Addicting releases, overseas appreciation, English releases and more - the year is 2009, and K-pop is just getting introduced to many international fans thanks to the proliferation of YouTube and hits like Girls' Generation's "Gee," Super Junior's "Sorry Sorry," and Wonder Girls' "Nobody." Scandals and lawsuits galore, 2009 was filled with both good and bad, and has been held for six years as the biggest year for K-pop.
Flash forward to 2015. The songs and groups that made 2009 a major success are still around - Super Junior celebrated their tenth anniversary, Girls' Generation rebounded from a member departure with several hit singles, and the Wonder Girls adjusted to leader Sunye's marriage by reinventing themselves.
f(x), 2NE1, and 4Minute, all of whom had debuted in 2009, proved that they were sticking around with highly successful releases, namely f(x)'s "4 Walls," CL of 2NE1's "Hello Bitches," and 4Minutes's "Crazy."
But the continued success from 2009 weren't the only things that made 2015 a good year, especially when comparing it to 2014's K-pocalypse.
2015 was first and foremost Big Bang's year, with the group returning in a big way for the first time together in three years.
The year also brought growth and continued success to long-running acts, including BoA, Brown Eyed Girls, TVXQ, miss A, Shinhwa, SHINee, and FTISLAND. Even older acts, like Jinusean and Turbo, jumped back into the K-pop crazy and released their first music in years.
Relatively newer acts, like EXO, B.A.P, EXID, AOA, BTS, VIXX, INFINITE and Red Velvet took 2015 by storm, with experimental music and concepts that shows the progression of K-pop as an industry.
But it wasn't just that 2015 was about the older acts showing that they still have it; 2015 was equally full of promising rookies, emphasizing that the K-pop world is only getting bigger.
While 2014 brought about several highly successful rookie groups like WINNER, GOT7, Red Velvet, AKMU and Mamamoo, 2015 had such a slew of success from new groups that even acts from smaller agencies, including Pledis Entertainment boy group Seventeen and Source Music's G-Friend, made major waves by going viral and breaking records.
Rookies from YG Entertainment and JYP Entertainment also garnered a lot of attention, with iKON and Day6 offering alternatives to the typical K-pop boy band structure and Twice being the first large female group to gain major attention since Girls' Generation's debut.
2015 was also notable for the relative lack of lawsuits, showing signs of stability in what has otherwise been an extremely rocky music industry. While there were numerous scandals and member departures from idol groups, only two prominent singers - EXO's Tao and soloist Clara- filed lawsuits against their companies.
Rather than lawsuits, K-pop artists and agencies appear to be attempting alternatives: f(x) lost Sulli, but the idol remains under SM Entertainment to pursue her acting career and B.A.P settled their year-long lawsuit with their agency.
And let's not forget the music.
2015 was the year that hip hop and indie music truly went mainstream in Korea, with Hyukoh and Zion.T and Crush absolutely, well, crushing the charts. Block B's Zico couldn't be ignored with his constant release of songs. Ballads and dance songs still remained king in Korea, but for the first time in several years we have seen real diversity on the Korean music charts.
Here's looking towards a fabulous 2016!
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Tamar Herman is a multi-media journalist and the co-founder of KultScene. She is a freelance writer and copy editor, and has written for MTV Iggy, Noisey, and Paste Magazine.
