How the West was won: K-pop's great assimilation gambit

[ad_1] The crossover hits stacking Grammy nods this 12 months have little in frequent with the tradition that birthed them — however they're profitable the chart sport

<img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1920x1080+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F67%2F23%2Fae40a994437ab3c34e1fd1530c69%2Fkpop2b.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1920x1080+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F67%2F23%2Fae40a994437ab3c34e1fd1530c69%2Fkpop2b.jpg" class="img" alt="In a breakthrough year like no other, crossover K-pop like the girl group Katseye, Rosé's single "APT." and Netflix's KPop Demon Hunters has secured nods in major Grammy categories and new height of visibility." fetchpriority="high"/> In a breakthrough 12 months like no different, crossover Ok-pop just like the woman group Katseye, Rosé's single "APT." and Netflix's KPop Demon Hunters has secured nods in main Grammy classes and new top of visibility. Photographs by Julian Tune, John V. Esparza, Netflix/Illustration by Jackie Lay cover caption

toggle caption

Photographs by Julian Tune, John V. Esparza, Netflix/Illustration by Jackie Lay In 2003, at 11 years previous, Kim Eun-jae signed with the Korean company SM Leisure as a trainee, hoping to rise by means of the mandatory steps to grow to be a Ok-pop idol. She labored for the corporate for over a decade: working towards earlier than college or into the night time, doing vocal and dance coaching, taking language and performing courses. She watched her friends get known as up for teams like SHINee and f(x), however her personal debut by no means got here. When Kim, now recognized professionally as Ejae, was lastly dropped by the company in 2015, the reason she received was easy: This was a enterprise. As she not too long ago instructed the Philippine media community ABS-CBN, "SM has a really particular imaginative and prescient and sonic sound and I simply did not actually match that."

Ejae's story might simply have ended there. "I had deep emotional wounds associated to idols and Ok-pop," she admitted in the identical interview. "I resented the trade so much." However after graduating from the Clive Davis Institute at NYU Tisch, she discovered her method to a behind-the-scenes position. It was an SM songwriting camp that first introduced her again to the trade, and he or she continued to work in its periphery, scoring writing credit for the teams Purple Velvet, Twice and aespa, and dealing in animation, the place she met the movie and TV composer Daniel Rojas. Rojas was the primary musician recruited to work on the Netflix animated musical KPop Demon Hunters, and he shortly advisable Ejae to co-creator Maggie Kang.

After listening to her preliminary demos, the administrators determined to rent the previous would-be idol — not merely as a songwriter, however because the singing voice for the movie's lead character, the purple-haired pop star Rumi. Ejae is without doubt one of the co-writers and producers behind "Golden," the standout hit that dominated the Billboard Sizzling 100 in 2025 and is now nominated for the Grammy for music of the 12 months. In probably the most roundabout means potential, an company castoff had grow to be the soul and voice of Ok-pop's biggest cultural phenomenon but.

KPop Demon Hunters is one in every of a number of properties born of the trendy Ok-pop trade to be nominated by the Recording Academy this 12 months. Blackpink member Rosé's Bruno Mars collab "APT." is nominated for music and report of the 12 months; each "Golden" and "APT." are competing in the most effective pop duo / group efficiency class; and the multi-ethnic sextet Katseye is up for greatest new artist. These usually are not the primary nods for Ok-pop on the ceremony — BTS has flirted with greatest pop duo / group efficiency since 2021 — however collectively, they signify a Western embrace of the shape that feels unprecedented. (Rosé, for starters, is the primary lead Ok-pop artist to be nominated in any of the "large 4" award classes.) And in so doing, these developments level to a much bigger query, one embodied by Ejae's anti-idol profession trajectory: After we discuss a "Ok-pop music" now, what precisely can we imply?

YouTube

The size of that "Ok" have lengthy been a subject of inquiry: whether or not Ok-pop refers to a style in its personal proper, the company system that develops the artists, or merely a nationwide designation. For a lot of the music's historical past, the consensus was easy: Ok-pop songs have been simply pop songs sung primarily in Korean, and that was the one distinction vital. It helped that its trade was virtually utterly siloed from the one in America, and any cross-pollination between the 2 rackets solely served to intensify the variations. Lately, these contrasts have grown considerably blurrier, because of the Ok-pop trade's intentional strikes to beat the Western market and, by proxy, the worldwide one.

For the reason that days of the first-ever Ok-pop hit, the songcraft has largely aimed to approximate the structure of Western hits. However by the second era of idols within the late 2000s, there was an rising sense of the seams between the 2 strategies, even past language. The gate-crashing stars of the late 2010s iterated on these these hallmarks: topline emphasis, vocal performances that deal with changeovers like choreography (typically in service of literal dance steps), rap verses that adorn their host songs like costume jewellery, tectonic beat shifts and a cleaning soap opera-ish aptitude for spectacle. Nothing was off-limits; in reality, extra and embellishment have been vocational expertise. Within the 2020s, those self same gate-crashers — BTS, Blackpink and Twice, particularly — have regarded to increase their affect in America, by the use of extra lyrics in English, extra collaborations with American stars and sanded-down songs stripped of these distinguishing traits. The remainder of the trade has adopted swimsuit, with BTS' label, HYBE, on the entrance of the pack of company entities looking for a worldwide Ok-pop enterprise.

