Rebecca Horton ’19
EE Contributor
Americans have seen it countless times before: stadiums packed with screaming teenage girls, dying in anticipation as they wait to see their favorite band perform live. The instrumentalists are queued in, and the deafening roar of the crowd progressively grows louder. Finally, the first lyrics are sung, but this time they’re in Korean.
Korean pop music, most commonly referred to as K-pop, has gathered a global cult following in recent years. In less than a decade, it has evolved from a small subculture to an almost $5 billion dollar industry.
In America, there’s one band to rule them all: BTS, the all-boy group that has gone as far as any K-pop band can go in terms of leaving a lasting mark on American culture. In fact, as cited by CNBC, “BTS was the No. 1 most tweeted about musical group in the U.S. in 2017, topping Justin Bieber, Rihanna and Nicki Minaj.”
From being featured on the cover of American Billboard magazine, to being the first K-pop band to debut an album at No. 1 on the US Billboard charts, to collaborating with well-known American singers and songwriters such as Nicki Minaj and The Chainsmokers, there’s no denying the band’s seven members were destined for stardom.
As BTS and the rest of the K-pop scene continue to expand here in the US, many people are left pondering the reason for BTS’s success, especially since non-Western music isn’t common in America. The reason can be attributed to the fact that, “the members of BTS are deeply, plainly deferential to their fans, and appear grateful to the machinery that brought them all together.… Unlike American pop stars, who tend to embrace and perform bravado (or at least a kind of outsized independence),” explains the New Yorker.
“K-pop culture focuses a lot more on being interactive. They have events and fan-signs, which are really personal things because they’re not concerts, or a chance to see them perform. It’s a chance to talk with and connect to fans. You have to have a level of trust with your audience to do that,” said Arianna Diamond, an avid K-pop and BTS fan.
Overall, K-pop’s sudden success is not a mere stroke of luck or an accident. The cultural divide between the glitzy, untouchable glamour of Western pop stars and the humble community of K-pop bands like BTS has continued to widen. While the money and fame flaunted by American artists are aspirational desires for many, K-pop offers escapism through a more relatable, down-to-earth lens.