As foreshadowed last month, we are now turning our attention to the consumption of K-Pop reflected in the full historic dataset for the Billboard 200 chart, where K-Pop appears to do much better than in the single song focused Billboard Hot 100. Again, we note that up-to-date data is kindly made accessible here.
We can look at chart performance through any one of a number of lenses. For example, individual releases and artists can be scrutinised for things like their peak performance and the amount of time they spend on the charts. K-Pop artists and releases do not exist in a vacuum, though, but as a product of a highly developed music industry dominated by a few large companies.
The labels that dominated K-Pop through the earlier years of the K-Wave were YG, SM, and JYP. Founded in 1996 by Yang Hyun-suk (양현석), in 1995 by Lee Soo-man (이수만), and in 1997 by Park Jin-young (박진영), respectively, these labels, they were instrumental in creating the K-pop industry and culture as we understand it today. While their fortunes and the relative popularity of the artists they represent have fluctuated over time, practically since their founding, each of these companies, along with their many subsidiaries and sub-labels, has been in the mix at the top of the South Korean entertainment industry as well as at the forefront of promoting K-Pop internationally. The more recent label Big Hit has also become a major player. Founded in 2005 by Bang Si-Hyuk (방시혁 also known as ‘Hitman’ Bang), it is most well-known internationally for managing BTS, as well as members’ solo projects, and TOMORROW X TOGETHER. In 2021 the label formerly known as Big Hit Entertainment became Big Hit Music, as it was restructured into a subsidiary of Hybe Corporation, which also owns other labels, collectively known as Hybe Labels. These include Source Music, ADOR, Belift Lab, and Pledis Entertainment, a fact which will be very relevant later.
As the data for the Billboard 200 chart from its inception does not record the national origin of the artist or release, we conducted a manual review of releases from the 1990s onward, additionally relying on intuition and experience to search for the K-Pop releases that appear in the chart. The releases have been hierarchically coded for the artists to whom they are attributed, and the labels to which those artists are contracted. We also noted the number of weeks they stayed in the charts.
The following interactive circle packing diagram, is one way to visually summarise this information. The lowest level of circles represent individual releases, the size of which is determined by the number of weeks they spend on the Billboard 200 chart. The next level up is artists, then labels, all contained within the universe of K-Pop in the Billboard 200 chart.
While this gives quite a nice impressionistic overview, the same information can be explored in more detail in the below interactive sunburst plot (click on segments for more detailed breakdowns).
While it is not directly reflected in the chart above, it is striking that the more recent artists and releases appear to enjoy far more chart success than their predecessors. Groups that had some measure of international success, but debuted prior to 2010, like 2NE1, BIGBANG, and Girl’s Generation, are practically invisible in terms of their impact on the charts. What’s more, artists of a similar vintage with such high profiles in the K-Wave as Rain, CNBLUE, and even Psy of Gangnam Style viral fame are conspicuous only by their absence. From the chart data, it appears that engagement with K-Pop on the part of listeners is becoming either more common, more intense, or perhaps both.
Unlike the foregoing, something that should be apparent from this visualisation is the disproportionate success of not only individual artists, like BTS and TOMORROW X TOGETHER, but of individual labels, like Big Hit Music. When we aggregate everything one step further combining the artists under labels that are subsidiaries of Hybe Corporation (that is, Big Hit Music, Belift Lab, Pledis Entertainment, ADOR, and Source Music) we can see that the company is behind the overwhelming majority of the K-Pop that enjoys success on the US Billboard 200 chart. As K-pop continues to grow in its international popularity, this leaves us with the question of what actions have been taken by Hybe Corporation and its sub-labels to promote, sustain, and develop this kind of international success as well as the puzzle of why it has seemingly not been replicated by its competitors.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the Core University Program for Korean
Studies of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and Korean
Studies Promotion Service at the Academy of Korean Studies
(AKS-2021-OLU-2250004)