K-Pop in the US: a massive fire, or just a lot of smoke?

BTS at the 2018 Billboard Music Awards.  Is 1000-Pop a massive burn down, or simply a lot of smoke?

The net is a giant amplifier, making things seem like a bigger deal than they really are. Even something like Kpop, which basically sucks.

Step into the right repeat chamber, and whatever you lot recollect is cool is instantly a one thousand thousand times cooler, with none of that pesky "perspective" getting in the style of that wet blanket we call "reality".

In 2017, Grammy.com posted an article titled Why is Kpop'due south popularity exploding in the Usa?. On May 29th, 2018, NPR published an commodity titled Kpop, Korean Pop Music, Hits No. ane in the U.S., in response to BTS's new album striking #one on the Billboard 200 chart. A few days later on, The Guardian proclaimed English language is no longer the default language of American pop. If y'all go on Twitter, barely a day goes by without a agglomeration of Kpop fans getting something trending.

Human, Kpop must be the biggest f—king matter in the Us right now, huh?

Well, here's that pesky "perspective" to become in the way. BTS's big hit "Fake Dear" striking #10 on Billboard iv weeks agone. Impressive, right? A calendar week later it dropped below #xl. Two weeks later on that?  It'southward #71 and dropping like thugs in a hammer fight in the South Korean thriller "Oldboy".

BTS' album, Love Yourself: Tear hit #one four weeks ago. This week it's #20, being beaten by Ed Sheeran's Divide, an album that'southward been on the charts for 67 weeks. Oh, and what'due south #x on the Hot 100 this week? The 34 week quondam Bebe Rexha/Florida Georgia Line Pop/Country crossover "Meant to Be".

For something considered "popular", these are pretty weak numbers. Consider how well (or really how poorly) something has to perform to make the summit 10 on the Billboard Top 200 in this day and age, when album sales are in the toilet and streaming is supreme.  Nosotros don't have all the data for the unabridged chart, merely we do have what Billboard's willing to share, which is the superlative ten.

This week, we returned to the year 1996 with Dave Matthews Band (YES, Dave Matthews Band) taking the #ane anthology with just under 300,000 "equivalent albums" moved (this includes streams, they have an algorithm for how many streams equal an album "sale"). #10 was Shawn Mendes' most contempo album, notching 31,000 units. That'due south non a typo, but 31,000 beggarly units.

So, nosotros can just guess that the number of units needed to attain #xx is probably quite a fleck lower than 31,000.

Once again, Ed Sheeran's twelvemonth-and-three-month-old album managed to bring in more than equivalent albums than a brand new BTS album.  I remember this tells yous all you demand to know almost how truly popular K-Pop is in the U.s.a..  Mayhap if their fans spent more fourth dimension actually streaming the albums and less time "stanning" their favorite boys on Twitter, that number would exist higher.

Oh, and by the way, if you take a look at both the Hot 100 and Top 200?  Y'all might notice a significant lack of Kpop.  Over on the album chart I run into:

  • The Moana soundtrack at #72 (didn't that movie come out in 2016?)
  • Zac Brown Band's Greatest Hits So Far… at #77 (that must be an EP, right?)
  • Taylor Swift's 1989 at #114 (her 2014 release)

As I made it to #139 I institute another Kpop album: BTS'southward Love Yourself: Her. 2 spots up at #137 by the fashion? AC/DC'south Back in Blackness. The other BTS album in this nautical chart is beingness beaten past a classic stone anthology that came out nearly xl years ago, and in a week when none of their members even died.

You know what I didn't see though?

Girl'southward Generation, EXO, BTOB, Blackpink, or Twice.  So where's this "Explosion"?  Seems more like a small bottle rocket going off during a massive fireworks brandish of North American pop and hip-hop.

"Kpop" isn't #1, a few hardcore, very mouthy fans have made information technology seem like it is even though Kpop basically sucks.  They're the ones who are buying information technology and listening to information technology calendar week 1, only regular music listeners aren't picking up the slack the adjacent week or the calendar week afterward that like they practice with all the same pop and hip-hop songs that stick around the charts for months.

Drake's "God's Program" is Still in the top 10, and "Dainty For What" is back at #1. THAT is popularity, when people are still listening to your music weeks, months after it came out, and it continues to proceeds a new audience from more than casual listeners.

And don't recall for a second Billboard is "bias". It'southward all simply numbers. If Kanye can put out an anthology with very little hype (compared to his last album) and have every song chart on the Hot 100 (likely almost entirely based on streams), it stands to reason that if Grand-Popular is so pop in the The states, more than songs would be charting. But they aren't, and the reason is simple: because more people are listening to the other 100 songs on the nautical chart.

Then, despite the Guardian's claims, I don't think Americans are going to have to take an Introduction to Korean form to be able to listen to the radio any time presently.

There'south no takeover, the Korean invasion is like the British Invasion if the Beatles showed upward, the few hundred girls screaming at the airport were the merely people who bought their music, everyone considered those girls weird nerds, and no other British bands ever reached the aforementioned level of popularity as American groups.  In other words, it'southward basically the verbal opposite of the British Invasion in every single style.

Notation: Buckley at to the lowest degree understands that all the things he likes aren't actually pop, and never will be.