Top 10 stories that defined K-pop in 2020 – from BTS’ Grammy nomination and Blackpink’s twist on hanbok, to Aespa’s debut and Hwasa and Chungha doing Zico’s TikTok dance challenge
BTS’ Life Goes On became the first Korean song to top the Billboard 100, Blackpink bared their souls for Netflix, and trot music, Rain and Yang Joon-il all made surprising comebacks
The year 2020 saw a rare phenomenon in the Korean music industry: it was the year of mutual gains for trot and K-pop, defying the long-held belief that musicians of the two drastically different genres are inevitably pitted against each other for popularity.
At home, veteran trot singer Na Hoon-a created a sensation after the huge success of his TV concert on the eve of the Chuseok (Korean harvest festival) long weekend. This contributed further to an already existing boom in the trot genre, evidenced by the popularity of Mr Trot, which broke TV Chosun’s viewership records every week it aired.
Read on for the top 10 news stories that redefined the Korean music industry this year.
1. Sustainable trot
The success of TV Chosun’s next trot show saved the cable network’s reputation. TV Chosun, an affiliate of Chosun Daily Newspaper, was often compared to JTBC, an affiliate of JoongAng Ilbo, due to their rivalry in the print media industry. On the small screen, TV Chosun had long been an underdog in the viewership race until it launched the experimental trot survival show Miss Trot last year.
It turned out to be an unparalleled success story that carried on this year with the follow-up Mr. Trot.
Nearly 36 per cent of Korean TV watchers tuned in for the show in one of its final episodes, recording the highest viewership in the history of cable network programming. For the show's finale, an unprecedented 7.7 million text message-based votes were cast nationwide to select the winner, dubbed “Mr. Trot,” among seven final candidates.