I want to re-visit this topic – an interesting topic to me as a dinasour kpop fan (yup as early as 2000-ish) who used to watch MVs downloaded from p2p programme, Youtube was not yet bought by Google, literally lived in kpop forums before X/Twitter exists and before 1 million views is something we marveled and Spotify and iTunes are something I never used before. And yes, the time when kpop album sales went from 1+ million (1st gen) to 100-200k (2nd gen) and 100k is considered great achievement.
People used to discuss how ‘international popularity’ is not sustainable compared to ‘Korean popularity’. Now that social media like TikTok, X/Twitter and IG are huge marketing tool for kpop, Spotify/iTunes/Apple Music/Youtube Music existence and how kpop companies are getting international distributors especially in the US and Japan (I know Europe is still sketchy when it comes to local distribution), I feel like the shift is inevitable.
Looking at the trend, I feel like international popularity, even without Korean popularity is doable for a kpop group to sustain itself to even be very profitable and long-lasting. While international popularity may not translate well into Korean popularity (and similarly vice versa), I feel like we cannot belittle its importance in kpop anymore.
There are groups like Day6, QWER and The Boyz who has Korean popularity but has less impact internationally which is still great as they can do big concerts in Korea (Goyang Stadium/KSPO Dome), has great Korean streaming numbers and many Korean CFs. There are also groups like Stray Kids and Enhypen who have less Korean presence but have good sales and non-Korean streaming numbers.
Of course in ideal world we would like to be popular both in Korea/internationally ala BTS/BP/NJ but now that kpop reach is closer due to the internet age and social media, international popularity is not something we can just scoff at. Interestingly, out of the groups that are relatively unpopular in Korea like SKZ can do KSPO Dome and stadium tour because of their international popularity.
I feel like we now have come to an era that Korea, international or both popularity is something acceptable and as I said, groups can sustain and even be profitable with either or both types of popularity.
1st/2nd gen works differently as lots of idols shifted into becoming variety stars/actors/actresses and we have rare soloist like Taeyeon/GD who actually are quite successful. If you notice, starting 3rd gen the trend has shifted that there are still 3rd gen groups who are still actively promoting as a group eg Twice.
And 4th gen starting with The Boyz/SKZ/Ateez/Idle who are still making music actively into their 7th year including touring. Group like SKZ is not even attempting to be in Korean variety nor acting even in their 7th year (2nd gen idols were already acting in their 2nd to 3rd year, it became very common, some even as soon as they debuted back then). Likely because there is no need as their music can sustain their career at this point of time.
That said, we are into 5th generation with lots of groups which have Korean attention so we shall see if the trend shifts again.
What do you guys think?
submitted by /u/Many-Ad-9007
[link] [comments]
