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

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

The internet is a giant amplifier, making things seem like a bigger deal than they really are. Fifty-fifty something like Kpop, which basically sucks.

Step into the correct echo chamber, and any you retrieve is absurd is instantly a million times cooler, with none of that pesky "perspective" getting in the style of that wet blanket we telephone call "reality".

In 2017, Grammy.com posted an article titled Why is Kpop's popularity exploding in the Us?. On May 29th, 2018, NPR published an article titled Kpop, Korean Popular Music, Hits No. one in the U.Due south., in response to BTS's new anthology hitting #1 on the Billboard 200 nautical chart. A few days later, The Guardian proclaimed English language is no longer the default language of American pop. If you go along Twitter, barely a day goes past without a agglomeration of Kpop fans getting something trending.

Human, Kpop must exist the biggest f—king matter in the United States right now, huh?

Well, here's that pesky "perspective" to get in the manner. BTS's large hit "Faux Dear" hitting #10 on Billboard four weeks ago. Impressive, right? A week later information technology dropped beneath #40. Two weeks after that?  It's #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 information technology'southward #20, being beaten by Ed Sheeran'south Carve up, an album that's been on the charts for 67 weeks. Oh, and what'south #10 on the Hot 100 this calendar week? The 34 week old Bebe Rexha/Florida Georgia Line Popular/Country crossover "Meant to Be".

For something considered "popular", these are pretty weak numbers. Consider how well (or actually how poorly) something has to perform to make the superlative 10 on the Billboard Top 200 in this twenty-four hours and age, when anthology sales are in the toilet and streaming is supreme.  We don't have all the information for the unabridged nautical chart, only we practice have what Billboard'due south willing to share, which is the top 10.

This week, nosotros returned to the year 1996 with Dave Matthews Ring (YES, Dave Matthews Ring) taking the #1 album with just under 300,000 "equivalent albums" moved (this includes streams, they have an algorithm for how many streams equal an album "sale"). #x was Shawn Mendes' most recent album, notching 31,000 units. That's not a typo, just 31,000 measly units.

And then, we can only guess that the number of units needed to reach #xx is probably quite a scrap lower than 31,000.

Again, Ed Sheeran's year-and-iii-month-old album managed to bring in more equivalent albums than a make new BTS album.  I remember this tells you all you need to know nigh how truly popular K-Popular is in the US.  Maybe if their fans spent more time actually streaming the albums and less time "stanning" their favorite boys on Twitter, that number would be college.

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

  • The Moana soundtrack at #72 (didn't that movie come out in 2016?)
  • Zac Dark-brown Band'southward Greatest Hits And so Far… at #77 (that must be an EP, right?)
  • Taylor Swift'south 1989 at #114 (her 2014 release)

As I fabricated it to #139 I found another Kpop album: BTS's Dear Yourself: Her. Two spots upwardly at #137 by the way? Air conditioning/DC'southward Back in Black. The other BTS album in this chart is beingness beaten by a classic rock album that came out almost twoscore years agone, and in a week when none of their members even died.

You lot know what I didn't run across though?

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

"Kpop" isn't #1, a few hardcore, very mouthy fans have made it seem like it is fifty-fifty though Kpop basically sucks.  They're the ones who are buying it and listening to it calendar week 1, but regular music listeners aren't picking up the slack the next week or the week afterward that like they do with all the aforementioned popular and hip-hop songs that stick effectually the charts for months.

Drake's "God's Plan" is STILL in the summit 10, and "Nice 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 gain a new audience from more casual listeners.

And don't think for a 2nd Billboard is "bias". Information technology'south all merely numbers. If Kanye can put out an album with very little hype (compared to his concluding album) and have every song chart on the Hot 100 (likely almost entirely based on streams), it stands to reason that if K-Pop is so popular in the US, more songs would be charting. But they aren't, and the reason is simple: considering more people are listening to the other 100 songs on the nautical chart.

So, despite the Guardian's claims, I don't call back Americans are going to take to take an Introduction to Korean form to exist able to listen to the radio whatsoever time shortly.

There's no takeover, the Korean invasion is like the British Invasion if the Beatles showed up, the few hundred girls screaming at the drome were the only people who bought their music, everyone considered those girls weird nerds, and no other British bands ever reached the same level of popularity as American groups.  In other words, information technology's basically the exact opposite of the British Invasion in every single way.

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