J-pop, which until recently was considered to be only for dedicated fans, has been gradually gaining in popularity. In fact, you can listen to lots of J-pop songs on video platforms such as Youtube, Instagram or Tiktok, as background music for videos. Moreover, concert tickets to see J-pop musicians visiting Korea have sold out in 1 or 2 minutes.

 The history of J-pop in Korea is very short because even in the 90s, the Korean government prohibited imports of J-pop. However, J-pop was officially imported along with other Japanese cultural products due to the first opening toward Japanese culture in 1988 and was fully opened in 2004. As the Korean public was not quick to adapt, J-pop and Japanimation were not especially welcome. Most Koreans thought of them as things just for otaku (fans of Japanese culture).

 However, the characteristics of the Japanese music industry are also a main reason for its delayed entry to Korea. Japanese culture is usually considered to have Galápagos syndrome – it’s too tailored to the Japanese to be popular elsewhere. Their music industry is no exception. Japan has the world’s second- biggest domestic music market, so Japan was satisfied with this huge market. Moreover, JASRAC’s (the Japanese copyright association) strict copyright policy also delays entry to streaming platforms like Spotify and Youtube. Despite all these issues, the retro trend at the end of the 2010s made ‘city pop‘, which is a genre from the 1980s in Japan, rise up, making people interested in J-pop.

  These are the results of a survey about how many people are enjoying J-pop. 85% of people answered ‘yes’ to ‘Have you ever listened to J-pop?’ and among these people 49% listed more than six songs in their playlists. For the question ‘Do you think J-pop has been popularized in Korea?’ 88% answered ‘yes’ and they chose easy accessibility to animation, and songs covered on social media the most.

Media Management Editor•KIM TAE WOO•jerryfighter27@gmail.com