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K-POP History :: Third Generation

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Monday, 1st November 2021

A lot of boy groups and girl groups started to pop up. The dominant group of this transition era was EXO. EXO debuts in 2012 in two groups EXO-M and EXO-K. EXO has the biggest and also the most notorious fandom in Korea. They put out hits after hits like Growl, Overdose, Call me baby, Monster, Lotto. Their only rival might be the still yet hugely successful Big Bang. They slowly open the doors to the 3rd generation.

EXO

These are some of the characteristics of the 3rd Generation of Kpop
Mass inflation and red ocean of idols, a saturated market.
Globalization as a norm, catching a global audience is a must.

Idol Audition survival programs. Because of the red ocean of idols, naturally, the mass public begins to dislike idols due to a lack of creativity over overlapping concepts, and exhaustion of idol music. This is when the public starts to divide the term idol with artists.

Many major TV audition programs become popular looking for real talents and singers of vocals rather than visually appealing dance-based idols that only get to sing a few seconds in one song.

In the meantime in 2012, the worldwide viral hit PSY - Gangnam style happened, getting the once most viewed video on the planet. Thanks to its addictive, hilarious dance and beat. It got a number two on the Billboard hot 100. This is basically the first time the entire world notices a country called South Korea and Kpop.

Gangnam Style, PSY

In the 3rd generation, despite the influx of idol groups, the only ones that survive are groups that have amazing music quality or musical talent or something different. Because the Korean market is so small and saturated, it now becomes the norm to have at least more than one global English-speaking member in the group. The girl groups that are leading the 3rd generation are Trinity, Twice, Blackpink, and Red Velvet.

JYP's girl group Twice has earned the absent nations girl group title since Girls Generation along with major hit songs that dominated Korea and Japan mostly like Cheer up, TT, Knock Knock, Likey and Fancy. Interestingly these girls were also the result of an audition program called Sixteen.

Twice

YG's girl group Blackpink has the record of most youtube views- 15.7 million in 24 hrs, with its "Kill this Love" music video topping Ariana Grande.
Their music videos have this much count each.

Also, they are the highest-charting female Kpop group on Billboard Hot 100 and 200. They also had the epic stage at Coachella too. Recently, Blackpink member Lisa set a new global record for the most views by any solo artist in the first 24 hours. 'Lalisa' received 70 million views within 24 hours.

Blackpink

SM's group Red Velvet might not be as big as the former two in size, but is always praised by the public and critics for their unique sound and high-quality songs. The high magazine has highlighted their versatile musical style and named them as one of the best Kpop groups. Billboard agreed too in 2019. Also, Red Velvet was the first Kpop group to perform in North Korea and Kim Jung Un adjusted the schedule to go see them.

Red Velvet

There are many other talented, hard-working girl groups such as Mamamoo, Momoland, IZ*ONE, Loona, (G)I-DLE, CLC, Dreamcatcher, G-Friend, Lovelyz, Oh my girl, WJSN, GWSN, Everglow, Weki Meki, and more. 

As for boy groups, it's hard to pick definitive popularity or impact but to just name a few Seventeen, NCT, GOT7, Winner, iKON, Ateez, Straykids, Monstax are definitely the biggest and most popular globally. Most of these groups actively go on world tours and appear on western TV shows nowadays. And there are more groups like VAV, Impact, Victon, Astro, Pentagon, SF9, The Boyz, Ace, JBJ, Golden Child, IN2IT, UNB, Verivery, ONEUS and more. So many girl groups, boy groups, mixed groups, new global audience, thus various music styles as well.

IU is Korea's nation sister and also the nation's singer. She's been around 2008 with numerous ballad and Kpop hit songs. She singlehandedly has the popularity of Kpop's biggest idols. Then there's k-hip hop and r&b, a whole scene of its own, Zico, who has an overlapped background with Kpop.

Finally, there is one group that needs a separate section in Kpop history. And it is BTS, the world's famous handsome singers and dancers.

BTS

BTS started off as a small company called Big Hit (now called Hybe) under the producer Bang Si Hyuk, who was the former colleague and good friend to JYP but spilt past to make his own company. Bang Si Hyuk gathered seven members originally in plans to make a hip hop group however the concept and musical style diversified over the years. During their first years, BTS didn't get much attention, often getting mocked by their group name, Bulletproof Boy Scouts. Apparently, some or many people thought their appearances were unpretty (Stupid people). However, BTS differentiated themselves from other idols by speaking about unspoken in their lyrics, such as mental health, youth problem, social issues, and their journey towards loving oneself. BTS also made their own universe and story in their music videos. They made moderate success until they got mainstream with their songs- I need U, Dope, Save me, and fire.

(Fireeeeeeee.....bow wow wow... STAN BTS FOR BETTER LIFE)

After that every move they made pretty much became history. They topped billboard top 200 four times in a row alongside the Beatles, appeared multiple times on major American TV shows, got awarded by the billboard music awards, AMA, multiple times, did a Grammys act (Scammy), did a UN speech and performed at UN General Assembly, did a cover of Times, had stadium world tours including Wembley and Saudi Arabia, sold over 20 million cumulative albums.

BTS received their diplomatic passports and a fountain pen each from the South Korean President, Moon Jae-in. Last year the President had appointed BTS — RM, Jin, J-Hope, Jimin, Suga, V, and Jungkook as Special Presidential Envoy for Future Generations and Culture.

BTS at UN General Assembly

BTS with President Moon Jae-in

Dynamite, BTS's first song fully recorded in English debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100 on the chart, it became the first song by a South Korean musical act of any kind to reach the summit on the ranking. It set a new YouTube record for 101 million views in the first 24 hours of release. Butter, BTS's 2nd English song broke the record gaining 108 million views in 24 hours. The lead single of Be, "Life Goes on", also debuted at the Hot 100, becoming BTS's 3rd consecutive chart-topper in the United States. The album was BTS's fifth to debut at number one on the Billboard 200, making BTS the fastest group to earn five chart-topping albums in the United States since The Beatles. Permission to Dance, written by Ed Sheeran was their 3rd English song. Beating their song Butter, which was at number one for 7 weeks on billboard hot 100, Permission to dance rise at 1st place on the billboard, and then gave Butter the top spot again. Butter to PTD to Butter... BTS topped Billboard for 10 consecutive weeks.

BTS has become so big that they have been expressed as the BTS or Korean invasion just like the British invasion by the Beatles by multiple critics and Journalists. Many point out that it's even more significant regarding the fact that many BTS songs and lyrics were not in English but in Korean. They also started out as underdogs in the Kpop industry in Seoul struggling without the support of big capital norm media. In the meantime, there might have been attempts to compete with BTS. For example, SM made their own Avengers by combining members from existing successful groups like SHINEE, EXO, NCT into a collaborative single group called SuperM. While they did get number one on Billboard 200, many people criticized bundling issues in the process. However industry-wise, it was a fresh attempt that never happened before in Kpop history trying to officially combine members from different groups into one with an agenda to make success in the American or global market.

Back to BTS, as it's probably not an overstatement to say that BTS is probably bigger than all of Kpop combined at this point. However, from Seo Taeji to BTS, many groups existed. And every time, records were broken. Kpop is still evolving. The market is getting bigger and it's becoming more well known all around the world.

Source - DKDKTV
Collected by moon_minn
Edited by BhumikaBV 

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