K-pop has the recipe for global success, just needs to cook up musicality, Western producer says

To Alex Karlsson, girl group NewJeans’s 2023 hit “Super Shy” is close to a perfect K-pop song.

The hit music producer behind SuperM’s “Tiger Inside” (2020), BTS’s “We’re Bulletproof: The Eternal” (2020), Tomorrow X Together’s “Lo$er=Lo♡er” (2021) and Ateez’s “Work” (2024) described the two-and-a-half-minute earworm as something distinctively K-pop, yet universal enough to capture listeners almost immediately.

“Right now, I think the best K-pop song is probably NewJeans’s ‘Super Shy,’” Karlsson said in a joint interview with French jazz musician Amy Gadiaga following the Fête de la Musique+ conference held at Thila Ground in western Seoul on Monday.

“It captures elements that are so Korean that would never be done in the West, but it also has all the elements of something Max Martin would write, while still being so weird,” he noted, referring to the legendary Swedish songwriter, and cited the song’s balance of repetition, complexity and memorability for making it work both in Korea and globally.

Karlsson, a Swedish producer and creative director who has worked in the K-pop industry since 2013, has collaborated with some of the genre’s most prominent acts including BTS, Ateez, Enhypen and Tomorrow X Together. Over more than a decade, he has watched K-pop’s global rise from inside the industry.

He defines K-pop not necessarily as a sonic genre, but a methodology of launching and promoting the artist, with its export-oriented nature enabling it to evolve into the global powerhouse it has become today.

“I think the recipe [for the standard K-pop production] is an enhancement of traditional pop,” he said. “[Those elements] got picked up by J-pop, and J-pop introduced the training facilities and the fandom ownership first. But I think the difference here is that J-pop never really left its own borders.”

K-pop, by contrast, made the step of going international, which led to creative choices that pushed the genre toward a more international taste, he noted.

“The training was more intense, the selection of members was more intense, and the contracts were longer, which gave companies more time to develop a cohesive concept,” he said. “All of these things combined — and specifically that it was built for export — is what gave K-pop its incredible advantage over the rest of the music industry.”

Gadiaga, a French, London-based jazz bassist and songwriter, visited Korea to perform during the monthlong Fête de la Musique festival and take part in a songwriting camp for Korean and French artists. She shared that she found K-pop before she found jazz — and named EXO’s 2013 smash hit “Growl” as her favorite K-pop song.

“I remember being mind-blown when it came out, mostly because of the video, but the song is incredible as well,” she said.

Gadiaga, who also took part in the panel discussion during the conference, noted that French producers could bring the country’s distinctive focus on authentic stories into K-pop, which has traditionally worked more closely with Swedish and U.S. producers.

Gadiaga herself also hopes to work with K-pop artists in the future, at least with one collaboration, but said that the opportunity may not be limited to mainstream idol music.

“There're a lot of indie Korean artists I've discovered through mainstream K-pop artists,” she noted, sharing with a smile that she bumped into BTS members on Sunday when she went to see indie act Balming Tiger’s performance, adding, “I think there could be an opening [for collaboration].”

Karlsson has witnessed K-pop expanding beyond what many of its early players imagined. But the U.S. market still remains the holy grail for acts seeking global recognition — and he believes that success in the world’s largest music market will still come down to one thing: musicality.

Pointing out that in the United States, radio is still one of the primary channels for musical exposure, he said, “To really go international, you do need to have more songs that lean into musicality rather than just — well, not just — but rather than show.”

In the same vein, Karlsson suggested that more K-pop boy bands could benefit from adopting an easier-listening strategy, citing the examples of BTS’s “Butter” (2020) and “Dynamite” (2020).

K-pop boy bands’ performance-heavy, fandom-driven model often incentivizes a heavy focus on visual elements, but to reach mainstream listeners outside the existing fandom — particularly in the United States — he believes songs need what he described as a drive-friendly, sing-along quality.

“Strong hooks, repetition and a sing-along factor, rather than just going new part, new part, new part,” he said.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [[email protected]]