k-pop (english)

K-pop (an abbreviation of Korean pop; kei-pap) is a musical genre originating in South Korea that is characterized by a wide variety of audiovisual elements. Although it comprises all genres of "popular music" within South Korea, the term is more often used in a narrower sense to describe a modern form of South Korean pop music covering a wide range of styles including dance-pop, pop ballad, electronic, rock, metal, hip-hop music and R&B.

In 1992, modern K-pop was ushered in with the formation of Seo Taiji and Boys, whose successful experimentation with different music styles had sparked a paradigm shift in the music industry of South Korea. As a result, the integration of foreign musical elements has now become a common practice in the K-pop industry.

First gaining popularity in East Asia in the late 1990s, K-pop entered the Japanese music market towards the turn of the 21st century. In the late 2000s, it grew from a musical genre into a subculture among teenagers and young adults of East and Southeast Asia. Currently, the spread of K-pop to other regions of the world, via the Korean Wave, is seen in parts of Latin America, Northeast India, North Africa, theMiddle East, Eastern Europe and immigrant enclaves of the Western world.

Korean pop culture is becoming an increasingly global phenomenon, caused in part by the K-pop industry's adeptness at tapping into social networking services and the video sharing platform YouTube. Since the mid-2000s, the K-pop music market has experienced double digit growth rates. In the first half of 2012, it grossed nearly US$3.4 billion and was recognized by Time magazine as "South Korea's Greatest Export".

Hallyu (Korean Wave)

The increasing popularity of K-pop has been termed the “Korean Wave”, which refers to “the popularity of South Korean culture in other Asian countries”. Nowadays, the Korean Wave can be seen not only within Asian countries, but it is also making appearances in the Western music scene. This is due not only to the ways in which other cultures influence K-pop, but also to the idea that the K-pop industry and entertainment houses places immense pressure on their artists to be global performers. “K-pop entails the export of music ‘made in Korea’ to global consumers”. K-pop is created with the goal of not only being popular within Korea and Asia, but also to display ‘Korean culture’ to those outside of Asia.

Towards the turn of the 21st century, the K-pop genre began spreading out to other regions of the world as part of the global Korean Wave. In 2002, Baby V.O.X.'s single "Coincidence" became popular in many Asian countries because it was released and promoted right away during theWorld Cup in South Korea and BoA became the first K-pop singer to reach No. 1 on the JapaneseOricon music chart. Shortly afterwards, the South Korean music artist Rain gave a sold-out concert to 40,000 fans in Beijing.

In 2003, the girl group Baby V.O.X. topped the Chinese music charts with their Chinese single I'm Still Loving You from their third album Devotion, thus being the first idol group to do so and making a huge fanbase in China and also charted in various music charts in Thailand with singles What Should I Do and I'm Still Loving You. Since the mid-2000s, a huge portion of the East Asian music market has been dominated by K-pop idol groups.

In 2008, South Korea's cultural exports (including television dramas and computer games) rose to US$2 billion for the first time, maintaining an annual growth rate of over 10%. That year, Japan accounted for almost 68% of all K-pop export revenues, ahead of China (11.2%) and the United States (2.1%). The sale of concert tickets proved to be a lucrative business as fans were willing to fork out large sums to see their idols. For example, TVXQ's Tohoshinki Live Tour in Japan sold over 850,000 tickets at an average cost of US$109 each, generating a total of $US92.6 million in revenues. Over 60% of the K-pop industry's export revenue is derived from the sale of concert tickets.

According to Foreign Policy, the K-pop genre subsequently took off in Southeast Asia before reaching out to the Middle East, Eastern Europe, andSouth America. In 2012, the number of fans in Turkey surpassed 100,000 for the first time, and reached 150,000 in 2013. That year, there were 70 K-pop fan clubs in Mexico, with at least 60,000 members altogether.

Several singers decided to expand their music careers by releasing English language-studio albums in the hope of bringing over the genre to Western music markets. Such attempts did not yield much success.

In 2012, K-pop's breakthrough into the Western mainstream media occurred through the release of Psy's "Gangnam Style," which racked up over 2 billion views on YouTube as of July 2014, the first ever Internet video to reach one billion views.

Other recent milestones attained by K-pop bands and musicians include:

• February 2006: Rain had two sold-out performances at the theater at Madison Square Garden.
• May 2007: Rain was the first K-pop music artist to perform at Japan's biggest concert hall, the Tokyo Dome, in front of 40,000 fans. The show was sold out within two days after the tickets went on sale.
• October 2009: The Wonder Girls entered the US Billboard Hot 100 music chart with their single "Nobody", which was widely noted for its music video's viral spread. It has surpassed 50 million views on YouTube.
• September 2010: SM Entertainment held its first concert outside the Asian continent with the SMTown Live '10 World Tour in Los Angeles. This preceded two sold-out concerts at the Zénith de Paris a few months later in France. The original concert at Staples Center in Los Angeles grossed over US$1 million, and took the 9th position on the Billboard Boxscore Chart.
• August 2011: Billboard launched the Korea K-Pop Hot 100 music chart which was discontinued in 2014.
• November 2011: 2NE1 was the first K-pop artist chosen as MTV Iggy’s "Best New Band in the World."
• November 2011: Big Bang faced off competition from Britney Spears and German singer Lena Meyer-Landrut to clinch the 2011 MTV Europe Music Award for Best Worldwide Act.^[91] Shortly after, Google announced that its subsidiary YouTube would launch its own K-pop channel.^[92]
• December 2011: The total number of YouTube views generated by K-Pop videos in 2011 surpassed 1 billion. It had tripled from 800 million in the previous year to more than 2.3 billion, spurred by growth in viewership from Europe and the Middle East. In the same month, the United Cube Concert was held in São Paulo, Brazil, heralding the arrival of K-pop in South America.
• February 2012: Girls' Generation's appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman and Live! with Kelly on January 31 and February 1, 2012, in the United States where they performed remixes of the English version of their song, "The Boys". It marked the first time that a Korean musical act has performed on each of the shows.
• March 2012: The longest running boy band in the industry, Shinhwa, who debuted in 1998, released new music after a four-year hiatus during which the band members had served individual mandatory military services. After becoming the first K-pop band to enter the Billboard 200music chart with their album Alive, Big Bang kicked off the Alive Tour in 25 cities worldwide. The tour ended in early 2013, and was attended by 800,000 concert-goers around the world.
• September 2012: 2NE1 became the first K-pop girl group to rank on Billboard's Current Box Score. The group held their New Evolution Concert at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles on August 24. 6,680 of the 6,714 tickets put on sale were sold, bringing in a gross sales of $653,716, and ranking at #29 on Billboard's 
• November 2012: Psy's "Gangnam Style" became the most viewed video on YouTube. He became the first Asian pop star to cross over worldwide as well as helping K-pop penetrate the Western music markets. After topping the record charts of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Honduras, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States. It was also awarded the MTV Europe Music Award for Best Video, and became the first video on YouTube to hit a billion views.
• December 2012: Towards the end of the year, The New York Times selected 2NE1's performance at the Prudential Center in New Jersey as one of the "Best Concerts of 2012".
• March 2013: f(x) became the first K-pop group to perform at SXSW during the K-Pop Night Out at SXSW in Austin, Texas.
• April 2013: Girls' Generation's YouTube video for its 2009 single "Gee" surpassed 100 million views and becomes the first by a K-pop idol group to do so. In the same month, Super Junior extended the Super Show 5 Tour to Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Santiago and Lima, making it the largest K-pop tour in South America.
• August 2013: TVXQ concluded its successful Japanese tour Live Tour 2013: Time with two landmark performances at the prestigious Nissan Stadium, in front of a total of 140,000 fans across the two nights. They became the first Korean artists in history to perform at the venue, and only the fourth musical artist overall to do so.
• November 2013: Girls' Generation was awarded with the "Video of the Year" at the 2013 YouTube Music Awards for their music video "I Got a Boy".
• December 2013: EXO; with over a million copies sold, their 1st album "XOXO" became Korea's best-selling album in 12 years.
• May 2014: EXO's album Overdose sold 300,000 copies of the Korean version of the album. EXO-K's version of the five-track EP got into theBillboard 200 at No. 129, setting the record for the highest-charting album for male groups in K-pop. EXO-K's first-week sales surpassed the chart position of K-pop band Big Bang, who hit No. 150 on the Billboard 200 with "Alive" in 2012.
• August 2014: Microsoft recruited 2NE1‘s "[I Am The Best]" to promote the Surface Pro 3.
• December 2014: 2NE1's '[Gotta Be You]' was named MTV Iggy's "Song Of The Year."  2NE1's album Crush was the only album of an Asian artist listed on Fuse TV’s 40 Best Albums Of 2014 List. That album was also the only one from an Asian artist named on Rolling Stone's "20 Best Pop Albums of 2014" list. Crush ranked at No. 11 on Billboard's year-end World Albums chart, marking the first time a K-pop act has appeared on the year-end chart.
• April 2015: Girls' Generation's Japanese version of "Mr. Taxi" surpassed 100 million views on YouTube. They became the first K-Pop group to have 4 official YouTube videos, "Gee", "I Got A Boy", "The Boys" and "Mr Taxi (Japanese Version) with 100 million or higher views.
• April 2015: EXO's album Exodus sold 6,000 copies of their new album. It was the largest sales week ever for a K-pop act's album in America, landing the group at No. 70 on the Top Album Sales chart and No. 95 on the Billboard 200. This surpasses 2NE1's Crush album, which hit No. 61 on the Billboard 200 after selling 5,000 copies in the week ending March 2, 2014, and formerly held the record for K-pop's biggest sales week. EXO now holds the record for not only the biggest sales week for a K-pop album ever, but also the highest-charting album for male groups.

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