K-Pop by Adele Tadevosyan

K-pop. If you haven’t been living under a rock for the past 4 years, you might just know what it is. You might love it. You might hate it. Well, we all have our own opinions. You may still be scratching your head about how this became so popular. Buckle up folks for a bumpy ride!

K-pop is the abbreviation of Korean Pop, a bit obvious. While the modern form of K-pop can be traced back to the early 90s, the term itself has been popularized since the 2000s. Although it generally means "popular music" within South Korea, the term is often used in a narrower sense to describe a modern form of South Korean pop that is influenced by styles and genres from around the world, such as experimental, rock, jazz, gospel, hip hop, R&B, reggae, electronic dance, folk, country, and classical on top of its traditional Korean music roots. These styles, specifically Hip-hop, began to become popular when the group Seo Taiji and Boys emerged into the Korean Scene, first making their debut on a popular Korean television programme ‘MBC's talent show’ on April 11, 1992 with their song "Nan Arayo" (난 알아요, "I Know") and got the lowest rating from the jury.

Now, you may be wondering, ‘How could they get such a low rating, when the style is so popular now?’, well, this was the first time anyone had used such a strange type of music, as it was popular in America, before this there were only songs about Korea and how amazing it was, or EXTREMELY CHEESY love songs. If you think I’m joking, see the lyrics of one of the biggest hits from just a decade before, called ‘Ah! Republic of Korea’: ‘Oh, Oh, Korea! Oh, Oh, our country! Oh, Oh, I will love you forever!’. Basically, a patriotic anthem wrapped in an 80s pop song. Songs like these were constantly played on the Tv and the radio, as it was considered a ‘healthy song’ a patriotic tune commissioned and promoted by the government. The control of pop culture was brought down by South Korean Dictator Park Chung Hee, and continued after his assassination in 1979. During this era, the Government controlled the broadcast systems, which usually televised popular musical variety shows. In order to be broadcast, pop music had to either be patriotic, or G-Rated love ballads, I told you I wasn’t lying! Seo Taiji and Boys’ rising popularity showed Korea could grow not only culturally, but environmentally. In a popular newspaper, they were defined as the Korean ‘New Kids on the Block’. Their 80s/90s style of clothing is a current trend, with people wearing baggy trousers, bucket hats, dungarees and many other iconic clothing, they brought the wave of American Hip-hop fashion to Korea, making a major dent into present streetwear. Whatever they wore, became the trend.

They wanted to go out with a bang, and so, at the height of their fame, announced their retirement. People say a picture says a thousand words, so they released a music video saying goodbye.

Lee Soo Man, former entertainer turned businessman, saw music as a cultural export, and when the Asian financial crisis of 1997 began, the Government agreed. Only a year before, Soo Man created, arguably, the first worldwide famous K-Pop group H.O.T who took the world by storm with their song ‘Candy’. A law was passed to ‘bolstering the arts’, vowing to dedicate at least 1% of the entire state budget on culture. Three major companies were ready to grab this opportunity, Lee Soo Man’s SM, JYP, and YG founded by none other than Yang Hyun Suk, a member of Seo Taiji and Boys.

These three companies essentially created the K-Pop you know and, probably love, today, with other companies like Big Hit Entertainment, the company famous for creating BTS, Cube Entertainment, created groups like Pentagon, BtoB, and (G)I-DLE.

We know them as K-Pop groups, but in Korea they’re known as Idol Groups, because they were made through a specific process.


The company holds auditions or scouts the idols.


Then they are trained to sing, dance and act.


Lastly, they are carefully assembled into incredibly polished groups

This process takes years, and was not invented by K-Pop, but by Motown, who created The Supremes, The Temptations and The Jackson 5. Groups are very well assembled to make no two people similar and members have titles, like lead rapper, lead dancer, lead vocals, songwriter, or Maknae (which is given to the youngest member).

In 2013, The world was hit with PSY’s ‘Gangnam Style’ which skyrocketed and currently has over 3.5 billion views. Half of the world has seen this! So many artists have tried to do what K-Pop has done to the world, and many have failed, if you can’t beat them, join them!




As a K-Pop fan myself, it really is a big part of my life, keeping me healthy with their intricate and difficult choreographies, making me laugh at variety shows, and being all around places of support for those in dark places. K-Pop showed me love and kindness to others, and I made many new friends in the process! I owe a lot to them.



I hope this gave you an update on K-Pop’s history and some inspiration to perhaps try listening to a few songs, or go on a crazy random dance challenge in public (after Quarantine ends, obviously).