The first K-pop music video to achieve 100 million views was “Gee,” the hit single by Girls’ Generation. Released in January 2009, it surpassed the 9-digit mark in April 2013, a slow ascent compared to today’s hyper-fast view count pace. But that was just the beginning.
At the time, K-pop had been slowly gaining a following in overseas markets and the rise of visual language accelerated this momentum. Idol groups, such as BIGBANG, EXO, Seventeen and Twice, were the key drivers of K-pop’s nascent global popularity, alongside major solo acts including G-Dragon, Taeyang, HyunA, Taeyeon and IU. Reaching the 100 million mark has since become a symbolic indicator of a K-pop song’s popularity.
The Korean pop industry first began to place greater emphasis on music videos in the early 1980s. The launch of the U.S. cable music channel MTV in 1981 hooked global pop music fans on visual images that accompanied their favorite music. It was as if the lyrics of the British pop song “Video Killed the Radio Star” were coming alive.
The “visualization of sound,” which until then had only been imagined, transformed the pop music landscape. MTV videos featuring flashy, provocative images 24/7 quickly became a prominent medium in the pop music industry. They were central to the success of 1980s pop culture icons Madonna, Michael Jackson and Prince. Likewise, British acts like Duran Duran, Culture Club and Eurythmics, characterized by distinctive visuals and musical styles, rose to global stardom on the back of their music videos. Ever since, music videos have become de rigueur for musicians.
Today, 40 years on, K-pop is the biggest beneficiary of the convergence of visual images and music. Entertainment agencies stress the importance of visuals, making sure the groups they back include at least one member with stunning looks or amazing dance skills. First-generation idol groups, such as H.O.T., S.E.S., Fin.K.L and Sechs Kies, rode the early wave of music that is “pleasing to the eye,” coming out with eye-grabbing music videos.
In the beginning, these videos featured one-dimensional images that mesmerized viewers instantly. They consisted of sensuous shots that captured and accentuated each member’s strengths, such as through close-ups of a member’s face or dance moves. Over time, these videos gradually began to incorporate storylines that narrated the experiences of group members or conveyed a message to their generation, some notable examples being H.O.T.’s “Hope” and Fin.K.L’s “Now.” These dramatized music videos were the prevailing format until 2012, when boy band EXO introduced “worldview” music videos, which based a narrative or message on an entire album rather than just a single song.
The band’s concept featured the idols as beings from another world outside our solar system – a so-called “exoplanet.” Computer graphics were used to depict the members’ superpowers, and myriad cutting-edge visual content, including scores of teasers, was d to portray the group’s “parallel world,” which included a tree of life and two suns in a story so profound and abstruse that fans joked about the need to return to university and major in EXO to understand their alternative reality.
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