In June, BTS producer and Hybe founder Bang Si-hyuk was seen in photos promoting The Kid Laroi’s release, days after The Kid Laroi signed with American music mogul Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Records, which Hybe acquired earlier this year.Īccording to Cho, getting a sign of approval from Bang, who has made some of South Korea’s biggest hits for decades, may have helped boost the popularity of Stay in the local market, by creating buzz and assuring audiences that a foreign release might suit local tastes.Īs international deals between music and entertainment companies become more popular, local tastemakers’ credibility may boost popularity for songs that wouldn’t typically make their way onto local music charts.
Shin Cho, the head of K-pop and J-pop in Asia for Warner Music, says that just as Korean entertainment companies are looking to other music markets for audiences that are becoming more open to foreign content, overseas entertainment executives are seeing Korea in the same light. Occasionally, there are successes aside from one-off non-Korean songs, such as Anne Marie’s 2018 song 2002, which became a big hit in the country but didn’t gain the same fame internationally, and Bieber is a regular favourite of charts, but those one-offs are becoming increasingly more common in recent years.Īccording to industry insiders, there are a number of reasons behind the shift in consumer behaviour, but the biggest one is that while South Korean pop culture is gaining popularity beyond its border, the local scene is also becoming more international.
While English hitmakers have regularly found love from local music listeners and occasionally chart high, the South Korean charts & streaming platforms are mostly dominated with releases from K-pop stars and Korean ballads, R&B, and hip-hop acts.Īespa’s English language single Savage has knocked Stay by The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber off the Number 1 spot on South Korean chart Melon. On Oct 8, for example, a few days after Savage dropped, out of popular chart Melon’s top 15 songs, three were by non-Korean artists, and four others, all by BTS, were in English, as well as their bilingual collaboration with Coldplay.Īcross most South Korean music charts, Savage, Stay, and BTS and Coldplay’s My Universe have spent the past few days hopping between the top three spots. Last week, K-pop girl group Aespa’s new single Savage replaced the long-standing chart-topper, Stay by The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber, the latest example of the popularity of English-language songs in the South Korean music scene. While K-pop acts like BTS and Blackpink may be getting more popular in English-language music markets, music in English is also gaining a larger foothold in South Korea, a sign of the increasing connectivity of global music industries.