Analysis of the global-local-global strategy in K-pop music videos

Analysis of the global-local-global strategy in

K-pop music videos

Yasmine El Ouahi Hajji

Tutor: Núria Vergés Bosch

Bachelor’s Degree in International

Business Faculty of Economics and Business

University of Barcelona

ABSTRACT

K-pop music videos are a global sensation that are breaking YouTube streaming records

since the virality of the hit single ‘Gangnam Style’ by PSY in 2012. After that, South

Korean pop music artists and bands such as BTS or BLACKPINK kept dominating

international charts and winning the admiration of millions of fans through their music

videos. According to academic researchers, this was made possible because of a unique

internationalization strategy called global-local-global which consists of the hybridity of

cultural product by combining global production factors to a South Korean product with

the goal of reaching an international audience by using a foreign distributor channel

(YouTube). To understand the characteristics and evolution of this method, K-pop music

videos with most YouTube views of each year from 2012 up to 2020 where analyzed.

The aspects discussed and their respective evolution throughout the years were the

nationality of the K-pop music videos producers, the identification of Korean and foreign

elements in the visuals, the use of English in the lyrics, music style, the artists looks and

also the use of YouTube digital tools. From the analysis of the music videos, the factors

that did help with the popularity of K-pop where the progressive increase of English in

the lyrics compared to Korean, the quality camerawork and great scenography together

with the use of choreographies and YouTube hashtags and subtitles. Elements from the

global-local-global strategy that did not intervene on the success are the nationality of the

music video and song producers, the cultural origin of the elements on the visuals (both

Korean and US references have an equal impact on the market reception) as well as the

equal popularity of K-pop solo singers compared to K-pop groups.

KEY WORDS

K-pop, South Korea, global-local-global, music video, YouTube

RESUM

Els videoclips de K-pop són una sensació global i estan batent rècords de visualitzacions

a YouTube després que la cançó Gangman Style de PSY es fes viral. Artistes i bandes de

la música pop de Corea del Sud com BTS i Blackpink han dominat les llistes

internacionals i s’han guanyat el respecte i l’admiració de milions de fans internacionals

gràcies a l’èxit dels seus videoclips. Això ha sigut possible gràcies a l’estratègia

d’individualització que han desenvolupat que es coneix com a global-local-global en la

que consisteix en la idea base de combinat la cultura local coreana amb la global creant

un producte cultural híbrid capaç de ser exportat altres mercats i que pugui arribar a una

audiència internacional a través de distribuïdors de contingut estrangers com la

plataforma de YouTube. Per entendre les característiques i l’evolució d’aquest mètode,

he analitzar videoclips de K-pop amb més visualitzacions de cada any des del 2012 fins

al 2020. Els aspectes a tenir en compte son l’indentificació d’elements coreans i

estrangers en els visuals, l’ús de l’anglés en la lletra de les cançons, l’estil musical,

l’estilisme dels cantants i l’ús de les eines digitals de YouTube. A partir de l’anàlisi dels

vídeos musicals, els factors que han ajudat a la popularització del K-pop són l’augment

progressiu de l’anglès en les lletres en comparació al coreà, la qualitat i el joc de

perspectives dels plànols, les coreografies juntament amb una gran escenografia i l’ús de

etiquetes i subtítols. Els elements de l’estratègia global-local-global que no han

intervingut directament en l’èxit són la nacionalitat dels productors dels videoclips i les

cançons, l’origen cultural dels elements visuals (tant les referències coreanes com nord-

americanes tenen un impacte similar en la recepció del mercat), així com la igual

popularitat dels cantants solistes de K-pop en comparació amb els grups de K-pop.

