Kpop has grown and spread globally, and this trend is shown by the fact that music groups use many English words in their lyrics.

According to Circle Chart researcher Kim Jin-woo, in the first half of this year, the proportion of English lyrics in girl group songs accounted for 41.3%, an increase of 18.9% since 2018.

As a group, (G)I-DLE had the highest rate of using English in songs in the first half of this year at 53.6%. Following are the groups LE SSERAFIM with 50.6%, Blackpink with 50%, NMIXX using 49.3% English and NewJeans with 48.4%.

On the contrary, IVE’s lyrics have the lowest percentage of “inserts” in English, at about 24.9%.

English words commonly used in idol group lyrics include “I”, “You”, “Like” and “Love”.

Researcher Kim Jin-woo explains: “After Blackpink’s global success, the girl group market, which was only focused on the domestic market, began to expand abroad, leading to the use of English lyrics. and more”.

The general trend of Kpop is that the more international fans a group has, the more English words they add to their songs to attract fans.

Meanwhile, music critic Kang Tae-gyu analyzed: “The younger generation has no objection to English lyrics and this phenomenon is reflected in music charts. Now, artists don’t need to limit their lyrics to one language anymore.”

For boy groups, the percentage of lyrics written in English in the first half of this year was 24.3%, an increase of only 5.6% after 5 years.

According to experts, this difference comes from the fact that girl groups not only target fans but also attack the global market, while boy groups mainly revolve around fandom (fan association).

(G)I-DLE is a girl group that often uses English to write lyrics. Photo: Cube

At the same time, the number of personnel involved in producing music for Kpop has also increased significantly as many idols participate in composing and writing lyrics and many foreign musicians target entertainment companies in Korea.

According to Kbizoom, in the first half of 2023, an average of 3.9 people contributed to song lyrics; 4.8 people compose and 2.2 people participate in mixing for a Kpop song. Before that, each stage of song production only had 1-2 people involved.

Blackpink is considered the girl group that paved the way for Kpop to conquer the European and American market. The 4 girls signed a contract with Interscope in 2018 and gradually conquered the position of No. 1 girl group in the world.

Since then, Blackpink has had important momentum to climb high on the Billboard charts, tour in the US and perform for 2 hours on the stage of the Coachella music festival.

With the album “Pink Venom”, Blackpink topped the charts in both the US and UK, something no girl group has done since Destiny’s Child in 2001.