Fan Chant: K-Pop Streams Have Increased Over 350% in Five Years

Welcome back to Fan Chant, a weekly column for K-pop fans, stans, and newbies alike. This week, let’s dig into some new Spotify data. As always, if you enjoy what you’re reading, feel free to subscribe to my companion newsletter to get Fan Chant delivered right to your inbox each week!

Park Jung-joo, the head of Spotify Korea, has confirmed that K-pop is still very much on the rise. During a talkback event this week in Seoul, Park revealed that the genre has earned a global increase of 362% over the last five years.

Spotify remains the world’s most-used music platform, and K-pop streams have specifically seen an increase of 182% in the US market since 2018. The US led the list at No. 1, and we were followed by Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, Mexico, Thailand, India, Brazil, Malaysia, and Canada with the highest number of listeners. (Note that Spotify doesn’t have a dominant market share in South Korea, which might be why the birthplace of K-pop didn’t crack Spotify’s top ten.)

“K-pop has become a global force, with artists breaking into international charts like Billboard,” Park noted. This includes the Hot 100 songs chart, where Jimin and Jung Kook of BTS became the first and second Korean soloists, respectively, to debut a song in the top slot. BTS as a band became the first K-pop act to earn a No. 1 on the Hot 100 in 2020 with “Dynamite,” an accomplishment they then repeated with “Savage Love (Laxed – Siren Beat),” “Life Goes On,” “Butter,” “Permission to Dance,” and “My Universe.”

Billboard’s various album charts have also seen plenty of K-pop acts throughout the years, but this July, for the first time, the top two slots on the Billboard 200 were occupied by acts out of South Korea: Stray Kids and Jimin. With that addition to their canon, Stray Kids achieved a record with their fifth consecutive No. 1 album on the chart.

There’s also Spotify’s Billions Club, which has again welcomed BTS as a group, in addition to Jimin and Jung Kook as soloists. Notably, Jung Kook’s “Seven” feat. Latto reached 1 billion streams just 108 days after its release, making it the fastest song in Spotify’s history to join the club. BLACKPINK have also joined the Billions Club as a team, while LISA notched over a billion streams with her single “Money.”

However, during the chat, the folks from Spotify Korea emphasized that it’s not just the most well-known acts earning attention. In fact, in the first part of the year, four of the five most-streamed Korean songs internationally were from relatively new groups, including ILLIT, who exploded with their debut track, “Magnetic,” and LE SSERAFIM.

There are so many ways to fall into K-pop, and, for some folks, that doesn’t look like venturing beyond the group that first got you hooked. But for many others, the gateway is just the beginning, and once people begin to learn about the wide world of groups offering dramatically varying sounds, energies, and concepts, they’re locked in.

A decade ago, it would’ve been wild to see even one K-pop album on the shelf in Target; now, there’s usually a dedicated section. We’ve seen K-pop acts named as festival headliners with more and more frequency, and we’ve seen an abundance of US tours for groups big and small. And if this Spotify data is any indicator, that demand won’t be slowing down any time soon.

Song Rec of the Week:

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how ATEEZ came out the gate swinging, and how they’ve been so confident in their vibe and sound at every turn. Dropping a song this great on your first project post-debut is wild work. (There’s a reason it’s never left their setlist!)