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BTS finally claimed that prize earlier this year, when theirLove Yourself: Tearalbum debuted at No.
1 on the Billboard 200.
Localization is the word that summarizes K-pops conventional strategy toward global preeminence.
K-pops supposed advantage was its ability to overproduce.
BoA, an early manifestation of K-pops international success, is an archetype of this strategy.
SM Entertainment recruited BoA as a 12-year-old, giving her the code name Project Mystique [ ].
Subsequent K-pop acts mostly followed the same template.
A K-pop idol group, for example, might strategically include one or more members from abroad.
They may even change their aesthetics to be more aligned with the needs of any given local market.
Yet BTS employed none of these localization tactics.
The group has no non-Korean member, nor does it have any song sung entirely in English.
But BTS had something else going for them: authenticity and a narrative arc.
The authenticity shines through in BTSs visual presentation as well.
Theyre less interested in looking like American hip-hop stars, and more interested in simply presenting who they are.
More K-pop groups, such as Seventeen and Monsta X, are producing their own music.
Monsta X and Got7 have even put out conceptual trilogies of their own.
There are also some parallels between BTS and Black Pink.
Using hip-hop as their musical calling card is an important commonality.
But unlike BTS, Black Pink continues the localization strategy with its members.
Lisa is Thai, and Rose is a KoreanNew Zealander.
The group collectively speaks Korean, English, Japanese, and Thai.
This strategy is acting like working across the board.
In the U.S. market, Black Pinks album,Square Up, debuted at No.
40 on the Billboard 200, the highest ranked album from a female Korean act ever.
JYP is also planning an as-yet-unnamed girl group based out of Japan to debut in late 2019.
With its group NCT, SM Entertainment arguably is a step farther than JYP in terms of localization.
The subunits sing different songs and offer different visual aesthetics, tailor-made for their markets.
K-pops international growth is one of the most significant events in global pop culture of the 21st century.
Despite years of trying, K-pops appeal in the U.S. market initially appeared to have a ceiling.
But with BTS, K-pop broke through once again.
Youngdae Kim is a music critic and author of two books on the history of Korean pop music.
He is a voting member of the Korean Music Awards.
Park is a blogger forAsk a Korean!
