K-POP Now!. Mark James Russell

      Wonder Girls is one of the most successful K-pop groups of the last few years.

      The stadium lights darken, replaced by thousands of fluorescent sticks waving madly as screams fill the air.

      Then comes the boom and flash of fireworks from the stage as silhouettes strike dramatic poses, waiting to begin. Somehow, the impossibly loud screaming grows louder.

      Finally, as anticipation reaches an apex, a deep bass kicks in. The stage lights suddenly blast, the bodies on stage start dancing. The concert has begun, and for the next two hours the cries of joy from the legions of fans will not stop.

      It’s K-pop (an abbreviation for Korean pop), the musical mania that has come out of South Korea and enraptured a world of fans. More than just music, K-pop is also about fashion and style, fun and the future, of a new wave of attitude coming from an old world. And, of course, it is also about the beautiful stars and their adoring fans.

      The names of the bands may look strange—Big Bang, Super Junior, 2PM, 2NE1, TVXQ!, Girls’ Generation, U-Kiss, T-ara, EXO, JYJ, 4Minute, MBLAQ. And as K-pop becomes more popular, the list grows ever longer.

      For me, it’s hard to believe K-pop has come so far. When I first arrived in Korea, one of the first and greatest K-pop groups, H.O.T, was just getting started, setting off a wave of mania that could not compare to anything I had seen in North America or Europe. Their first big hit, “Candy,” was on the air and on TV everywhere, and at the time H.O.T featured a cuddly, cute image, with the group’s five members dressed in bright colors, often in large, plush jumpsuits. Only later would they take a turn toward the goth. But soon came other groups, nearly as popular—S.E.S., FinKL, g.o.d., Shinhwa and more.

      I soon began writing about Korean music for a variety of Western publications, including Billboard, talking about the coolest new groups and the hottest new music labels. And gradually it became clear that K-pop was also building followings outside of Korea, in other parts of Asia. But the question I was asked by people in the Korean music business, over and over again, was “When will Korea have a Destiny’s Child?” Or, later, a Beyonce or a Justin Timberlake? That is, when would a K-pop group become big in the United States?

      At the time, the question seemed ridiculous. K-pop was catchy but it was so far away from the big pop stars of America. When I posed that question to Western music executives, they would also answer the same way: “Why would we want a Korean Destiny’s Child when we already have Destiny’s Child? We already have Beyonce and Justin Timberlake, too.” K-pop would have to wait.

      The thing is, K-pop didn’t want to wait. It kept growing and pushing, winning over more and more fans. And then came Psy and “Gangnam Style.” Goofy Park Jae-sang, who had been singing and dancing for a decade with his catchy, silly songs. But “Gangnam Style” was even goofier and catchier than usual, and this time the West got the joke. Leading websites and celebrities started tweeting and linking to the “Gangnam Style” video on YouTube and soon the song took off. And somehow, it kept getting bigger and bigger, until today it tops 1.8 billion views, nearly twice as many as the next biggest song.

      Even before Psy, K-pop had been growing. It spent much of the 2000s spreading around Asia, with BoA becoming a major