KATHMANDU: Catchy beats, wide-ranging vocals, dance choreography, eye catching music videos and the high-stage production values. All these define K-pop. Undoubtedly, it has upbeat and uplifting music.

K-pop music — a mixture of dance music and ballads about relationships, love and life – reverberates with the music lovers like nothing else.

More than that, K-pop is a sensory experience.

Talking about the fans, it’s not just South Korea, but all over the world, including the United States as the music opens the door toward sensation.

To recall Psy’s “Gangnam Style”, a K-pop that first cracked the United States in 2012 with a beat paired with stylized visuals, became the first video to cross a billion streams on YouTube to open the doors for the worldwide sensation.

K-pop, in fact, grew in the 1990s. However, the genre’s popularity increased in the past few years.

Not to presume that Korean pop groups sing only in Korean language as they sing in English, Japanese, and even Chinese to capture the mood of diverse audiences. In fact, they also do not stick to just one musical genre.

Remember the Seo Taiji and Boys, who debuted in 1992, who have been credited with establishing the modern form of K-pop by inserting rap in their songs.

Now, will the Korean pop music able to bring the world together? Browse the internet, and you will soon have the knowledge how K-pop concerts teem with “foreign” fans singing their hearts even though they do not understand the lyrics.

That’s why fans in the Western countries, particularly the United States buy out concerts, and even merchandise K-pop idols.

Therefore, the K-pop music industry has been quite popular as its addictive tunes are fused with pitch-perfect.

K-pops combine elements of hip-hop, rock, reggae, R&B, classical, electronic dance, and Latin pop blended with traditional Korean music roots.

1990s: Seo Taiji and Boys

K-pop can perhaps be traced back to the acts that debuted ahead of the ’90s with the emergence of the kings of K-pop, Seo Taiji and Boys – comprising Seo Taiji, Yang Hyun-suk and Lee Juno — when Korea’s culture was influenced by creations from the US and Japanese folk music.

They succeeded in coming out of the gate swinging with the fusion of American rap and Korean lyrics which means that they melded the western-style pop music with Korean lyrics.

Present Day: BTS

The evolution of K-pop has culminated in the success of BTS, a sensation from South Korea of all time.

In May 2018, BTS’s album “Love Yourself: tear” debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, and was named one of Time’s “25 Most Influential People on the Internet.”

K-pop, therefore, is a global phenomenon as it has a glistening music.