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Blackpink, Aespa, NewJeans: The Evolution of K-Pop Girl Groups
Acts with growing profiles and unique personalities are taking increasingly different paths, as the genre’s globalization opens new doors.
Hosted by Jon Caramanica. Produced by Pedro Rosado.
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Over the past few years, Blackpink has emerged as a worldwide force — hit singles, huge tours, influence in the fashion world — becoming perhaps the first K-pop girl group to reap the full benefits of the genre’s globalization. Standing on the shoulders of earlier innovators like Girls’ Generation and 2NE1, it has become a pop standard-bearer all around the world.
It also has been joined in recent years by a slew of other girl groups with growing profiles and unique personalities: Itzy, Aespa, Ive, and the most recent microgeneration, NewJeans and Le Sserafim.
On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the different paths girl groups have had to traverse compared to their male peers, the manner in which they blend music and storytelling and how the worldwide spread of K-pop has amplified opportunities for them.
Guest:
Tamar Herman, who writes about K-pop for Billboard, Forbes and others
Connect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica.
Inside the World of K-Pop
The popular music genre hailing from South Korea has won over a global fanbase with viral hits, precision-drilled dancing and custom-groomed artists.
As K-pop continues its long march to American awareness, what are the potential risks of that embrace?
Musical acts like Balming Tiger are challenging the idea that K-pop is nothing but polished, perfectly synchronized boy bands and girl groups.
Fans of the K-pop band BTS have known for years that a day would come when its seven members would all be doing mandatory service in the South Korean military. That day arrived on Dec. 12, 2023.
Over the past few years, the musical group Blackpink has emerged as a worldwide force, reaping the benefits of K-pop’s globalization. But younger acts are now charting the way forward.
In conservative South Korea, few L.G.B.T.Q. entertainers have ever come out. The young members of QI.X, a fledgling K-pop group, don’t see the point of staying in.
The 2012 viral hit “Gangnam Style” helped pave the way for K-pop’s global ascent. But Psy, the artist behind it, spent years being haunted by the song’s success.
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