PARAULES CLAU

K-pop, Corea del Sud, global-local-global, video musical, YouTube

 
1 
TABLE OF CONTENT 
 
I.  INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 2 
II.  METHODOLOGIES .............................................................................................. 4 
III.  CONTEXTUALIZATION AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .......................... 6 
1. Historical background ......................................................................................................... 6 
2. K-pop’s economic implications ............................................................................................ 8 
3. When K-pop met the Internet .............................................................................................. 9 
4. Cultural differences between South Korea and K-pop country consumers ........................ 10 
5. Global, local and global’ again ........................................................................................... 14 
5.1 Global ...................................................................................................................................................... 16 
5.2 Local ........................................................................................................................................................ 16 
5.3 Global’ ..................................................................................................................................................... 18 
IV.  RESULTS: K-POP MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS ................................................... 20 
1.  2012: GANGNAM STYLE (강남스타일) - PSY (YG Entertainment) ............................ 21 
2.  2013: GENTLEMAN - PSY (YG Entertainment) ........................................................... 23 
3.  2014: Boy In Luv(상남자) - BTS(방탄소년단) (Big Hit Entertainment) ......................... 25 
4.  2015: DOPE(쩔어) - BTS(방탄소년단) (Big Hit Entertainment) .................................... 27 
5.  2016: 붐바야'(BOOMBAYAH) - BLACKPINK (YG Entertainment) ............................ 29 
6.  2017: DNA – BTS (방탄소년단) (Big Hit Entertainment) ............................................... 32 
7.  2018: 뚜두뚜두 (DDU-DU DDU-DU) – BLACKPINK (YG Entertainment) ................... 34 
8.  2019: Kill This Love - BLACKPINK (YG Entertainment) ............................................. 36 
9.  2020: Dynamite - BTS (방탄소년단) (Big Hit Entertainment) ........................................ 38 
V.  K-POP MUSIC VIDEOS’ GLOBAL-LOCAL-GLOBAL OVER TIME ................... 41 
VI.  CONCLUSIONS................................................................................................... 43 
VII.  BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................. 44 
ANNEX .......................................................................................................................... 47 

I. INTRODUCTION

In this research project I aim to analyze the global-local-global business strategy in the K-pop

music videos and its evolution over the years. The recent rising popularity of K-pop music

videos worldwide and their presents in international music chards is in part due to the unique

globalization strategy used specially designed for this specific cultural product. By realizing the

limitation that Korean cultural products have like for instance the insufficient domestic market

which makes this country to depend on exports for their survival and economic expansion. A

second limitation is the little number of the world population that speaks Korean. Furthermore,

there is a big cultural difference compared to the biggest exporter of music which is the United

States. Nevertheless, they have managed to develop the key factors for success to get as many

YouTube visualizations in their music videos as American or Latin artists that already have an

extensive domestic market. This winning strategy is defined as ‘global-local-global’ also

referred as ‘glocalization’ or using the acronym ‘g-l-g’. The definition of it cannot be found in

theory economic or management books as it is a relatively new and unique way to

internationalize culturally bounded products like music but in researches specialized on the

investigation of K-pop (Oh, 2013). Despite being a new strategy, it has already proven its

efficiency as now K-pop has fans from all over the world including myself. As an International

Business student, I found genius the way that K-pop music is presented by providing the perfect

blend of cultural influences as well as the use of the digital tools. It is a living example of how

business strategies can turn lacks and disadvantages into competitive advantages and market

differentiation. It also demonstrates that success does not reside in following what it is already

established or copying what work for the rest majority. Market positioning is more about having

the ability to vision new ways to offer the same product and perhaps look for market holes that

at first glance may not seem attractive but have potential and take advantage of them.

An approach to study the methodology of g-l-g globalization strategy and its application is by

analyzing how it is applied in K-pop music videos and its evolution and adaptation to changing

global trends over the years. Studying the final outcome of the strategy will allow me to

determine the main characteristics of it and its application.

The popularity of K-pop music videos in countries like the US has caught the attention of many

researchers that work in the field of art and humanism such as (Wong, 2020). I realized a lack

of literature regarding this topic in the economic and business field which makes this research

theme to be more relevant as it brings me the opportunity to explore, study and provide a

business perspective toward K-pop music videos.

