K-pop in Argentina: the 10 songs that dominate on iTunes

K-pop It managed to consolidate itself as one of the strongest and most promising industries in the world after its conquest in the West and the proof is that even the coronavirus pandemic could not stop the profits of a million dollars from major companies. entertainment agencies.

Its importance is such that only Dynamite, the most successful song of the BTS group, involved a revenue of 1.4 billion dollars for the South Korean economy, according to figures released by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

The popular boyband video managed to smash various records in the music industry as the most viewed video in the first 24 hours (with 101.1 million views), a clip that has already accumulated more than a billion views on the YouTube platform to date.

Understanding the interest that K-pop generates in the world, important platforms related to the music industry have given more spaces for its inclusion, for example with charts such as those produced by Billboard, with the creation of new shortlists in various prizes to reward fandoms, or popular playlists such as “ON! by Spotify. (formerly called “K-pop Daebak”).

iTunes has not been left behind and also has its own tally of the most played K-pop songs per day in at least 39 countries, including Argentina.

Here is the list of the 10 most popular K-pop singles today:

1. about you
Artist: SOULBYSEL & Def

2. Fight (feat. Lee Young Ji)
Artist: BSS

3. best friend ever
Artist: NCT DREAM

4. Attack on Bangtan
Artist: BTS

5. Still to come
Artist: BTS

6. HOT
Artist: SEVENTEEN

7. Darl + Ing
Artist: SEVENTEEN

8. A day
Artist: MONSTA X

9. The astronaut
Artist: Jin

ten.Ice

Modern K-pop (from English “Korean pop”) has its origins in the 90s with the debut of popular group Seo Taiji and Boys in 1992, known for incorporating western musical genres such as rap, hip-hop, rock, jazz, electronic and techno into their songs.

This trio, made up of Seo Taiji, Yang Hyun-suk and Lee Junodebuted on a talent show on MBC with the song Nan Arayo, surprising the jury, who gave them the lowest marks. However, the success this single received on radio and TV was overwhelming, leading to more songs in this style being released and more artists opting into it.

It wasn’t until 1995 that producer Lee Soo Man founded one of the companies that remains a “heavyweight” in the music industry to this day, S&M Entertainment; while former Seo Taiji & Boys member Yang Hyun Suk created YG Entertainment (nineteen ninety-six); followed by JYP Entertainment (1997), created by singer Park Jin Young.

These three companies were long called the “Big 3” ‒until the success BTS achieved thanks to BigHit Entertainment (now known as Hybe Labels)‒ and were dedicated to teaching early generation idols, in order to satisfy Korean audiences’ demand to see younger artists.

In this way, the HOT group was one of the first to debut in the industry, followed by others who made up the famous “first generation of K-pop” like Sechs Kies, SES, Fin.KL, NRG, Baby VOX, Diva, Shinhwa and god

At the start of the new millennium, some of the idol groups that had debuted were without activities while others like Baby Vox were successful in various parts of Asia, an example of which was their song Coincidence, which was promoted at the 2003 FIFA World Cup and which topped the Chinese music charts.

At the same time, other artists who went solo also marked a turning point: Boathe first Korean singer to lead the Oricon chart in Japan, an equivalent of the Billboard chart but Asian and in which artists from other countries rarely manage to enter and Rainan actor and singer who performed in front of 40,000 people in Beijing.

Break down the barriers

Later I’ll make the call “second generation of K-pop”still in the hands of groups made up of young figures such as TVXQ (started in 2003), SS501 (2005), Super Junior (2005), BIGBANG (2006), as well as girl groups like Wonder Girls (2007), Girls generation (2007) and KARA (2007).

In 2008, South Korea was already leading the entertainment market in Asia with an annual growth rate of more than 10% in the exports of its musical and television products with K-dramas, even representing 68% of the music market in Japan, ahead of China (11.2%) and the United States (2.1%).

Later, other bands like SHINee or INFINITYthe latter who managed to obtain the record of being the first to top the Billboard Emerging Artists chart in 2014 with his song Last Romeo; 2PM, EXO, 2IN1, until you reach the third generation of K-pop where new groups such as BTS, Seventeen, GOT7, Twice, Red Velvet, BLACKPINK, MAMAMOO, among othersso far fourth generation which are everyone who debuted between 2017 and 2018 like Stray Kids, ITZY, Ateez, Astro and more.

It should be mentioned that a watershed that should be considered is Rapper PSY’s Gangnam Stylea song that not only managed to break unimaginable records on music platforms such as Youtubebut it also traveled the world and showed that language was no barrier to success in highly competitive countries like American industry.

To this day, the relay of the greatest representatives of K-pop is held by the group BTS ‒integrated by Suga, RM, Jin, Jimin, J-Hope, V and Jungkook‒, who in addition to dominating the music industry in South Korea and consolidating their notoriety in the rest of the world, were named “Asia’s trend leader” by The Economist and “Artists of the year” by TIME magazine, through his Grammy Award Nominations and his 10 Billboard Awards.