Zeroing in on that purpose has solely accelerated questions of whether or not Ok-pop is a sound or a system, and whether or not a Ok-pop music is something greater than an thought round which a artistic program is designed, one that's largely extramusical. Even in 2025, I do assume there's a distinct Ok-pop sound: It may be heard in songs like Nmixx's trap-R&B chimera "Know About Me" or ifeye's "r u okay?" (the uncommon providing that appears to particularly consult with the sounds of older Ok-pop). However these songs more and more really feel at odds with the music extra accountable for the cultural penetration of the time period, and that music's efforts to grow to be utterly absorbed into the English-speaking pop paradigm.

Some Ok-pop songs, simply of their surface-level presentation, put their cross-cultural assimilations up entrance. CORTIS' "FaSHioN" is a one-to-one recreation of rage rap. Le Sserafim's "Come Over" is a reimagining of a music by the British soul group Jungle. XLOV's "1&Solely" is Korean dembow. These are strikes that current sonic entry factors because the quickest method to win over present fandoms: Give each area of interest a facsimile of the factor they already like. However that type of pantomime can solely take the undertaking up to now. The true successes of Ok-pop growth, as this 12 months's Grammy slate demonstrates, are subtler concerning the tried merger.

Few acts might be thought of extra synonymous with the sound of recent Ok-pop than Blackpink, and but Rosé's "APT." not solely breaks from that sonic identification, however from most of the signatures of her era — hip-hop swagger, buzzing EDM synths, rap breakdowns as structural pillars for segmented verses — and towards one thing markedly extra quaint, pop-rock invoking a Korean consuming sport. Bruno Mars in contrast the music to PSY's portal-opening YouTube sensation "Gangnam Model," and he is proper within the sense that each exported distinctly Korean cultural experiences, however that's the place the similarities cease. "APT." is patently Korean, however not discernably Ok-pop.

NewJeans producer 250 as soon as stated that Ok-pop was simply pop made by Koreans, however nobody arguing in good religion would outline the experimental alt-rap made by Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami, the opposite singers who voice the KPop Demon Hunters woman group HUNTR/X, as "Ok-pop," regardless of the relative style fluidity of their solo work. Likewise, "APT.," which vaguely mimes the dance-punk of late aughts bands like The Ting Tings, is indifferent from the localized Ok-pop sound, its airplay-bait hooks aimed particularly on the Prime 40, launched on an American label with an American collaborator. If Rosé, particularly, is the factor making "APT." a Ok-pop music, at what level do the borders dissolve? Would Rosé doing jazz nonetheless be Ok-pop?

"Golden" has a leg up on "APT." on this means: It was co-written and co-produced by Ejae and 25-year YG Leisure veteran Teddy Park, two individuals who construct Ok-pop songs from scratch. In actual fact, they're accountable for songs I consider as quintessentially Ok-pop: 2NE1's "I Am the Greatest," BIGBANG's "Incredible Child," Purple Velvet's "Psycho" and aespa's "Drama." Nobody has had extra affect over what a Ok-pop music is than Park, and it follows that "Golden" would have that sound hardwired into its DNA. However KPop Demon Hunters is, in the beginning, a musical, and it's extra a musical about Ok-pop than of Ok-pop.

Co-director Chris Appelhans has stated that the film makes an attempt in some ways to subvert components, however has additionally acknowledged "Golden" as a component that "adopted the conventions of a standard musical," working as a traditional "I would like" music. The music additionally has writing and manufacturing credit from Mark Sonnenblick and Ian Eisendrath, recognized for his or her work on musicals for stage and display, and its key options — the story-forward lyrics sung principally in English and the ascendant, spotlit hook — are constructed towards these ends. It has extra in frequent with the music of Encanto, treating gesturally regional pop as manufacturing design, than it does with the songs Park has labored on for YG woman teams for many years.

Because of its many cooks, KPop Demon Hunters has a fancy, typically contradictory view of what makes a music Ok-pop. There's an oppositional distinction drawn between songs like "Golden" and people of the heroes' scheming rivals, the demon boy band Saja Boys. "We wished the Saja Boys' songs to be tremendous catchy, however barely hole, like there isn't any actual soul beneath," Appelhans instructed Mashable, evaluating HUNTR/X's catalog to extra "emotionally weak and trustworthy" works akin to Olivia Rodrigo's "drivers license" or Beyoncé's Lemonade. The remark struck me as odd — each as a result of "tremendous catchy, however barely hole" and "no actual soul beneath" are the sorts of criticisms which have lengthy been levied in opposition to Ok-pop songs extra broadly, and since, sonically, the Saja Boys' songs are probably the most earnestly Ok-pop-sounding cuts within the film. "Your Idol" is of a chunk with the music made by ATEEZ, Stray Children and Enhypen. "Soda Pop" might simply be an NCT Want music. (It says one thing, too, that each of Appelhans' reference factors for emotionally weak and trustworthy pop are American.)

