LOS ANGELES — At a K-pop store in Koreatown, Emma Salehi flips through shelves of CDs and albums. It’s just one of the places her love for K-pop brings her.
“I started listening to K-pop back in 2018, and ever since then, it’s been a major part of my life,” Salehi said. “I started with posting about K-pop on social media, and now I really just love seeing it go global.”
For Salehi, part of the appeal is the way K-pop constantly reinvents itself.
“For me, and I think for a lot of other people, the performance aspect of K-pop is so dynamic and interesting. You don’t just have them singing. You also have them dancing and rapping and producing. They’re really all hands-on. Also, a big part of it is the fandom culture,” she said.
That same fandom energy fueled the success of Netflix’s “K-pop Demon Hunters,” an animated hit that introduced many to the idea of virtual music groups.
“I do find it fascinating,” Salehi said. “I think, at times, it’s honestly safer for the artist to remain virtual, so it kinda creates a hub for people to like the music just because it is the music, maybe not for any other reasons.”
Now, Los Angeles could be the place where a new virtual K-pop group is born. Galaxy Corporation, the entertainment tech company behind global superstar G-Dragon, recently held auditions for its first fully virtual group. Contestants performed behind a massive screen, their voices and movements instantly translated into avatars through a simple phone. The judges never even saw their faces.
“We chose Los Angeles as the starting point for this global project because it’s a cultural hub where music, entertainment and technology all come together,” said GK, a Galaxy Corporation executive. “It’s also home to such a diverse artist community, which really reflects our motto of respecting everyone’s potential, no matter their background or experience.”
GK, who spent a decade managing some of K-pop’s biggest names, says the timing is right.
“Virtual artists have already found success in Korea. Groups like Plaive are hugely popular, and K-pop already has this energetic global fandom,” he said. “Building on that foundation, we believe the next global K-pop sensation can be a virtual group. That’s why Galaxy Corporation is launching this competition as the first step.”
The numbers back him up. Spotify reports that between 2018 and 2023, global K-pop streams surged more than 360%, proof the music’s reach is still growing worldwide.
“I think that whole concept is really interesting to me,” Salehi said. “I’m really excited to see the surge of these groups.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source spectrumnews1.com ’
