K-Pop’s Highs and Lows in 2023
A look back at the biggest stories and trends of the year.
IVE; Starship Entertainment
Bolstered by BTS’ dynamite success and pent up demand from the pandemic, K-Pop has never been more popular or as profitable as it is in 2023. This year, K-Pop retail companies became major players in the market by hosting exclusive events, selling limited signed albums and printing exclusive photocards. Tour companies that specialize in K-Pop experiences also cashed in on fans eager to engage with their favorite artists. And companies saw green from all angles: From YouTube vloggers who dropped hundreds of dollars on album hauls to fans who felt pressure to buy the most expensive seats for a tour.
What resulted is a transformative year for the industry. But there are signs that this might not last. Fans are not made of money and companies threaten to wear out their biggest supporters because of an insane production of more photocards, more tours, and more “exclusives”. There are other signs, too, that the K-Pop industry shouldn’t overlook if they want to continue to expand into the West.
So, here are the year’s lows and highs as I saw them:
ZB1; WakeOne Entertainment
HIGH: ZEROBASEONE Usher In a New Era of K-Pop
ZEROBASEONE is probably the biggest success story of the year. Comprising nine members, ZB1 is a “project” group put together by viewers of the smash hit competition show “Boys Planet”. The show was a phenomenon, drawing over 52 million votes from 176 countries to form the group and inspiring a gigantic volume of TikToks, threads on K-Pop Thoughts and now several project groups of contestants who didn’t win.
But ZEROBASEONE is a juggernaut all of their own making. They are a truly global group with members representing Canada, Korea, and China, and perhaps most notably, members who don’t shy away from queer representation. Vocalist Jiwoo is a famous Boys Love (BL) actor, while Hanbin, the group’s leader, went viral long before he was casted in the group for a performance to drag queen RuPaul’s “Call Me Mother”.
ZB1 is proof of the magic K-Pop can produce. Their debut EP “Youth in the Shade” sold 1,822,028 copies in its first, bolstering them into the top 5 for highest all-time sales by a K-Pop rookie group. But their second mini-album “MELTING POINT” went even higher selling 2,131,352 copies in it’s first week. I feel especially lucky to have seen the group perform at KCON in August in their U.S. debut. But after the release of a lightstick and massive album sales, we will likely see them again on tour in a matter of months.
LOW: The battle for ownership of SM Entertainment
In February, in-fighting at SM Entertainment spilled out into the public when Lee Soo-man announced that he would sell a 14.8% stake of SM Entertainment to Hybe, the multinational entertainment company established by Bang Si-hyuk of Big Hit. The deal made Hybe the largest shareholder of the company. Yet thingss became disastrous when Chris Lee, CEO of SM Entertainment, published a YouTube video accusing Lee of off-shore tax evasion, among other severe allegations. The reason? Chris Lee and several SM employees resisted what they saw as a “hostile takeover”. Instead, Chris Lee insisted that Kakao, a Korean conglomerate, should acquire SM.
In the meantime Hybe and SM company stans fought on Twitter and in Reddit threads. Overnight, stans received law degrees and became experts in stocks and taxes, all of which shifted into strange stan wars over which corporations was least “problematic”. Eventually, Hybe lost out to Kakao after the company increased their stake in SM to 39.9%.
The loss was a blow for Hybe and a shock to SM Entertainment artists, many who worked under Lee for nearly twenty years. But perhaps the biggest loser in this deal was Lee Soo-man: Ousted from the company he built and now saddled with a non-compete clause in K-Pop, he has announced plans to start “a new chapter” in China.
LE SSERAFIM; Hybe
HIGH: Girl Groups Are Best Sellers
In 2021, all of the 10 best-selling K-Pop albums came from boy groups. But this year four girl groups, IVE, NewJeans, LE SSERAFIM, and aespa, have shifted this trend. In a midyear album report, four female groups and two soloists were in the top 10 best-selling albums list. This was the year that K-Pop girl groups dominated the conversations, the dance challenges, and the charts. NewJeans is also likely one of the most successful groups of the year by any standard: They were included in the New York Times list for Best Albums of 2023, and their set at Lollapalooza solidified them as superstars in the making.
Jungkook; Hybe
LOW: Hybe Misses The Mark With English Releases
Let’s start off with the sort-of good: BTS’ Jungkook is now an American superstar. His debut solo album “Golden” hit number 1 on the Billboard charts and sparked two smash hit singles, “3D” and “Seven”. Yet I was not a fan of either of these: Not only did they sound completely generic, but they also are pretty sleazy. That’s not to mention Jack Harlow’s verse on “3D” that reads, “Now when I hold somebody’s hand, it’s a new story/All my ABGs get cute for me.” “What”, as my friend Sam Lui asked, “does Jack Harlow know about Asian Baby Girls (ABG)?