This Final Degree Project consists of three parts. The first part introduces this research, as well

as the methodologies carried out. The second part consists of the theoretical and contextual

framework to define and contextualize the use of the global-local-global strategy to globalize

K-pop music videos and it is economic, social and cultural influences. This was done based on

the literature and academic research of the field from academic databases. After an initial

bibliographic research, research questions and objectives could be defined. The third part is the

empirical one and is the identification and the evolution of the implementation of the aspects

defined in the first part. The sample of study is the 9 most viewed K-pop music videos within

the last 8 years by chronological order. I finish with the main conclusions.

II. METHODOLOGIES

The general objective is to analyze the global-local-global business strategy in the K-pop music

videos and its evolution over the year. The specific objectives are the following ones:

· To explore how K-pop shows the g-lg in their music videos

· To identify Korean culture elements in K-pop music videos

· To analyze the use of English in K-pop lyrics as a tool to globalize their music videos

· To examine the evolution of the g-l-g strategy in K-pop music videos

The hypothesis to be confirmed or rejected are:

· Korean cultural aspects dominate when it comes to the visuals of K-pop music videos

rather than aspects from other cultures to differentiate themselves from others.

· As a consequence of K-pop globalization, English lyrics predominate over Korean lyric.

· For the cultural hybridity to reach the international audience, the production of K-pop

music videos is done by non-South Korean professionals.

To meet this research objectives, this research work begins with the theoretical framework of

the subject based on academic research. The bibliography was initially gathered from the digital

database of the Web of science as it is one of the most reliable scientific sources of information

for academic research. The first key words used in order to allocate the references that best

fitted to the needs of this work was “K-pop” which provided a total of 895 results, but they

were about topics beyond the scope of my research hypothesis. When trying with the same word

but without the dash (“kpop”), only 33 outcomes were available and that is the reason why I

used the first spelling for the bibliographic research. Furthermore, to specify the first search,

the input words I used were “K-pop AND globalization” but only 2 results popped up and both

of them were in Korean. After that, I came to the conclusion that the best way to get the results

desired was to look for the specific topic from the very beginning. With the words “K-pop

music videos'' I got 22 results, with “internationalization K-pop” there were 4 results, and

finally with “globalization K-pop” I got 99 results. The same input words procedure was done

in the ResearchGate database. Graphic provided in this research are from Blip (a Korean data

research agency), Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange, Hofstede dimension

model and GLOBE culture clusters. Other public sources for information have been used during

the course for this research such us business strategy books (Grant, R.M., 2013) and articles

from online journals websites (Surcouf, O., 2020).

For the third part, which is the empirical analysis, the best way to understand how the global-

local-global strategy is used in K-pop is by analysing the audio-visuals of the music videos. I

have selected the most viewed K-pop music videos in YouTube of each year from 2012 (the

year in which K-pop music videos went viral and reached unprecedented streaming records) up

until 2020 (9 videos in total) as the sample. The reason behind choosing the most reproduced

videos is because those are the ones that had a greater international impact. On the other hand,

by analysing the most viewed K-pop MV of each year allows to define the evolution of the

global-local-global strategy that led to the effective internationalization of Korean popular

music. Following the methodology used by Professor Ingyu Oh (Oh, 2013) in his research

dedicated to the investigation of the international approach of K-pop music, first I determined

the nationality and/or country of study of the writers, directors, composers and choreographers

of each music video. When it comes to the visuals of the music videos, the cultural precedence

of the outfits, makeup, hairstyle and accessories are identified and images from the music videos

are provided in order to justify them. The same goes for the music style used, the dance moves,

and the elements used in the background. In addition, the title and lyrics of the songs will also

be analysed, especially when it comes to the use of English (as it is the only foreign language

used in the MVs under study) as well as the use of sounds which are not a characteristic of any

language such as ‘la la la’ or ‘na na na’, between others, but are used to add musicality to the

song and how much time of the music video is dedicated to them against the time spent on the

Korean part. Lastly, As YouTube is the only distribution channel used for K-pop music videos,

general aspect of how each artist used this platform in their advantage are mentioned.

