By Crystal Bell, Nylon | Look at the biggest songs in the U.S. right now and you’ll find a bit of everything: Miley Cyrus’s anthemic pop comeback; SZA’s revenge ruminations; Selena Gomez’s cross-cultural collab with Nigerian singer Rema; and controversial country star Morgan Wallen’s unvanquishable return. At the forefront of the list sits Park Jimin’s “Like Crazy,” the glittery solo debut from BTS’s graceful tenor. [Let’s not forget Metallica’s new album 72 Seasons!]
When Jimin topped the Billboard Hot 100 with “Like Crazy” on April 4, he became the first South Korean artist to do so. As a member of the most influential pop act of the last decade, Jimin placing atop the singles chart isn’t all that surprising in the era of hyperactive fandom. As a group, BTS have six Billboard No. 1 singles. In total, they’ve charted 26 songs in the 14 years since Wonder Girls made history as the first Korean act to appear on the Hot 100, where rookie girl group Fifty Fifty currently sits at No. 60 with their surprise hit “Cupid.” The charming February release has been gaining momentum on TikTok, even appearing on Ariana Grande’s Instagram Story.
The weekly chart, which takes into consideration audio and visual streams and radio airplay impressions, is still considered an indicator of mainstream success. And Korean-language music claiming a spot on it is still a big deal. Combined with K-pop acts now filling arenas on a regular basis, booking coveted U.S. airtime, generating billions worldwide, and now headlining the most prestigious music festivals, it begs the question: Has K-pop finally become mainstream?
To answer this question, it’s necessary to understand what “mainstream” means. More often than not for Korean artists it means making a commercial impact in the U.S. by releasing music in English. The success of BTS’s “Dynamite” and “Butter” — English-language singles released under Columbia Records — led to tracks like TWICE’s “The Feels” (the group’s first entry on the Hot 100) and LOONA’s breakthrough radio hit “Star.” These are the songs that get pushed to radio and performed on television, mostly feel-good bops made to appeal to the widest possible audience.
This is what Andrew Mall, an assistant professor of music at Northeastern University, describes as “mainstreaming.” It’s the strategic process through which a genre of music’s audience “gets bigger than its community of origin,” he tells NYLON. “It’s the result of intentional decisions made by record labels and not necessarily by artists, usually made by the music industry professionals that are responsible for distributing them, selling them, and finding audiences and marketing them.”
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Read more here:
https://www.nylon.com/entertainment/is-k-pop-mainstream-blackpink-jimin-coachella-tomorrow-x-together?
May 4, 2023| Music Notes| Barb Dye