BTS hit 'Dynamite' worth $1.4 billion to South Korea: gov't

Glad for BTS and S. Korea.

Japan should be more active and offer competition when it comes to Music, tv shows, movies, phone apps, software.

K-pop -- along with K-drama soap operas -- has been one of South Korea's most successful cultural exports and is a key component of the "Korean Wave" that has swept Asia and beyond over the last two decades.

Korean what? Wave? In Japan?

BTS has their fans, but isn’t that a bit of a stretch?

Over the last several years, South Korea has made a huge influence on the world. From cars, to electronics, to movies and TV shows, and in music, they are impacting the world in good ways.

For myself, I am very impressed with Korean TV and film. Earlier I was impressed with Japanese and Chinese film, but the repression from Beijing seems to have killed the TV and film industries in China, and for whatever reason, Japanese TV and film are but a shadow of what they used to be.

Whether you like Kpop or not, I think the rising popularity of Kpop is hugely beneficial for the Asian community as it's normalizing Asian people on western media. Asian people were (and still are) seriously lacking representation in some western countries with huge Asian population (such as US and Australia).

Also Dynamite is a bop - it's my new shower song these days :)

Artists and musicians used and sold as national exports. There have been many success stories. Often the "product" is happy with the arrangement.

Of course I wish all pop bands success. I can't listen to them for an extended period of time though.

A flash in the pan ~

Are we all flashes in a pan?

Anyway get rid of the virus and remember where it comes from.

What happened to pen, pineapple and apple?

They certainly are a group of pretty boys...

If these guys were ugly and couldn't dance, nobody would listen to their "music".

BTS is basically dross. Japanese music is vastly superior in quality and class than K-Pop, which is basically over-hyped pap.

Is it just me, I gave this a listen & watch........I know English isnt the first language & DONT want to lay into these overly pretty boys but I could only understand a few words they were singing...I think part of the problem is what tech does to the voices, so they all sound about 80% the same......

I just find this corporate made stuff to be uninteresting

 it would lead to nearly 600 billion won of cosmetics sales and almost 180 billion won in food and drinks, the study found

How to they calculate that? Unless they were eating food and wearing branded makeup while singing, how could they come to that conclusion?

why all the hate?

Whats wrong with group of overly feminine men/women? dancing horribly to headache inducing noise all in the name of juche

/s

Cosmetic Plastic Surgery Tourism industry will benefit from K-Pop culture.

Cosmetic Plastic Surgery Tourism industry will benefit from K-Pop culture.

Rabid Korean Nationalist : Korean women are prettier than Japanese Women

Me: Yeah of course, plastic surgery is cheap and abundant.

Rabid Korean Nationalist: REEEE

K-Pop, especially the five major labels, is for a long time already largely financially aided by the SK-government in order bring congenial feelings to the world, the Ministry of Culture has dedicated a department solely to K-pop. It is part of the plan to also influence in political areas. Personally I don't listen much to K-pop although some bands in the 2000-decade and one-hit wonders like Gangnam Style were quite good. The response this English BTS song also in the foreign press gets, proves, that the combined influence works.

I always stated that SK does a pretty darn good job in promoting their views to the world, this also includes TV shows etc. Also SK is much less strict about airing entertaining SK TV world wide for free most of the time, many shows subtitled in English. Japanese TV (except the tourist promotion channel NHK World) is much harder to find outside Japan and usually costs a lot when a subscription is necessary.

The problem with Japan is marketing, over contention with their small market that they think is big, lack of ambition. Look at even the washlets, rice cookers in short electronics as a whole the models for foreign market don't undergo any model change and eventually production is stopped.

At this rate this country will only slide further and will be over taken by even SK.

It's interesting to read how some people in the comments feel about Kpop and have the need to hate on Kpop.

I also think there's a lot of misconceptions-assumed-to-be-fact about Kpop in general. For example, yes the government helps entertainment companies in the Kpop business because it has huge economic returns for Korea so of course they're going to aid in this industry. It goes the same for any countries with huge stake in any industries! USA government is looking into pouring billions into its semiconductor chip industry - are you going to start hating on Intel and Qualcomm for this?

Kpop is obviously in Korean language but because of their global audience, some groups release English versions for their fans, for example Dyanmite by BTS. Their accent may not be perfect, but I think that's really thoughtful and inclusive to do so.

You may think Kpop is just all about pretty face and dancing and that's one part of it, and the part of Kpop that receives the most international attention. Kpop actually has a huge variety of REALLY great indie bands and ballad singers and sadly it doesn't get as much attention globally.

Anyway, a lot of effort goes into producing Kpop and I think the quality is great! You can hate on it if you like, but I feel it's unjustified unless you've explored the world of Kpop. As a Japanese person, I love Jpop too but it definitely needs to adapt its business model for a global era.

As a Japanese person, I love Jpop too but it definitely needs to adapt its business model for a global era.

Exactly.

But very unlikely when the general thinking is that the market is big and there is no need to look for markets

abroad, using excuses like language and different culture.

If Japanese music was more heavily promoted outside of Japan, the bogus K-Pop industry would wither and die.

I gave it a listen. The voices are practically synthesized and the instrumentation is quantized to death.

Im not “hating on it”, this is the reality of pap music today. Same goes for Beyonce and Lady Kaka, etc.

I gave it a listen. The voices are practically synthesized and the instrumentation is quantized to death.

Meh, synthesised voices have been used in pop music for years. Think Yellow Magic Orchestra, Kraftwerk, Zapp, Stevie Wonder...

Meh, synthesised voices have been used in pop music for years. Think Yellow Magic Orchestra, Kraftwerk, Zapp, Stevie Wonder...

On EVERY song? LOL.

More than half of that billion is from Japan. Koreans take huge advantage from Japan in business but they boycott Japanese product/companies in their country.

Even Korean tourist get lesson from their Government Not to buy anything in Japan when travelling there. And that's what they have been doing.