Whether it is music, films, or arts, Korea has added a different style to all of it.
Korea, a brand like no other, is taking the world by storm with its pop culture. From Oscars to Grammys, Korean art forms are now recognized worldwide and one of the main contributors to this sensation has been their pop music. Korean pop or K-pop became popular all around the world with Psy's famous song Gangnam Style, which was a huge hit worldwide. Soon after that Korean pop people started to recognize it and started falling for their techno beats, crazy-colorful aesthetic, trend-defining fashion, and perfectly choreographed videos, in short everything. Today the K-pop industry is worth $5 billion which is one of the highest in the world. This colossal and ever-growing impact on South Korean culture is called Hallyu which means Korean wave. Today several K-pop groups are recognized worldwide and among them, the top 5 are as follows:
NCT is a popular K-pop group that stands for Neo Culture Technology. It initially debuted with seven members but currently has 23 members. One of the interesting facts about NCT is that they are divided into many subunits based in various cities of the world. The NCT U was the first group unit to debut (in April 2016) and was introduced as the main group of NCT. They have over 2.4 million monthly listeners and have 7.1 million followers on social media accounts.
Exo is one of the most popular K-pop groups formed by S.M. Entertainment. It was formed in 2011 and made its debut in 2012. The band consists of nine members including Xiumin, Baekhyun, Suho, Lay, Chen, Chanyeol, Sehun, D.O., and Kai. Their music consists of rap, hip-hop, R&B, and rock. This boy band has performed at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang and has topped the billboards several times.
Not only boy bands but girl bands are equally famous in the K-pop industry. This is a group of eight members: Taeyeon, Sunny, Tiffany, Hyoyeon, Yuri, Sooyoung, Yoona, and Seohyun. Their music albums are mostly fun electro-pop tracks. They once were crowned as ‘Top K-pop Girl Group of the Past Decade’.
Black is the most popular girl K-pop group of this generation. They have risen to huge fame in recent times and have become the first-ever K-pop group to join social media’s ‘billion views club.' They are of four members named Jisoo, Jennie, Ros, and Lisa. They are the first-ever album by a Korean girl group to sell more than one million copies and have been recognized by Forbes Korea as one of the most powerful celebrities in South Korea, placing second in 2021.
BTS is the world's biggest boy band currently and is undoubtedly the most popular and loved K-pop band worldwide. Formed by Big Hit Entertainment, BTS is the biggest name in the K-pop industry and they are technically the reason behind this K-pop wave over the world. Debuted in 2013 this group has 7 members: RM, J-Hope, Suga, Jin, Jimin, V, and Jungkook, and all of them are hugely popular among their fans. BTS has one of the strongest fan bases called ARMY. This list of achievements is too long for BTS which includes 33 Mnet Asian Music Awards, 29 Melon Music Awards, 24 Golden Disc Awards, nine Billboard Music Awards, six American Music Awards, six MTV Video Music Awards, and many more. They are also the first-ever Korean musicians to be nominated for the Grammys.