The information in ‘contextualization and the theoretical framework’ based on the bibliographic

research is supported with graphics and the same goes with the practical part of the research.

Pictures from the music video are presented attached to the analysis. When it comes to the lyrics

of the songs, the complete lyrics are included in the Annex in chronological order. The relevant

verses in the music videos that have to do with the use of the g-l-g strategy are included in the

analysis.

The results of the practical analysis regarding the application of g-l-g in K-pop music videos

and the evolution of it are discussed at the end. After that, comes the last part of this research

which are the conclusions in where hypotheses are commented weather are partially or

completely rejected or accepted. The limitation and future possible improvement and project

from this research idea are mentioned too.

III. CONTEXTUALIZATION AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

1. Historical background

First of all, before getting into the analysis of the current internationalization of K-pop, it is a

must to understand and comprehend its historical origins and how the popular music culture of

South Korea was shaped. Knowing the cultural influences and background will allow to better

breakdown the cultural hybridity in K-pop music videos.

K-pop is a music genre relatively new as it was born in 1990 and its creation was the

consequence of many elements including geographical, cultural, economic and political factors,

being the last two the most important one and the one that shaped K-pop as we know it

nowadays. Another key aspect that helped with the proliferation of K-pop is the digital

revolution that changed the game of the music industry around the world.

To begin with, South Korea is a relatively small country and even though they have their own

culture, tradition and language, their popular culture and society were heavily influenced by

other countries. Especially by three: China, Japan and the United States. The degree of influence

that these three countries had over Korean music and how this shows in the production of their

music videos will be discussed below. This information will be reinforced with the Hofstede

country comparison.

China is the country that that first influenced Korean society and the one that did it for the

longest and it was by the implementation of Confucianism. Confucianism is a combination of

moral and social ethics born in China during the 6th century BC and later one was spread to

Korea because it was a protected territory of theirs. It is influence reached Japan and other East

Asian countries too. Even though South Korea is no longer under the political influence of

China, and has developed its own language and traditions, Confucianism is still very present in

today’s society. Out of all Asian countries, South Korea is the most Confucius society (Lee, C.

Y., & Lee, J. Y., 2014), even more than China and it is where it was originated. This effects

directly on their business culture and culture behaviour which can be appreciated in K-pop’s

music videos.

It is not surprising that despite the use of another language, K-pop music videos gained a lot of

support from other Asian countries representing almost half of their YouTube viewers as it can

be seen in Figure 1. This is due to the fact that they see their own values and physical traits

reflected in the audio-visuals of this music videos which makes it feel culturally close to them.

This Confucius representation will be discussed later on when analysing the general traits of

the K-pop industry. It also explains why K-pop focused on gaining popularity in the East Asian

market before jumping into the international. The first wave of Hallyu, also known as the

Korean wave, is a terminology to describe the phenomenon in which South Korea exported

massively its cultural content, one of the most important one being K-pop and K-pop music

videos. At the beginning, Hallyu first focused on dominating first the Chinese market in the

’90s and a decade later, they succeeded in the Japanese market as well (Choi, 2011). Hallyu

had several phases but for the sake of this research, only music videos of the third phase of the

Korean wave known as Neo-Hallyu which is the one currently active and is the one that had a

greater international visibility and impact due to social media.

