The burdened, blank slate of K-pop in 2024

Every year starts more or less the same: with a sense of hope that it'll be better than the last.

But for K-pop, 2023 left the industry in a tumultuous state, and 2024 is going to have to figure out what it all means.

A brief, very generalized reminder of where K-pop currently is:

• Girl groups dominated last year.
• So did contract disputes.
• Are we done with the fourth generation of K-pop already?
• K-pop Twitter is dying, because Elon killed it with X. (Though perhaps more slowly than I expected.)
• SM Entertainment, long heralded as the first real K-pop company, ousted its founder Lee Soo-man and was acquired by South Korean tech giant Kakao after a bidding war with Hybe. Things seemed settled, but concerns about illegally manipulating the market in Kakao's favor led to Kakao being upended when executives started to come under fire, and get arrested. At least SM artists are on Weverse now.
• Relatedly, EXO members asked essentially "wtf is going on with our finances as a result of all this" and led to a whole slew of changes, including several SM artists leaving the company for solo management, while keeping their groups managed under the SM auspices.
• It's an era when top stars are changing things up regarding their relationships with Seoul's major music brands: YG Entertainment also is going through a confusing period, with Blackpink's members similarly not renewing officially as individuals, and the group's future together TBD to some degree. G-Dragon also left. At the moment, YG pretty much only has Treasure and Babymonster as active acts under its main roster, though longtime producer Teddy has had success with his subsidiary, The Black Label, thanks to artists like Taeyang and Somi.
• As chaotic as 2023 proved to be those two companies, 2023 was a grand old time for Hybe and Starship, with their girl groups, NewJeans and Le Sserafim (Hybe) and IVE (Starship) pretty much owning our entire souls. (Being a female in public spaces stills suck, though, no matter how popular you are.)
• K-pop tours in the US were a fascinating thing to live through.
• We're seeing more groups created targeting the US, such as Hybe and Geffen Records' Katseye and JYP and Republic's VCHA.
• Overall, lotsa movement in K-pop's biggest companies.
• Because of this, and reports that K-pop is stagnating (more on that, later), everyone and their mother (including me) seems to be asking "what is K-pop actually?"
• NCT was completed with the creation of their Japanese NCT New Team, now known as NCT Wish, and I'm personally here for their Rainbow Brite aesthetics. SM launched Riize, the first non-NCT branded boy band since 2016.
• Fifty Fifty rose high with "Cupid," landing a Barbie movie soundtrack song... only to crash and burn due to disputes between management, artists, and pretty much every single party involved in their existence.
• BTS turned 10!!! And went on hiatus to fulfill their military services. They'll be back next year, and don't worry, they left a lot to tide us over in between. (Has everyone watched V's performance in IU's "Love Wins All" MV yet?)
• Virtual reality and AI are major buzzwords, with virtual groups becoming a major thing.

All caught up? That was a lot, wasn't it...

As a follow up, 2024 already has been a lot, even though it's only January 24.

• Pledis has launched its first new boy band since Seventeen, TWS.
• YG Entertainment is supposedly launching many acts this year.
• YG founder Yang Hyun-suk (who reportedly left the company due to some pretty damn serious legal issues, at least some of which he was found guilty on, but is most definitely still there) and JYP Entertainment founder JY Park both bought sizable portions of their respective company's stocks, ostensibly to try to offset sale prices falling due to underperforming acts.
• HyunA announced her relationship with Yong Junhyung and it's been a shitshow due to his role in the Burning Sun scandal from a few years ago, where he was at the very least a confirmed witness to sexual crimes shared in chatrooms among some Korean musicians.
• IVE's Wonyoung won a civil lawsuit against YouTuber Sojang for defamation and insult. YouTubers and questionable media coverage has increasingly have shaped public discourse in South Korea, with immense, sometimes deadly consequences.
• There were also a lot of high profile releases, like the return of SISTAR19, NMIXX, (G)I-dle, and the aforementioned IU song.
• US K-pop concerts, like IU's and KCON, are being announced well in advance, likely as people (hopefully reading Notes on K-pop!) realized that K-pop fans actually aren't ATMs capable of supporting every single concert at the drop of tickets a month before without having lead in time to plan and save. Well, some people are learning at least and others are getting the irritation from fans that their promotional mishaps probably deserve...

And a bunch of other things that I probably should be mentioning, but so much is happening all the damn time that it feels like chaos is just incarnate in the K-pop world at the moment. It's hard to keep up, and this is both my career and my life, so I can't imagine how casual fans are doing at the moment.

It's because of all of this that I've spent a lot of time thinking of 2024 as a period full of potential with room for a big, amazing year. But it's also burdened by the hangover changes of 2023.

Which is why when I was in Seoul earlier this month and visiting Hikr Ground, a sort of pop-up photo destination where you can pose within K-pop music video sets, I kept looking up at the ceiling: K-pop stereotypically, like the music videos that are so integral to them, is wrapped in a state of naked walls and ceilings, with the spotlight offering up social media perfect moments until they're not.

Last year, it feels like a lot of people, not necessarily fans but even casual audiences, began to wonder what K-pop will look like as things continue to shift the perspective, zooming out not just on the spotlight but the industry overall.

What this year will bring overall is still TBD, but I am both excited and apprehensive that K-pop in 2024 will be a bit of a follow-up to the topsy turvy of last year, settling some issues and raising new ones. We'll see how well gambles that started last year play out on this roulette table of life, and hopefully there'll be more winners than losers but... Well, let's wait and see, shall we?

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