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 fire, or just a lot of smoke?

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

Step into the right echo chamber, and whatever you think is cool is instantly a one thousand thousand times cooler, with none of that pesky "perspective" getting in the fashion of that moisture coating nosotros call "reality".

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

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

Well, here's that pesky "perspective" to get in the way. BTS's large striking "Imitation Honey" striking #10 on Billboard four weeks ago. Impressive, right? A calendar week afterward it dropped below #40. Two weeks after that?  Information technology'south #71 and dropping similar thugs in a hammer fight in the South Korean thriller "Oldboy".

BTS' album, Love Yourself: Tear striking #1 four weeks agone. This week it'southward #20, being beaten past Ed Sheeran's Divide, an album that'south been on the charts for 67 weeks. Oh, and what's #10 on the Hot 100 this week? The 34 week one-time Bebe Rexha/Florida Georgia Line Pop/State 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 brand the meridian 10 on the Billboard Acme 200 in this twenty-four hours and age, when album sales are in the toilet and streaming is supreme.  We don't have all the data for the entire chart, but we do have what Billboard'due south willing to share, which is the top ten.

This week, we returned to the twelvemonth 1996 with Dave Matthews Band (YES, Dave Matthews Band) taking the #1 anthology with just under 300,000 "equivalent albums" moved (this includes streams, they take an algorithm for how many streams equal an album "sale"). #10 was Shawn Mendes' about recent album, notching 31,000 units. That's not a typo, just 31,000 beggarly units.

So, we can only approximate that the number of units needed to reach #20 is probably quite a bit lower than 31,000.

Once again, Ed Sheeran's year-and-three-calendar month-old album managed to bring in more than equivalent albums than a brand new BTS album.  I recall this tells you all you lot demand to know about how truly popular K-Pop is in the US.  Maybe if their fans spent more fourth dimension really streaming the albums and less time "stanning" their favorite boys on Twitter, that number would be higher.

Oh, and by the style, if you take a look at both the Hot 100 and Top 200?  You might notice a significant lack of Kpop.  Over on the anthology nautical chart I see:

  • The Moana soundtrack at #72 (didn't that picture come out in 2016?)
  • Zac Chocolate-brown Ring's Greatest Hits And so Far… at #77 (that must exist an EP, correct?)
  • Taylor Swift's 1989 at #114 (her 2014 release)

As I made it to #139 I found another Kpop album: BTS's Beloved Yourself: Her. Two spots up at #137 by the style? AC/DC's Back in Black. The other BTS anthology in this chart is beingness browbeaten by a classic rock anthology that came out nearly 40 years agone, and in a week when none of their members even died.

You know what I didn't see though?

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

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

Drake'south "God's Program" is Withal in the elevation 10, and "Overnice For What" is back at #1. THAT is popularity, when people are notwithstanding listening to your music weeks, months after it came out, and it continues to gain a new audition from more casual listeners.

And don't remember for a 2nd Billboard is "bias". It's all just numbers. If Kanye can put out an anthology with very little hype (compared to his last album) and accept every song nautical chart on the Hot 100 (likely about entirely based on streams), it stands to reason that if K-Pop is so popular in the U.s., more songs would exist charting. Just they aren't, and the reason is simple: because more than people are listening to the other 100 songs on the chart.

And then, despite the Guardian'southward claims, I don't think Americans are going to have to take an Introduction to Korean course to be able to listen to the radio any fourth dimension soon.

There'southward no takeover, the Korean invasion is like the British Invasion if the Beatles showed up, the few hundred girls screaming at the aerodrome 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, it's basically the exact opposite of the British Invasion in every unmarried way.

NOTE: Buckley at least understands that all the things he likes aren't actually popular, and never volition be.