If we follow the foreign influence on K-pop music in chronological order, after China, the next

nation that impacted K-pop the most was the United Stated. Whereas China shaped South

Korean social mentality, the US had a more direct effect on song production. During the ’50s

the Korean war outbroke and the American government supported the Southern part of the

peninsula against the Northern part. A large number of American soldiers stayed there for many

years and one of the strategies that the US army adopted to repel the communist influence from

China and the USSR that dominated North Korea was by the introduction of American popular

music. The only music that Koreans could listen to in the radio was American pop songs and

even though for them was a foreign influence, it rapidly substituted their traditional music

(Dixon, 2020). This happened because, before that, Korean music was very traditional like for

instance Ppongtchack songs also known as Trot where it predominated the pentatonic scales

(Oh, 2013) and could not compete with the catchy rhythms of American songs. This explains

the reasons why in all K-pop music videos there are no sign of traditional Korean music when

it comes to the melody, the beats or the genre.

Last but not least, there is the cultural influence of Japan. Like the other two nations mentioned

above, Japan conquered Korea many times because of its strategic geographical position. But

when we talk in terms of K-pop, the influence did not happen when the country was under their

military power. This happened at the beginning of the 90’s some years before the beginning of

the Korean wave. At that time, South Korea was a fully democratized country and started to

open up to the international market as a consequence of their lack of natural resources and

limited domestic market. Not only they opened up for their export but also for imports as they

valued the know-how and the technological development of other countries. One of the many

things that South Korea got from their neighbour nation was J-pop and eventually their

marketing style of music entertainment. This can be appreciated in the similitude such us of

the tendency of having bands instead of solo artists, the concept of idol in the society and one

of the most important one, the relationship that the artist builds with their audience which is be

one of the key tactics that made K-pop to be one of the twentieths most important cultural

trends. The influence that K-pop got from J-pop is significant and can be easily noticed when

comparing music videos of both genres. This fact brought up a lot of questions and many experts

discusses and studied the reason why Korean music is now a global sensation while the

Japanese pop is only popular domestically and in their nearby countries. A lot of variables are

said to be the reason behind this issue but the one that most researchers agreed on was that J-

pop is made thinking on their domestic market and the success only inside Japan. This is

because they already enjoy a big and strong domestic market, and they do not really have the

need to export their music globally especially when they are adverse toward western influence

when it comes to cultural products. This is the complete opposite of K-pop’s strategy because

before it is beginning it was already a product made out of many foreign cultural influences.

Their aim of the K-pop industry was not to produce a Korean substitute of the Japanese pop or

American pop but a completely new style. K-pop is a musical product that was born meant to

reach a global audience, and instead of protecting it culturally like J-pop, K-pop went even

further by acquiring other cultural influences beyond the ones already discussed such as

European and Hispanic or other Asian cultures which allowed them to get closer to the

international fandom. At the end, they do not seek to connect national lines, but generational

and class lines (young middle urban) (Oh, 2013). And of course, this affects the accessibility of

the content, while all K-pop songs are available in YouTube and Spotify for free, in Japan they

still rely on physical sales which are only available in the country.

2. K-pop’s economic implications

Letting the cultural influences aside, is time to cover other variables that are not implicitly

cultural but are critical to understand K-pop music videos and the global-local-global strategy.

On one hand there are the implication of the South Korean government in the K-pop industry

and the overall subvention of the Hallyu phenomenon. In order to improve the quality of the

Korean entertainment industry the president of the country Kim Dae-Jung that was in power

from 1998 to 2003 invested millions on American technology. The objective was to invest and

be the ones who export musical content to other countries instead of always being the ones who

imported it. Thanks to the good response they had during the first years of the Korean wave,

the Government’s interest on this industry kept increasing overtime even when the Korean

population itself thought that the success they had was only temporal (Oh, 2017) and that soon

the international market would lose interest on the Korean cultural products. By the year 2020

K-pop made a total of 300 million USD of sales (Wong, 2020) which represents the 0.018% of

the total GDP but if we account the touristic attraction that K-pop has made then the percentage

of the total GDP increases to more than 0.03%. The Korea’s Minister of Foreign Affairs even

organizes several annual K-pop festivals in South Korea and over the world. The most known

one outside the country is the KCON in the US that was first inaugurated in 2012.

