainstream appeal or
more niche?
K-Pop genre is popular with mainstream appeal because it
consists of many different sub-genres which makes it a very
diverse genre of music. It subverts the general stereotype of
being „overly sweet and cute‟. Fans across the world are able
to upload and access updates on popular Korean music
artists and the latest K-Pop charts. This signifies the fact that
fans across the world, despite their demographic are able to
enjoy listening to K-Pop.

These three entertainment companies are the largest
talent agencies and record labels in South Korea.
The largest record label –
S.M. Entertainment
Revenue 2012 – US$217
Million
The second largest record
label – YG Entertainment
Revenue 2012 – US$96.6
Million
The third largest record
label – JYP Entertainment
Revenue 2012 – US$13.5
Million

Other small companies but with world
wide famous artists
TS Entertainment was founded in October 2008 so it’s a fairly
new record label. However, despite being new in the
industry, they have debuted worldwide famous groups such as
the duo Untouchable, Secret and B.A.P.
B.A.P now, despite having been in the music industry for only 1
year and 11 months, they have achieved a great amount of
success – wining almost every best rookie award in 2012 and
having a world tour in 2013.

There are quite a few other magazine that also
cover the K-Pop genre:
• Sparking
• K-Wave
• K-POP
• Hallyu
Sparkling magazine is the first English K-Pop
magazine in Philippines. It‟s a seasonal magazine
and costs 150 pesos (£2 - £2.10). The magazine
features key artists, exclusive interviews, fanmeeting fan-accounts, Korean events, Horoscopes
and Fashion news and advice. The K-Wave
magazine is a bilingual (English-Korean) magazine
that is sold in Korea. It‟s very similar to Sparkling
magazine but it also features articles on Korean
drama and actors and actresses.

K-Pop is covered by many other types of media. For example online
radio; there are two most common and famous online radios – BigB
Radio and Seoul FM. Both radios are regularly updated with new songs
releases and as these radios are free to listen to, anyone is able to
access them through the websites
(http://www.bigbradio.com/p/kpop.html) (http://www.seoul.fm/). This
enables K-Pop to become more famous amongst a wide range of
different demographics.
The Internet also plays a vital role. There are many websites that
updated regularly with news of Korean artists such as Soompi
(http://www.soompi.com/), Allkpop (http://www.allkpop.com/), K-Pop
Starz (http://www.kpopstarz.com/) and Daily K-Pop News
(http://www.dkpopnews.net/). This once again allows fans to have easy
access to get the latest updates and news, adding to the increasing
popularity of K-Pop.