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 deal than they really are. Even something like Kpop, which basically sucks.

Stride into the right echo bedchamber, and whatever you recall is absurd is instantly a meg times libation, with none of that pesky "perspective" getting in the fashion of that wet blanket we call "reality".

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

Homo, Kpop must be the biggest f—king thing in the The states right now, huh?

Well, here's that pesky "perspective" to make it the way. BTS's big hit "Simulated Honey" hit #10 on Billboard four weeks ago. Impressive, correct? A week after it dropped below #xl. Two weeks afterward that?  It's #71 and dropping like thugs in a hammer fight in the Due south Korean thriller "Oldboy".

BTS' album, Love Yourself: Tear hit #1 four weeks ago. This week it's #20, being browbeaten past Ed Sheeran's Divide, an anthology that'due south been on the charts for 67 weeks. Oh, and what'due south #10 on the Hot 100 this week? The 34 week onetime Bebe Rexha/Florida Georgia Line Pop/State crossover "Meant to Be".

For something considered "popular", these are pretty weak numbers. Consider how well (or actually how poorly) something has to perform to make the top 10 on the Billboard Meridian 200 in this mean solar day and age, when anthology sales are in the toilet and streaming is supreme.  We don't have all the data for the entire chart, but we exercise take what Billboard'south willing to share, which is the top x.

This calendar week, we returned to the year 1996 with Dave Matthews Band (YES, Dave Matthews Band) taking the #1 album with just under 300,000 "equivalent albums" moved (this includes streams, they have an algorithm for how many streams equal an album "auction"). #ten was Shawn Mendes' nigh contempo album, notching 31,000 units. That'southward not a typo, just 31,000 beggarly units.

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

Once more, Ed Sheeran'southward year-and-three-month-one-time album managed to bring in more than equivalent albums than a brand new BTS album.  I think this tells you all you need to know about how truly popular K-Pop is in the United states of america.  Maybe if their fans spent more time actually streaming the albums and less time "stanning" their favorite boys on Twitter, that number would be higher.

Oh, and by the style, if you accept a await at both the Hot 100 and Superlative 200?  You lot might notice a significant lack of Kpop.  Over on the album chart I encounter:

  • The Moana soundtrack at #72 (didn't that movie come out in 2016?)
  • Zac Brown Band'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 information technology to #139 I found another Kpop album: BTS's Love Yourself: Her. Two spots upwardly at #137 by the way? AC/DC'south Dorsum in Black. The other BTS album in this nautical chart is being beaten by a classic rock anthology that came out nearly 40 years agone, and in a week when none of their members even died.

You lot know what I didn't see though?

Girl's Generation, EXO, BTOB, Blackpink, or Twice.  So where'due south this "Explosion"?  Seems more like a small canteen rocket going off during a massive fireworks display of Northward American pop and hip-hop.

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

Drake'south "God'south Plan" is STILL in the top 10, and "Overnice For What" is back at #i. THAT is popularity, when people are still listening to your music weeks, months afterwards it came out, and it continues to proceeds a new audition from more casual listeners.

And don't recollect for a second Billboard is "bias". It'southward all only numbers. If Kanye can put out an album with very little hype (compared to his last anthology) and have every song chart on the Hot 100 (likely nearly entirely based on streams), it stands to reason that if K-Pop is so popular in the US, more songs would be charting. But they aren't, and the reason is simple: considering more people are listening to the other 100 songs on the nautical chart.

So, despite the Guardian'south claims, I don't think Americans are going to accept to accept an Introduction to Korean class to be able to listen to the radio whatsoever time soon.

At that place'south no takeover, the Korean invasion is similar the British Invasion if the Beatles showed up, the few hundred girls screaming at the drome were the only people who bought their music, everyone considered those girls weird nerds, and no other British bands e'er reached the same level of popularity every bit American groups.  In other words, it's basically the exact opposite of the British Invasion in every single style.

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