Nowadays, in the K-pop industry there is a high degree of concentration because it is mainly

dominated by 4 venture firms which are SM Entertainment, YG Entertainment, JYP

Entertainment and Big Hit Labels. This model of concentration of just a few companies is very

present in almost all sectors of the Korean business world and the music industry is no

exception. This high level of concentration helped with the South Korean economic miracle

and made possible the recognition of K-pop outside its boundaries. Unfortunately, domestically

makes small artists and discographies almost impossible to grow because they do not have the

enough resources and the favouritism of the government which consequently makes the entry

barrier in this sector to be high as there is not quite difficult to have competitive advantage over

the companies already set in the market.

3. When K-pop met the Internet

A big part of the success of K-pop is thanks to the digital revolution. Traditionally, the music

industry was top to bottom which means that it was the industry itself that had the power of

deciding what the audience will hear. The more powerful the discography was, the more streams

their artist on the radio had and so on. An example of this situation is what did America in South

Korea during the war when they only broadcasted American artists on the radio. Back then, the

audience had no choice but to listen to whatever was on air. When people wanted to listen music

for free, they had a little selection because it depended on the supply of songs that each

broadcasting station had. If someone wanted to support a particular artist, they had to but the

physical version of the album or song.

That changed with the Internet and eventually the creation of online platforms such as YouTube

and Spotify, between many others, where they distribute music for free. That made the pattern

of distribution to switch from top-to-bottom to bottom-to-top because now is the audience who

has the power to decide what to listen to. And this is where K-pop music videos hit the nail on

the head and took advantage of this new market situation. First of all, as music is distributed

digitally, geographic distances have been completely eliminated. Any user with Internet access

can enjoy of content from any place of the world immediate and for free without intermediaries.

That is why in K-pop they invest a lot on music videos production (50 up to 150 thousand USD

on average) because their revenues come mostly from YouTube royalties. Second of all, the

first thing that Korean entertainment companies do is study the market and the audience before

launching a new music video, or even a group of artists that perform under their name.

According to JYP Entertainment, 1 million USD of initial investment is needed to make a

decent artist debut. This budget not only includes the expenses of producing a music video but

also the training years of the artists. Another clear example is when SM Entertainment presented

to the world one of their first boy bands that was a product obtained after an exhaustive market

research and a survey made to the type of audience, they wanted to address to by asking them

how their ideal K-pop idol is. This adaptability to the public taste is seen when analysing the

evolution of the global-local-global strategy in the music videos within the same K-pop artists.

This is because people’s taste changes constantly and K-pop companies are aware of it therefore

artists do not get stuck with just a single concept, but they change it almost with every music

video that they make.

Another main advantage that online platforms provide could be seen during the pandemic

situation. All concerts and cultural events had to remain cancelled and postponed for the sake

of the artists and the public health. The sector lost millions of dollars and of course K-pop was

not a special case, but they could save the year without loses thanks to Internet. As K-pop is so

linked to digital platforms, they could make digital concerts and provide more content to their

fans.

4. Cultural differences between South Korea and K-pop country

consumers

Before explaining in depth, the global-local-global strategy of K-pop and proceed with the

analysis of the music videos to see how they apply it and its changes over the years, there is

somethings that need to be addressed first. It is the characteristics of South Korean society

compared to the countries that consume more K-pop videos to see how the strategy made

possible to gain the admiration of so many fans in there. As a matter of fact, the

internationalization strategy of K-pop music videos was to fill the void between the East Asian

music industry with the Western music industry (US and Europe) (Oh, 2013) by creating a

hybrid content to satisfy both markets. In the following graph, made by Blip, a Korean data

research agency, is shown the localization of YouTube viewers of K-pop music videos in 2019

and the density of consumption:

