Any thoughts on the current state of K-POP music right now in comparison to American pop?
Hi y'all, been recently thinking about this but this tweet (the image) confirmed my thoughts around the current love for electro music in our pop culture (at least the American one). K-pop on some fronts, at least through some of the comebacks I've noted, seem to be coming back into an EDM inspired era of music. This isn't my favorite style of music, but bangers are bangers. Knowing the current scene in American pop, I felt interesting then in trying to consider what is currently defining k-pop music and what music styles we define k-pop by in the past generations. The question that is kind of plaguing me, from the time I've spent thinking about it, is just... how would you guys define this current decade of k-pop?
So much has happened in these 6(!!!) years that it feels strange to limit it, and then stranger still is just that I can't trust for anything cohesive to be considered k-pop of this generation. Obviously we know of the minimalist pop era that sprang from NewJeans for a while, and then that mini afrobeat's era (I didn't even bother listening to a good bit of it), and now currently it feels like we're back into EDM (ILLIT, BABYMONSTER, LESSERAFIM... probably more..) and a bit of house (H2H, KiiKii, and I know there's gotta be some nugu groups trying it). This is what I personally am thinking, but it's just looking to be a bit of a mess overall...
Kpop as a whole, but especially in the music released, is so trend driven that it feels difficult to imagine that I'll look back and hear something distinct in this era of music that I could feel with listening back to the music released in the 2010s k-pop scene. Honestly, I personally haven't felt super connected to the big kpop scene outside of some of the groups I enjoy recently, and the music is playing a huge factor for me. Does anyone else feel that way? I wanna hear people's thoughts, :)