Can K-Pop get bigger in the West?

Since its emergence in the late 1990s, K-Pop has not only become a phenomenon in North Asia but also through the Asian region. In Australia, where it is largely exposed through SBS’s high-rating Pop Asia, last year’s K-WAVE festival in Melbourne drew 30,000.

It’s also struck a major chord with Spanish speaking fans in Latin America, where touring K-Pop acts can draw between 10,000 to 15,000 to shows. K-Pop videos with Spanish translations get millions of views on YouTube.

But aside from the phenomenal success of Psy (who’s from Korea but not K-Pop) it has yet to have a breakthrough artist in the major music markets of North America or Europe.

Big Bang (pictured), the band fronted by K-Pop’s most charismatic frontman G-Dragon, has been touring these markets before landing in Australia next month for three shows. The likes of Justin Bieber and Missy Elliott lined up to work with him.

The self-styled “baddest bitch” rapper CL is regarded as a more serious contender. The one time member of K-Pop’s biggest girl band 2NE1, has the backing of heavyweights. She is managed by Scooter Braun of Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande fame. Diplo, who hails her as the Nicki Minaj of K-Pop for her brashness and fearlessness, is releasing her EP on his Mad Decent label.

K-Pop’s appeal is immediate: it’s impossibly catchy, with a strong glitzy image intertwined strongly with fashion, and expensively marketed, packaged and produced. In the first half of 2012, K-Pop grossed nearly US$3.4 billion.

But how international it can go? It was a topic tackled at this month’s first Asian Music Network Conference in Seoul.

Billy Koh, Singapore-born Beijing-based founder and CEO of Amusic Rights Entertainment, pointed out that K-Pop has moved from the first round of market-made stars (“very synchronised and danced like robots”) to groups like Big Bang and Bangtan Boys aka BTS (who toured Australia in July) who write their own songs, cut it live and have an irresistible fashionable edge.

But it has a problem: plastic surgery is starting to make the performers look alike, Koh lamented.

Rob Schwartz, Billboard’s Tokyo bureau chief, observed it needed to display how unique it is from its western competition. “If K-pop is going to appeal in the US, it has to play more on the differences than the similarities,” he said.

FNC Entertainment CEO Han Seong-ho suggested a widening to incorporate more styles. “Limiting K-pop to one certain colour will curb its longevity,” he predicted. He also suggested that currently, a K-Pop act did not necessarily have to start out in Korea but in other countries.

K-Pop is smart enough to include Chinese or Japanese members in band line-ups to widen appeal in those countries.

Australia’s long made its contribution to K-Pop. Nervo, Hayden Bell and Sarah Lundback-Bell are among some songwriters who’ve consistently penned hits for Korean acts. One time Australian Idol contestant Thanh Bui landed a Korean #1 when boy band TVXQ recorded Picture of You which he co-wrote.

In 2009, B-boy Barom Yu chucked up his studies at Sydney University and went to live in Seoul. He was spotted on the street by an agent from Yedang Entertainment and became a member of boy band C-CLOWN.

Joe Lee of Sydney-based production company Manga Republic tells TMN there is a move in Australia to put together new K-Pop bands based around Australian-born Asians. The first of these is set to launch in 2016. Lee was involved with Australia’s first J-Pop act RubyIce consisting of Canberra twins Courtney and Brittany Menegon, who emerged on 2013’s Australia’s Got Talent.