Figure 1’ Map showing K-pop's popularity by global region released’ (Aug 27, 2019) https://storage.kpop-

radar.com/2019/08/23/326.jpg

The greater the circles the higher the percentage of viewers are from a certain country and vice

versa. According to the map, K-pop consumers are present in all continents, so it is proven the

efficiency of their strategy. The countries with the highest percentage of concentration are the

ones that are geographically closer to the Korean Republic and consequently, they are more

culturally closed to them. Notice that there is no data for China and that is because YouTube is

banned in the vast majority of the territory. K-pop is distributed there using SNS platform and

works the same way as YouTube does. In second place we have United States followed by

Brazil and Mexico. Europe is the continent in where K-pop music videos are watched by almost

all the counties that conforms it.

Hofstede dimension model allows to compare cross-cultural dimension up to a maximum of 4

countries in terms of power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long

term orientation and indulgence. To explain the relationship between cultural proximity and the

popularity of K-pop music videos, in Figure 2 are represented the comparisons between South

Korea, Indonesia (the Asian country where K-pop is more popular) and the United States

because is the non-Asian country with the highest percentage of K-pop music video

consumption.

Figure 2 ‘County comparison (Indonesia, South Korea and United States)’ https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-

comparison/indonesia,south-korea,the-usa/

South Korea shares almost the same levels of individualism, masculinity and indulgence. Of

course, there are aspects that differ like uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation but

still has not as much as cultural difference as compared with the US. If K-pop companies had

followed managerial principles, they would have followed GLOBES 10 culture clusters

represented in Figure 3. Countries are gathered in groups depending on their cultural and

geographical closeness and it is recommended to not go more than two clusters away from the

original country because the further the cluster is from yours, the larger the cultural difference

is.

Figure 3 GLOBES 10 cultural cluster

South Korea belong to the Confucian Asia cluster with China and Japan which cultural

influences have been described earlier. The very next two clusters are Middle East and Southern

Asia where Indonesia belong to. United States belongs to the Anglo cluster and it is almost in

the exact opposite of the wheel from the Confucian Asia cluster. This arises the question

regarding the acceptance on such diverse cultural product in a culturally distant country which

diverges from the economical theory. The explanation behind this behaviour is the cultural

proximity theory and the cultural exoticism theory (Baek, 2015). This research analysed the

cultural difference between the nationality of K-pop MV viewers with South Korea. People

from a country that is culturally similar are attracted to what it looks familiar to them but loose

interest when it is culturally distant but not to an extend to consider it exotic. The appeal for K-

pop music videos is very much present also in those countries who are extremely culturally

distant because they see it as an innovative way to express music that cannot be found in the

music videos produced by their domestic market.

5. Global, local and global’ again

In this part of this research, we are going to see how is implemented the global-local-global

international strategy in K-pop. First of all, for a strategy to be successful, it has to be

implemented effectively and that is done by setting clear and consistent long-term goals (at

least 5 years). A good understanding of the market and the competitive environment as well as

an objective evaluation of the resources available are also essential steps (Grant, 2013).

According to Michael Porter, this will allow a company to create a unique and valuable position

strong enough to overcome competitors.

In a survey made in 2019 by the Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange they

asked to 5,665 foreign K-pop fans to determine why they think that this type of music is popular,

and these were the results:

Figure 4 ‘Reasons for K-pop popularity worldwide 2020’ https://www.statista.com/statistics/937260/south-korea-reasons-

for-kpop-popularity-worldwide/

19.6% of people said that the success of K-pop in an international scenario is due to the catchy

rhythm and chorus of the songs. In second place is the attractive appearance and style of K-pop

artists and visuals of the music videos. The third reason most voted with a percentage of 12.3%

is the good performance and the choreographies. Next, 11% of the sample population said that

the popularity of K-pop is thanks to its uniqueness and the fact that this kind of music does not

exist in their domestic market. And last, 9.6% said that the success is due to the Korean fashion

and beauty that can be appreciated in the music videos. This combination of reasons is the

competitive advantage of this genre and have been exploited strategically to gain global

recognition.

