SEOUL, Oct. 1 (Korea Bizwire) — The wild global success of Korean boy band BTS is not a stand-alone case but has opened the door for many more K-pop music acts to make inroads into the American music market, a high-profile U.S. music executive said Tuesday. “BTS is a great success story. But BTS broke [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — CJ ENM is generating a bit of controversy over its choice of Japan as the sole destination for this year’s Mnet Asian Music Awards (MAMA) despite unprecedented trade and diplomatic rows between Seoul and Tokyo. A week earlier, the media and entertainment unit of the conglomerate CJ unveiled Nagoya [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 23 (Korea Bizwire) — Sensational K-pop girl band TWICE dropped Monday its eighth EP, “Feel Special,” without one of its three Japanese members. The member, Mina, has been on temporary leave since July as she has been suffering an anxiety disorder. “Mina took part in the production of the new album. But she [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 23 (Korea Bizwire) — The Busan OneAsia Festival (BOF), a major annual K-pop concert in the second-biggest South Korean city of Busan, will kick off next month with a star-studded lineup. The BOF 2019 will run from Oct. 19-25 at the outdoor stage of Busan’s Hwamyung Park, Haeundae Beach and Busan Cinema Center [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 20 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s biggest K-pop fair, MU:CON, will kick off its four-day run in Seoul this month to pitch K-pop’s new artists to the global music scene, its organizer said Friday. The event, also known as Seoul International Music Fair, will hold its 8th edition in the outdoor areas surrounding [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — K-pop boy band Seventeen on Monday dropped its third full-length album, “An Ode,” a collection of dark, charismatic numbers. The 11-track album marks a sharp turnaround from the characteristic energetic, uplifting music style the band has pursued since its debut in 2015. The record is led by the main [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced Monday plans to invest 481.8 billion won (US$407.1 million) to make the city a music hub in a move seen as building on the K-pop momentum spurred by boy band BTS. Under the five-year plan, the metropolitan government will spend the amount on nine [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — The summer season in the Korean popular music scene has traditionally been a market exclusively reserved for girl bands. This summer, however, female K-pop groups have surrendered their reign to unusually high-performing ballads. A heartrending breakup song, “Drunk on Love,” a collaboration by career balladeers Jang Hye-jin and Yun [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — At the height of his K-pop career this week, Hwang Min-hyun, a member of five-piece boy band NU’EST, launched a new show business career which his fans scarcely expected. The 24-year-old Hwang appeared to his fans in his first acting role in the famous musical, “Marie Antoinette,” as the [...]
SEOUL/LOS ANGELES, Aug. 19 (Korea Bizwire) — KCON, the world’s largest Korean pop music and culture convention launched, has attracted more than 1 million fans over the past eight years, its organizer said Monday. According to CJ ENM, the organizer of KCON, the convention’s cumulative audience reached 1,069,000 over the weekend when the Korean wave, [...]