K-Pop is a high energy, glossy style that’s built on teenage dreams, catchy hooks, pulsing rhythms, and a collision of Korean and English lyrics. Recently, the demand for this genre has exploded—more than doubling since 2020. There are definitely opportunities here for songwriters and music producers. So, let’s take a listen to a few monster hits from the current and classic K-Pop charts and look for shortcuts that will help you write and pitch in this style.
What is a K-Pop song?
The K-Pop genre features highly rhythmical melodies, memorable chorus hooks, stacked harmony vocals, and danceable grooves. While it clearly shares similarities with the U.S. boy bands of the 1990s, like Backstreet Boys and ’NSYNC, there is a kind of super-charged energy to today’s K-Pop hits. The tempo is faster, the song sections are shorter, and there’s a lot more phrase repetition.
To hear a great example of a current K-Pop hit, listen to I AM by the K-Pop girl group IVE on Youtube. (Turn on Closed Captioning to see the English language lyrics. It’s the tiny box with “CC” in the lower right of the YouTube video screen.