K-pop the idea not K-pop the institution reigns at the Grammy's

I'm in Seoul at the moment, so a bit slower to write than I usually am, but have spent a lot of my time walking through shopping centers and outside of stores blasting music thinking about what K-pop sounds like in 2025. The answer, I feel, is unclear, with no real consensus of hits: although historically I had found walking through Seoul to be a great way to hear what's trending, on this trip I discovered that I was more likely to hear music from a few years ago rather than this year.

Notably absent was the K-pop-associated songs that are nominated for Grammy's in the US.

Even when I did hear this year's music, often in the most tourist-y of tourist spots for K-pop fans specifically, the few 2025 releases I noticed more than once were Stray Kids' "Ceremony", ILLIT's "Do the Dance", Jennie's "Like Jennie", and IVE's "XOXZ" or "Attitude". Even Hottracks was playing Taylor Swift. What I did notice were a lot of older hits, whether from 2024 or 2014, still played. I wondered if it's about the fracturing of the monoculture leading to no real hit consensus this year among K-pop, or is the music just not hitting this year?

Unclear, but one thing that was notably absent was the K-pop-associated songs that are nominated for Grammy's in the US.

Even before my trip I had already been thinking about this Grammy's and what it means for K-pop. Rosé is nominated with Bruno Mars for "APT.", one of 2025's major successes (Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, Song of the Year, Record of the Year); Katseye is nominated with "Gabriela", another popular song (Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, Best New Artist); "Golden" from K-Pop Demon Hunters performed by Ejae, Audrey Nuna, and Rei Ami as HUNTR/X is another undeniable success (Song of the Year, Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, Best Song Written For Visual Media).

A lot of people are applauding these as major moments for K-pop, and I do truly believe they are, but I think the idea of what K-pop is in the US versus what K-pop is in Korea is an interesting one to investigate. At the end of the day, it really doesn't fucking matter what we call anything, but I think branding is important to the way of our lives in 2025, and worth considering how things are framed.

According to the Grammy's themselves, "K-pop joins the history-making fun thanks to ROSÉ and KPop Demon Hunters. ROSÉ's hit collaboration with Bruno Mars, "APT.," and HUNTR/X's chart-topping KPop Demon Hunters smash, "Golden," are the first songs by K-pop artists to be nominated for Song Of The Year, with "APT." also becoming the first song by a K-pop artist to be nominated for Record Of The Year. Both songs are also up for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, marking another milestone: the first time two songs by K-pop artists have been nominated in that Category in the same year."

(Shoutout to Taylor Weatherby who wrote that piece, who, with my own Grammy.com editor Jessica Lipsky, was laid off recently amid a massive slew of gut-wrenching media layoffs. I hope they both find great roles soon.)

Rosé, undeniably a K-pop artist as one-quarter of BLACKPINK, makes sense to describe as such – even though her album is specifically identified as "pop" on streaming platforms and not "K-pop". But I think I'm less confident in describing HUNTR/X as an actual K-pop group: KPDH is a North American production inspired by K-pop, starring American voice actors, performed by American singers, and HUNTR/X is a performance act, not a true K-pop act.

Katseye, who aren't even mentioned within the confines of K-pop by the Grammy.com article, but are produced by Hybe via a similar structure to K-pop training and promotion has undeniably resulted in a lot of discourse about what K-pop is today.

K-pop is pretty much impossible to define generally, heaven knows how much I've tried, but I think it's fairly clear that Rosé with a Bruno Mars collab versus Rosé of Blackpink are different entities, and "K-pop's Katseye" and "global girl group Katseye" mean very different things. The fact that HUNTR/X, a unified group of two performance artists and a songwriter, is the first official-unofficial K-pop girl group (if you believe them to be such!) to be nominated by the Grammy's, speaks a lot to me about a) how undeniable the success of "Golden" is but b) how the Recording Academy's idea of K-pop is fluid and not necessarily entrenched in the industry norms. K-pop's relationship with the Grammy's has always been a bit fraught, and only BTS has reliably been nominated, but even then not for some of their biggest hits, so this year is considered a big door opening moment.

To me, it feels a bit like a sidestepping around K-pop in actuality by the Academy, but we historically know girl groups and boy bands do not generally get recognition (though maybe this means this is opening the doors), so I think this is all a major win regardless of what we call them.

There's a lot to think about here, and I'm running late for a meeting, so I'm going to leave you with a question. Feel free to think about it, or leave your thoughts in the comments: What is K-pop in 2025, and does it matter who is called it?

See you back in New York! I will have some thoughts about concerts I saw while traveling as my next newsletter.

What I'm reading

John Paul Brammer's "Eat Me", a rumination on digestion and Rosalia's Lux album. I particularly related to the footnote, "I straight-up do not understand how music works LOL". Same, JPB, Same...

"Choose your fighter: AI or superfans" from Water & Music's Cherie Hu

Patrick St. Michel has thoughts on American PR companies talking about J-pop in 2025

New Albinston for Fansplaining discusses their relationship with text-based roleplaying, which is how I learned how to write(!). I actually wanted to pitch Fansplaining a story about roleplaying so I guess I waited too long, but so glad someone is writing about this!