Why BTS hasn't paved the way (1 Viewer)

[Myco]

Now HOLD UP, I'm not here to drag them or anything just hear me out

My sister came over during the christmas days and started a conversation about how my little sister got into K-Pop.
Some mintues later she said that K-Pop doesn't really stand out to her at all since everything that she had seen and listened to is pretty mainstream pop.
As someone who has no idea about what can be found within K-Pop and looking at it from her viewpoint she's 100% accurate.

While we had multiple K-Pop acts on American TV Shows etc. already, the likes of NCT, Blackpink & Monsta X,
BTS are pretty much the only group that gets massive radio play and promo outside of Korea.

Now here in Germany it's mostly just BTS and nobody else which makes this even more difficult.
The thing is if they aren't getting interested in K-Pop due to BTS the chance that they do from any other group is pretty low,
since they would have better things to use their time on than music that they think sounds the same, no matter how hard you try to convince them.

Despite BTS's & Army's best efforts to make K-Pop more popular, with the crazy amount of sales and streams BTS can accumulate for each of their comebacks, win awards and prizes left and right, it's only really making BTS more popular, not K-Pop in a bigger sense.

So I think unless other K-Pop groups manage to follow that path, which seemingly no one did so far thus BTS not having paved any way yet.
When some news stations still think every male group is BTS, that individual idols are members of BTS, it's difficult to get people to be accepting of liking another music 'genre' that is seemingly out of their comfort zone and discovering the actual vast amount of different music K-Pop would have to offer.​

 

[VillageIdiot]

I hate the whole "paved the way" argument because like everything else, K-pop fans have distorted the meaning into a winner-take-all competitiveness and it's just gotten

But I can't necessarily say I agree. I think interest in kpop is growing exponentially every year to levels that were inconceivable just 5 or 6 years ago. Even if groups aren't reaching the level that BTS is, they're still having impressive success outside of asia.

Groups, even non-B3 groups, are being snatched up by western labels to continue exploit the K-pop wave, we're finally seeing groups going outside of asia for their world tours, charting in dozens of countries concurrently. Groups are redefining their sound and image to be palatable worldwide. Overseas promotion is being seen as a worthwhile investment rather than a risk with very little payoff. A whole SuperM was created in response to BTS.

It took years after BoA broke through the Japanese market for other to get similar levels of success. With how rapidly and constantly the game is changing now, it's hard to argue that BTS didn't pave the way, at least using the older definition

 

[Myco]

I hate the whole "paved the way" argument because like everything else, K-pop fans have distorted the meaning into a winner-take-all competitiveness and it's just gotten

But I can't necessarily say I agree. I think interest in kpop is growing exponentially every year to levels that were inconceivable just 5 or 6 years ago. Even if groups aren't reaching the level that BTS is, they're still having impressive success outside of asia.

Groups, even non-B3 groups, are being snatched up by western labels to continue exploit the K-pop wave, we're finally seeing groups going outside of asia for their world tours, charting in dozens of countries concurrently. Groups are redefining their sound and image to be palatable worldwide. Overseas promotion is being seen as a worthwhile investment rather than a risk with very little payoff. A whole SuperM was created in response to BTS.

It took years after BoA broke through the Japanese market for other to get similar levels of success. With how rapidly and constantly the game is changing now, it's hard to argue that BTS didn't pave the way, at least using the older definition

Yeah I agree, that the growth of K-Pop is still pretty big compared to like 5-6 years ago as you said, overall we're seeing much more influence even in the past 3 years to now that I've been into K-Pop.

Even A.C.E have signed with a company to promote outside activities so it's definitely great that non B3 groups have a chance and are being taken serious to get signed like that.

I think it's definitely imaginable that another group will follow BTS footsteps faster than one did for BoA as you said, and that's definitely thanks to BTS for being able to reach this amount of popularity outside of Korea

 

[raymondchouku]

Anytime I hear k-pop fans, or BTS fans, say "paved the way" its usually from what I've seen and heard used in the context of a "Bow down b***hes" sentiment. Or even an authenticity argument... "You don't listen to BTS? Then you are not a real k-pop fan."