SEOUL, Jan. 8 (Korea Bizwire) — In the whirlwind of A-list K-pop groups’ releases in April 2018, a unlikely 2017 ballad topped the charts of major online music stores, raising many a fan’s eyebrows. Even amid the heated competition between such top-rung bands as TWICE, WINNER and EXO-CBX, a subunit of EXO, who dropped new [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 6 (Korea Bizwire) — X1, a South Korean boy band, decided Monday to disband amid a vote-rigging scandal involving a cable TV audition show, through which it debuted five months ago. In a brief press release, Starship Entertainment, MBK Entertainment and seven other management agencies representing its 11 members said they decided to [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — Popular K-pop band BIGBANG will make a much-awaited comeback to the stage at a U.S. music festival this spring after its members completed their military duties, the group’s agency said Friday. The act was invited to this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California, in April, [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 2 (Korea Bizwire) — The much-anticipated high-profile year-end K-pop shows by three major TV broadcasters last week were overshadowed by a series of accidents, including a girl band member’s fall from a stage. The decadeslong annual live K-pop shows stand as major broadcasting events to mark the end of the year and have [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — CJ ENM, the operator of K-pop-oriented music channel Mnet, said Monday it will provide all necessary support for K-pop bands IZ*ONE and X1′s resumption of their music careers, issuing an apology for the vote-fixing scandal of its high-profile idol competition show. “We will provide every support possible … so [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 28 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of students in South Korea’s annual K-pop training course for overseas fans gained ground this year on the back of the global expansion of the Korean wave, government data showed Saturday. The Korean Culture and Information Service (KOCIS), an affiliate of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 24 (Korea Bizwire) — Girl group Red Velvet’s latest “repackage album,” “The ReVe Festival: Finale,” has topped the iTunes album charts in 42 countries, its agency said Tuesday. The third of the five-member band’s “The ReVe Festival” trilogy, the 16-track album was released on Monday (Korean time) and includes four new songs — [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean cable channel Mnet said Wednesday that it will launch no new K-pop audition shows in the future amid a widening police probe into a vote-rigging scandal involving its popular competition series “Produce X101.” “We will refrain from producing audition programs,” Kang Ji-hoon from Mnet said in a [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — K-pop boy band BTS will ring in the new year performing at the United States’ most-watched New Year’s Eve concert, the special program’s organizer has said. “Making 2020 right by ringing in the new year with BTS! Join us live from Times Square on New Year’s Eve,” the organizer [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 11 (Korea Bizwire) — The sensational global ascent of K-pop band BTS has brought to the fore the emergence of a new breed of globally connected, dedicated fans as represented by ARMY, the group’s fandom. Powered by the connectivity of the internet and social network services, ARMY engages in organized transnational operations to [...]