None of it is a worth judgment: "Golden" is euphoric, and the concept of injecting Ok-pop with the distinct artistic threat of one thing like Lemonade has loads of potential. It is merely an statement that, within the property most accountable for bringing Ok-pop to the zeitgeist, there may be some inside confusion over how the music is outlined. Within the movie's world, songs which can be extra prototypical are much less substantial, whereas these which can be extra tailored are extra "genuine," a dynamic that the good-versus-evil dichotomy of the story's conflicting idol teams can not help however reinforce. One might argue that the IRL success of "Golden" speaks to its larger effectiveness; I would counter that it is extra telling of how easily that music built-in into the Prime 40 ecosystem. (Aspect observe: The worst-performing music from the film's soundtrack has been the model of "Takedown" recorded by an precise Ok-pop group, Twice.) In a sure sense, KPop Demon Hunters makes a case for a wholly completely different interpretation of what Ok-pop is: a mirror by means of which tradition is refracted, a way for heterogeneous storytelling, which sees any type of Korean development as evolution.

That is also your takeaway watching the Apple TV+ sequence KPOPPED. The present, clearly meant to be an interesting first publicity for Ok-pop outsiders, selects Prime 40 hits from throughout the many years and pairs the unique artists up with Korean idols, who rework them in methods meant to resemble the Ok-pop components. As one YouTube commenter suggests, most of the revamps really feel like karaoke — restricted of their rearrangements, meaningfully devoid of what they consult with as "Ok-pop parts." But they do acknowledge one efficiency as an outlier: ATEEZ teaming up with Kylie Minogue to transform "Cannot Get You Out of My Head," the association of which feels somewhat instructive for what, beneath the hood of a Ok-pop music, makes it a Ok-pop music. The unique "Cannot Get You Out of My Head" is a daydream, hook after hook interlocked like a sequence of prepare vehicles, bliss factors that bleed into each other and by no means resolve. The ATEEZ model is theatrical, brooding and baroque, filled with jagged edges, surges and breakdowns. When the boys sing "set me free" in Korean, it's not with Kylie's beckoning-siren vitality, however a face-melting depth. Look past style and you could find Ok-pop there: songcraft as melodramatic montage.

YouTube

Katseye, in its few years since debuting on a actuality competitors, has made a special case: that Ok-pop is only a workflow, that its processes aren't primarily musical or indigenous, and that it was by no means a few sound by Koreans for the world a lot as a foundation for a multinational satellite tv for pc community. The group's creators plugged six star hopefuls, principally American however representing completely different ethnic backgrounds, into HYBE's trainee system, with the specific function of selling them within the American market. On this regard, Katseye is very like Santos Bravos, the boy band produced through actuality sequence by HYBE Latin America, focused to that ever-expanding market. Each are merchandise of HYBE's "multi-home, multi-genre" technique, which has begun franchising its star equipment world wide: HYBE x Geffen is debuting one other multinational woman group in 2026, Ryan Tedder is engaged on a "world" boy group, and chairman Bang Si-hyuk has set his sights on India subsequent.

That is to say nothing of Girlset, an LA-based group fashioned by JYP Leisure and Republic Data, or dearALICE, SM Leisure's British boy group. The integrations are solely aesthetic and industrial: Girlset's "Little Miss" sounds nearer to Tate McCrae than Ok-pop. KPop Demon Hunters and "APT." aren't as far faraway from the tradition that birthed them, however they're on the identical finish of the spectrum as these choices. Ok-pop just isn't a monolith, and this 12 months's Grammy-nominated properties aren't consultant of the entire — however they do have an outsized affect on notion, and their success will draw extra of the competitors on this path. As an establishment, the Recording Academy has by no means been on the leading edge, however Music's Greatest Night time does inform a narrative of the place the trade at giant locations worth.

None of this may matter if not for the sensation that one thing is being misplaced on this course of — top-level Ok-pop sacrificing its signature qualities for the sake of broader acceptance. Initially, Ok-pop's scaling up was an act of importation, widening the style and fluency of the American listener, recalibrating our musical and cultural and lyrical lexicons. The inflection level we're dwelling by means of now points far fewer challenges to a brand new fan's style: The system has arrived, however the sound has moved nearer to a Western one to make it occur.

There are deeper conversations available about aesthetics and dance, or about Ok-pop respiration new life into the music video as a medium. However talking strictly of the music, it's exhausting to not really feel the character of the factor eroding because it stretches to fulfill our bodies just like the Grammys. There's a sense wherein you may consider KPop Demon Hunters, "APT." and Katseye as Ok-pop's industrial ideally suited: the promotional system working as supposed, transferring towards ubiquity and most profitability. It is a web optimistic that the parameters of who will get to be a star are being augmented, and {that a} expertise like Ejae wasn't left to wither on the vine endlessly. However within the house between her previous company's "particular imaginative and prescient and sound" and her work on "Golden," you'll be able to hear a song-making kind in jeopardy of being overwritten.