Jungkook’s success, though, marked the end of a mostly disappointing year for Hybe as it sought to break several groups into the Western mainstream. TOMORROW X TOGETHER made their most strident effort for a smash hit through collaborations with the Jonas Brothers and Anitta. Both singles underperformed. If you forgot that SEVENTEEN collaborated with New Kids on the Block for a single, you’d be forgiven. No one listened to it. Fresh off the viral success of “Eye, Psyche, & Bluebeard’s wife”, LE SSERAFIM also released four remixes, including an English version and a collaboration with, wait for it, Demi Lovato
HIGH: Fans Create Community with Cupsleeve Events
When I was in Chicago for Lollapalooza, I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of cupsleeve events for TOMORROW X TOGETHER, The Rose, and NewJeans. These events, typically held at boba tea shops, bring vendors and fans together to exchange freebies and support small businesses. The concept is simple: Fans buy a tea to receive a free cupsleeve for the tea, then they can shop local vendors or exchange freebies. These days, cupsleeve events are created for nearly any reason: Halloween, Christmas, an idol’s birthday, a comeback, and a group’s anniversary. These events are so popular in America and Korea that companies like Hello82 started their own cupsleeve events to promote their signed albums and exclusive gifts.
LOW: K-Pop Tours Max Out Audiences
This fall, Studio Pav announced a North American production of “IMMORTAL SONGS” at Met Life Stadium featuring PSY, ATEEZ, NewJeans, Lena Park, Kim Tae Woo, YOUNGTAK, Jannabi, and Patti Kim. But the show barely sold any tickets before NewJeans dropped out. What followed was a messy debacle that included Studio Pav lowering ticket prices, throwing in exclusive ATEEZ “VIP” benefits including a post-show send-off, and finally, a move to Prudential Center Arena.
Yet, “IMMORTAL SONGS” was maybe just the tipping point of bizarre choices by K-Pop tour promoters. LOOSEMBLE, the LOONA group, and Triple S both canceled shows on their fall tour or largely reduced seating in venues allegedly due to low ticket sales. Super Junior and KAMP New Mexico both changed their venues.
In her excellent article on this topic, Tamar Herman analyzed that not only are tours oversaturating the same cities but shows are also occurring on the same nights in the same cities. Plus, as she observes, K-Pop fans are less likely to support multiple tours when there are just too many events to choose from, especially when ticket prices are outrageous. “Unlike Pokémon,” she writes, “unless you’re the most privileged of person, it is impossible to catch up on all the content, or catch all these artists on tour.”
TAEYEON; SM Entertainment
HIGH: Idols Are Given Increasingly More Creative Control
It’s perhaps becoming a misconception at this point to say that all idols have no control over their careers. More than ever before, idols are given the reins to write music for their albums, choreograph their comeback singles, or choose the art direction of their album. Of course, the majority of these privilege are given to senior artists, such as TAEYEON, SHINee, BTS or TAEYANG, but this is still a first for the industry. Yet there are indications that even younger artists are getting opportunities that were never possible even ten years ago: SEVENTEEN’s Woozi, Vernon, Hoshi and S.Coups have written the majority of their discography. Even IVE, a girl group under Starship Entertainment, was allowed to contribute lyrics to “Either Way”, a song that deals frankly with the pressures of fame. This may feel incremental, but it is an important step in idols being recognized as artists.
LOW: K-Pop Interviews Become Puff Pieces
It’s no secret that journalists are given very little access to interview K-Pop idols. But this year, I was puzzled both by the press idols gave and the platforms they appeared on. In an interview with NextShark, Rain provided only two short quotes about his tour that clocked in at four sentences total. TOMORROW X TOGETHER were handicapped by their own translator who, as journalist Chris Gayomali notes, frequently only translated the safest, most banal parts of their conversation. Perhaps the oddest trend was how many network news shows idols appeared on while they promoted a tour. Throughout all of this, I wondered who the target audiences are and what sort of return K-Pop companies expected from stories that did nothing to move the needle for their client.
If K-Pop wants to succeed in the West, publicists and companies must be willing to think outside the box: Try new blogs that have proven they produce excellent content, go for journalists who dig for fresh and exciting stories. Send your idols on podcasts that encourage thoughtful conversations. Stop catering to “fan journalists” whose primary goal is a photo op and to meet their favorite idol. Above all, trust that your idols know what to say and stay out of their damn way. That's why, for now, if I want to learn about an idol, I just watch their livestream.
HIGH: On TikTok, K-Pop Groups Are Free To Do… Whatever They Want
In 2023, the idols who went viral on TikTok rarely did so because of their music. Instead these idol influencers possessed that je ne sais quoi, or (in English) that chaotic energy that gave their TikToks the feeling of watching a bomb go off in real time.
No group represents this better than CRAVITY, a nine member boy group under Starship Entertainment. While many companies encourage groups to promote their latest single through dance challenges, CRAVITY takes a different approach. Their videos are chaotic, weird, and at times, even salacious. For proof, check out Taeyoung grabbing Hyeongjun by the waist, spinning him ass up in the air to grind on top of him as Beyonce sings, “Let me sit this assssss on ya”. It was the “Rocket” challenge and this nugu group got 2 million likes for it. In other videos, Hyeongjun dances along as a dryer beeps at the end of a cycle; Taeyoung twerks in a park; and Jungmo asks you to “pick me, love me” as he hangs inside of a closet on a coat hanger.
Other winners on TikTok include, NewJeans who displayed their wicked sense of humor and sick fashion sense; groups like WayV and ZB1 who intentionally failed the Slick Back challenge; and Taemin, maybe the only idol to succeed at promoting his own single on TikTok, who started a firestorm with the “Guilty” challenge.
