What truly binds the industry now is its perfection-honing training system and emphasis on highly conceptual multimedia storytelling. It’s a culture that values the collective, looks toward innovation, and is highly attuned to emotions - resulting in cutting-edge songs and performances that explode with feeling, yet are accessible to a mass audience. Though K-pop boldly mashes together genres from all over the world (sparking its fair share of conversations about the ethics of appropriation), it has still maintained its distinctly Korean ethos. K-pop’s enormous success is still predominantly fueled by the enthusiasm of teens and young adults, passionate devotees who look to their idols for belonging and inspiration. Thus was born a multi-billion-dollar industry, now embraced globally across generations and cultures.
Not only did the group’s original blend of Korean ballad melodies with New Jack Swing, rap, and dance music shock the general public, but their dancing and aesthetic, heavily inspired by Black American trends of the time, appealed to a generation of young people eager to embrace contemporary Western culture. The birth of modern K-pop is often dated to 1992, when Seo Taiji and Boys, a dance-oriented trio led by an ex-metalhead, performed their song “I Know” on the South Korean network MBC.
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