K-pop (an abbreviation of Korean pop) (Korean: 가요 kayo) is a musical genre and subculture originating in South Korea which comprises a wide spectrum of musical and visual elements.
see http://kpop.soribada.com/En/
Although in a bigger scope K-pop may include any genre of South Korean popular music, outside of the country the term is more commonly used for songs sung by systematically trained K-Pop idols signed with management agencies such as SM Entertainment, YG Entertainment and JYP Entertainment.
In 1992, dance and rap music was brought into the genre by Seo Taiji & Boys, whose experimentation with a different variety of musical sounds had ushered in the beginning of modern K-pop.
Since the mid-2000s, the Korean Wave has driven a visible spread of K-pop across the Pacific Rim, before subsequently reaching out to the Americas, Eurasia, and North Africa.
According to the news agency Reuters, the success of PSY’s single “Gangnam Style” has led to other K-pop artists positioning themselves for a similar breakthrough in the U.S. music industry, as Big Bang, G-Dragon and Girls’ Generation made their debut on the Billboard 200 albums’ chart and 2NE1’s performance in New Jersey was selected by The New York Times as one of the “Best Concerts of 2012”.
By tapping into social media networks, the ability of K-pop to reach a previously inaccessible audience via the Internet is driving a shift in the exposure and popularity of the genre.
Webakist 