It’s hard to realize you’ve completely fallen out of love with art you used to hold so dear. As a longtime listener, I can’t shake this unease that the K-pop I loved is on the brink of devouring itself, sacrificing genuine artistry to regurgitate the same few ideas, changing a group’s sound with every new release, and transparently replicating already-done viral moments. 

This past year, K-pop has blurred into an incomprehensible soup of TikTok-ready dances and soundbites, devoid of the personality and heart that first entranced me when I started listening. Since the genre’s inception in the late ‘90s, newly debuting acts have been unofficially categorized into “generations” by fans. The initial idea was to build on the genre’s legacy, but now in its fifth generation, the current state of K-pop feels uniquely dire. At the whims of predatory management and overconsumption, the industry is on the brink of self-cannibalization — uninspired, stagnant, yet ever-changing in a meaningless way.

I was first exposed to the genre through my older cousins, who showed me second-generation groups like B.A.P. and f(x). Though I had initially shied away from K-pop growing up — I found its loud visuals and distinct counterculture concepts too unlike the Western pop music I heard on the radio — 2017 brought BTS’ collection of “Love Yourself” comebacks, and I instantly grew enamored. Every component of the project forever cemented K-pop’s place in my heart: co-written music, the group’s charitable message, well-tailored choreography, and beautifully produced music videos. Though the group had a corporate team behind it, its desire to connect with fans through art was palpable, and I couldn’t resist falling in love. Where did it all go? Why did it change?

To explore the unfolding demise of K-pop, allow me to provide a brief history of this industry and its characteristic entwinement with capital-driven management. 

Lee Soo-man founded major K-pop label SM Entertainment in 1989, signing artist Hyun Jin-young. At the time, Korean music largely consisted of dance-pop, full of glittery synths and sweeping vocals popular in Western disco music. Hyun’s act revolutionized the K-pop industry by incorporating counterculture sounds and movements like hip-hop, rap, and breakdance. Such innovation could only come from Hyun’s background of creative ingenuity — the son of a jazz pianist who grew up near a U.S. army base in South Korea, where he was introduced to these genres by his American friends.

The artistry Hyun displayed has been a singular influence on K-pop’s development and success. But with good comes evil; Hyun’s career never recovered after he was convicted for drug usage and the consequent media storm, and management responded with the now-infamous idol trainee system. Characterized by years of grueling predebut training, this predatory setup incentivizes management companies to take full rein over their artists’ discographies, promotion schedules, and public image to avoid potential scandal — an expensive undertaking to make the perfect performers. 

To maximize their return on investment, management corporations will commission an extensive and impersonal team to formulate a group’s next big hit, consequently transferring creative control from artists to consumer interest. By this design, perhaps it was inevitable that K-pop would fold in on itself, with fresh musical ideas being vetoed in favor of “safe” money-making trends. 

K-pop generations, dividing groups based on their debut date, are usually demarcated by differences in trends and promotion styles. Notably, each generation is becoming shorter and shorter. Its first and second generations lasted upward of a decade. K-pop’s third generation saw this timeline halved, only spanning around six years. The fourth generation? Barely five short years. 

Now, as we enter this fifth generation, everything from sound to choreography to promotion seems markedly different. Driven by the ever-shortening trend cycle fueled by short-form social media apps like TikTok rather than a true creative pursuit, K-pop groups are starting to feel amorphous, ditching the clear-cut concepts of past generations to lazily ride the wave of whatever music seems to be popular this month. Whereas second- and third-generation groups focused on carving out sonic niches with their discographies, new groups are now being marketed without a focus on their music post-debut, as they are outfitted with different concepts seemingly every comeback. And where past groups found success perfecting elaborate routines for televised music shows, modern K-pop choreography requires little more than a simple, “trend-worthy” routine that fits neatly in a 9-by-16 ratio. Evolution is natural, especially in such a competitive sphere, yet this pattern of ever-shortening generations full of lackluster creations leaves me wondering if we’ll see the death of K-pop generations as the industry runs out of trends to capitalize on.

Turn to the discography of LE SSERAFIM, a girl group under K-pop giant HYBE, which is also responsible for the success of BTS. Relative to the intentionally radical experiments of older K-pop groups, LE SSERAFIM seems to be pulling from any and every subgenre under the pop umbrella in an uncalculated way that screams, “Throw everything at the wall and see what sticks!” Its most recent single, “SPAGHETTI,” has polarized listeners with its nonsensical lyrics and confounding “noise music” production — even die-hard fans called the track “unlistenable.” All of this “SPAGHETTI” related polarization is not an isolated incident; the K-pop community saw an eerily similar audience response to HYBE labelmate KATSEYE’s divisive “Gnarly.” 

While these two songs do vary in composition, both singles represent a complete 180-degree shift in their respective group’s sound. It’s glaringly obvious how these groups are leaning into absurd production for the sake of absurdity, defining this generation’s sound as almost purposefully nonmusical. Once was okay, but a second occurrence of this “antihit” trend, under the same label, strikes me as a worrying signifier of K-pop careening in the direction of losing its identity altogether.

Admittedly, K-pop is a highly-manufactured export at its core, but this sharp decline in artistry reflects an alarming shift in what big labels think consumers find attractive. As long as they can control more space in the same niches, K-pop labels will continue to constantly repackage their products to provide fans with more of what they already like. Soon, we will be faced with K-pop bloat: big labels churning out mindlessly similar groups every two years. Management companies like HYBE have already started to realize that the best money-maker is to capitalize off the success of an already successful enterprise, and they’re willing to sacrifice quality to do it. 

Whatever your personal listening minutes in K-pop, you can’t ignore how influential this industry is. As a previously devoted listener, it’s hard to still be infatuated with an industry that no longer focuses on art or identity, but rather on whatever product can be shilled out to fans. 

I recall what made me so excited to tune into new K-pop releases just a few years ago: impressive dance routines, creative new concepts accompanied by captivating storylines, the steady progression of a group settling into its identity. K-pop today lacks this heart that can only come out of true innovation and creativity, and it must get this spirit back before it devours itself.