The Golden Era of K-pop debatably started from 2008-2012, which was the second generation of K-pop, which started when TVXQ! debuted in 2003 with the song ‘Hug’. It’s called the Golden Era because the second-generation groups like TVXQ!, Super Junior, Wonder Girls, BIGBANG, Girls’ Generation, SHINee, F(X), APink, Infinite, 2PM, KARA, etc. popularized K-pop and made it a trend overseas showcasing their Korean vibe in their music.
This was the time when ‘fan-wars’ had no meaning and everyone knew the lyrics to songs like ‘Sorry Sorry’, ‘Mirotic’, ‘Lucifer’, ‘Be Mine’, ‘Gee’, ‘Nobody’, ‘Electric Shock’, and many more.
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If we were to describe what that age was about, it would majorly be about SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment and YG Entertainment, also known as the BIG 3. If we talk about the biggest selling girl groups who have paved the way for the existing ones, they would be 2NE1 and Girls’ Generation. These groups were consistently on top in terms of physical album sales and digital sales. Following these girl groups would be F(X), KARA, 4MINUTE, SISTAR and APink. Nowadays, new fans only know mainstream girl groups like BLACKPINK and Twice, but they don’t know what ultimately led to their immense popularity were these second-generation girl groups.
Now when we talk about boy groups, there are many who dominated the music of that time. Groups like BIGBANG, SHINee, Super Junior and 2PM were highest on music charts for very long durations. They have released iconic songs like ‘Haru Haru’, ‘Ring Ding Dong’, ‘Sorry Sorry’, ‘Heart Beat’, etc., to which fans listen to even today. They have consistently been among the top popular groups in terms of popularity, sales, music and fashion. Other groups which reached popularity around this time were Infinite, Beast (now Highlight) and EXO. EXO had an extreme popularity outburst and became the group which consisted of the biggest fanbase. The ‘Hallyu Wave’ was originally started by Super Junior. They were the first idols who brought K-pop outside Asia with ‘Sorry Sorry’, and took over the world and went viral worldwide. They were also the first large scale group to debut with 13 members (15, including the Chinese unit). They initially got a lot of hate for this, but with their outstanding success, they prompted the debut of many large groups who are active now like SEVENTEEN, NCT, Stray Kids, etc.
Fashion during the Golden Era was as iconic as the songs they released. Some groups changed their fashion concept with every comeback, while some groups didn’t change their fashion concept. For example, Girls’ Generation was known to try out different concepts for each comeback which they displayed successfully each time. Contrary from Girls’ Generation, APink was known to do cute concepts every comeback which also made them super successful in Korea. It is only since 2018 that APink has changed their concept to a more matured concept after releasing cute concepts for almost 7 years. Super Junior was known to perform only in suits, sometimes colored suits, but they were suits. BIGBANG on the other hand, were known for their individuality and trends and every member had a uniqueness about them. Nonetheless, both groups were immensely successful in Korea and overseas.
This was all about what was happening during the Golden Era. Groups debuting these days like ITZY, ATEEZ, Stray Kids, NCT, BLACKPINK, etc., have a whole lot of advantage of becoming popular, thanks to the growing advancements of technology and growing users of the Internet. This Internet power is at their disposal from the very beginning of their debut. During the Golden Era, there wasn’t a single artist or group that had a social media platform to promote themselves. With these internet advancements, new groups gain international audience almost the instant they debut, even faster than Korean audience. It used to be a very big thing if a group was able to debut in Japan, but now, it pretty much became a standard to have a Japanese debut. Now, the big deal seems to be able to have a debut in the US, which very recently, SuperM was able to do so by collaborating with an American label called Capitol Records.
Before having this US debut aspiration, K-pop was very much present internationally. So, to appeal to the international fans, groups would release English versions of their songs to gain more international audience. But out of all songs, PSY’s ‘Gangnam Style’, which is very much Korean, became the first song to become immensely popular gaining billions of views on YouTube. Through this, companies realized that in order to have more international appeal, lyrics translation doesn’t matter much. If the music video and the beats to the song are catchy, the song is good to go.
K-pop has grown tremendously in the past few years and how the fans aspire to attend their favorite artists concert or meet them in person is pretty amazing. But if this new grown K-pop is the only K-pop you’ve ever known, you should know that the fans and groups which came before your favorite artists are the ones who paved the way for them.
If we talk about the new groups who make covers of the second-generation songs, they all do it amazing, but each style has different responses from the old fans. For example, a very new group called TXT recently covered SHINee’s debut song ‘Replay’ at an award show. This group covered this song completely using SHINee’s style while singing in their own melodious voices which left SHINee fans very nostalgic and kept praising TXT’s performance. Other groups cover old songs in their own style which is also very new and different to look at from old fans perspective, but not as impactful as the covers done in the form of the original ones.
The Golden Era fans rarely had fan wars which is now a very common thing with the debut of new groups almost every week. Variety shows like Star King, Star Golden Bell, Night Star, etc., brought out the friendship and brotherhood that groups from different companies had for each other which is very rare in this new generation. With new groups debuting almost every week, it becomes hard for them to survive in this industry which ultimately leads to group disbandment. This was not the case in the Golden Era as usually only 3-4 groups used to debut in the same year giving them ample of opportunities to compete with each other.
The Golden Era was no doubt a very accomplishing period for the music industry in Korea which made them popular and known overseas due to which K-pop is widely popular today. New artists are no doubt doing excellent in this field, but it is all thanks to the second generation which made this possible.
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