K-Pop, oh, K-Pop, the way it has become K-Pop a huge hit in America since 2008 with groups like 2ne1 and Big Bang, and Girl Generation starting the K-Pop revolution, and were the first group to directly perform in America. But the song that directly made K-pop known to America, I’m assuming most people have heard it, is Gun Man Style by Psychics, which exploded K-pop into the American music culture, paving the way for everyone else. K-Pop is run by what is commonly referred to as the Big 4 companies. These companies own around 87% of all K-Pop music. The names of the companies are Hyde Entertainment, YO Entertainment, NYPD Entertainment, and Samantha entertainment.
Continuing on the article, K-Pop was lightly influenced by these 4 companies. The reason that K-Pop has gotten to the United States, as I mentioned a little earlier in the article, is these big 4 companies that are responsible for the majority of major K-Pop groups in the 2nd to 3rd generation. Some of those groups you may have heard of, such as Backlink, Twice, BTS, Idle, Red Velvet, Maryland, are the main groups of the 3rd generation and late second generation; those were the K-Pop groups from 2014-2018 that made K-Pop known in America.
Continuing on the 4-5th generation K-pop groups like Izzy, I’ve, Le Serbian, Ill it baby monster, and Stray kids, AESA, Jimmie, are the carriers for the 5th generation. They have led the charge since Blackpink haven’t been active lately, which includes BTS. These K-pop groups are continuing the legacy of what the original 2-3 gen K-pop groups did. This era is still ongoing. K-Pop as a music genre has arguably hit its largest ever popularity as an average of 750 K-Pop concerts happens in the United States yearly. This number is expected to keep on rising with the more K-Pop groups that enter the mainstream, the better the industry gets as a whole.
Yet K-Pop is not all sunshine and rainbows like the Big 4 want you to think, if you follow K-Pop you probably know about how terrible the industry is. It’s very common for K-Pop idols to debut at a very young age like between 9-14. To be more specific, the Big 4 companies have also been known to force terrible diets on their idols and force them to train 14+ hours a day, this is common practice for the Big 4 companies. These conditions are what have led to many lawsuits against the Big 4 companies, with the main ones being New Jeans vs Bye Entertainment. New Jeans lost that lawsuit. Cha vs AYP, Park Box vs KG, that was settled in Hype’s favor. K-Pop as a whole is a double-edged sword, with it being amazing and horrible at the same time.
This also shows in the number of K-Pop fans that are on the globe, with that number generally increasing every single year, with new K-Pop fans popping up every day. That is where the money is at and what the K-Pop industry is aiming towards
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/bts-kpop-albums-bands-global-takeover-7071
https://www.sj-r.com/story/entertainment/music/2017/11/22/kpop-group-bts-makes-its/16982859007/
