![]() I don’t think they reflect the general public’s reaction, in terms of whether the release was popular and widely listened to among the masses. CD sales, music video views and streams are seen as indicators of how popular a K-pop act is. Below are edited excerpts from the interview at the JoongAng Ilbo building on June 10. The critic sat down for an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily to further share what popularity means in the current K-pop scene. Jung has been offering his insight by contributing to publications including “The History of K-pop: A Hundred Waves” (2022) and “Top 100 Albums in Korean Popular Music” (2018). In that sense, BTS isn’t that different from other boy bands.” A member of the annual Korean Music Awards' selection committee and former editor-in-chief of music critique web magazine IZM, Jung is one of the leading young critics in Korean pop music. ![]() But the majority of Koreans have only heard of ‘Butter’ as news and haven’t really listened to the song. “People know who they are from the news that they topped the Billboard charts and whatnot. But today, pop culture content is fragmented and so is the public.” Even BTS is no exception.īoy band BTS “To the general public, BTS doesn’t have that much popular appeal either,” he said. “It once had meaning in the mass media age, when pop stars appeared on the same television shows and everyone watched the same shows. “The term ‘popular appeal’ hardly holds any meaning anymore,” Jung said. So why do these quantitative results tell a different story from the real world? According to pop music critic Jung Min-jae, that’s because the outdated standards can’t speak on behalf of the general public, which is becoming increasingly fragmented and individualized. In the following interview series, the Korea JoongAng Daily will sit down with Korean music critics who have been following the growth of this unique industry and ask, "How did it happen and will it last?" K-pop acts are topping international music charts, selling millions of albums and racking up billions of views on YouTube, and yet many Koreans confess that they’ve never actually heard their songs or even really know who they are. With a unique set of rules that sets it apart from other industries, K-pop is becoming not only a driving force for pop culture, but opening up a new chapter in Korean history. K-pop continues to grow across the globe and it’s not just boy band BTS making it big - other groups are landing higher and higher on international music charts. Pop culture critic Jung Min-jae poses at his home office.
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