According to the literature, when it comes to the cultural adaptability of the products in the

international market, there are only four types of internationalization strategies: international,

global, multidomestic and transnational. Each strategy is differentiated depending on the degree

of local and global adaptability:

Figure 5 ‘Bartlett & Ghoshal Model of International Strategy’

The international strategy is described as exporting goods and services to other countries as

they are without any change. Standardization strategy (global strategy) is to think and act global,

therefore, product that use this strategy are standardized and are not culturally attached so they

can be introduced anywhere. Transnational strategy is to think global but act local. Lastly,

multidomestic strategies consist of thinking and acting local. When it comes to cultural products

such as food, clothing or in this case music, a global and a local integration are incompatible.

If you opt for a multidomestic strategy, that means to adapt the product to each market culture

but at the end this supposes to dilute the original and genuine concept of the product as

everybody gets to have a different view of the brand image. A complete opposite strategy is to

adopt a global strategy so that everyone gets the same but, in this case, what is lost is the original

cultural root. The strategy that is somewhat in the middle is the one known as transnational

strategy is part from the idea of adapting a global product to the local tastes. The global-local-

global strategy of K-pop is located somewhere in the spectrum between global and transnational

strategy because they are not making a global product that later on is adapted to each specific

market and neither is a completely global product that satisfies everyone but loses its Korean

identity. This strategy was developed by allocating and building a bridge that connect Western

and Est Asian market by creating a hybrid concept that combines both cultures.

The g-l-g approach consist of the global division of labour and the share of know-how and it

can be divided and defined in three steps:

5.1 Global

Apart from the K-pop artists that appear in the music videos, there is a team of people that play

a key role behind the cameras but are not included in the actual video. As K-pop got more

popular, Korean music companies started to hire foreign producers, choreographs and stylists.

The first company to do that was JYP Entertainment when trying to export K-pop into the US

for the first time in the early 00’s. On one hand, an advantage that South Korean entertainment

companies get from working directly with foreigners or Koreans that have studied or worked

abroad, is to get to know in first-hand what are the likings and trends in the foreign market. This

knowledge is then translated in the design of the training of K-pop idols and the overall visuals

of K-pop music videos.

When it comes to the song production, as mentioned earlier, K-pop already uses foreign genres

for their songs like hip-hop, dance, R&B and specially rap so they are already familiar with

using foreign inputs for the music video. So, the aspect that affected K-pop songs the most

when working with outsiders is the use of English in their lyrics as well as the titles of the music

videos. Another issue that this industry acquired is the advanced cinematographic US

technology to create the best quality of videos. But the overall goal in here is not to collaborate

and copy but to learn from them and adapt it to K-pop’s needs and purposes. For instance, in

the case of the use of high-quality technology for the production of music video has become

one of the main characteristics that comes to mind when thinking about K-pop even when it is

a feature that they got from the number one music exporter which is US.

5.2 Local

The second step is the value added of the strictly Korean cultural aspects behind the K in the

word K-pop. This is done by attributing to the music videos tacit knowledge that cannot be

transferable making it impossible for other countries to imitate. In other words, to apport

characteristics that only a Korean person could do and provides K-pop music videos

differentiation from westerns and other Asian country artists.

The path that South Korean artists follow to become stars is radically different that the one in

Western countries. Usually, K-pop is composed by same-gender-bands rather than solo artists.

Companies of the sector, after having studied the market, they run national auditions to cast the

future K-pop idols. These castings are usually done in person but now because of the pandemic

situation they use YouTube for that too and it allows them to analyse the popularity of the

videos of the candidates in that platform at the same time. Candidates have to post a video of

them singing, dancing or doing the two things at the same time. Those selected become

‘trainees’ and have to spend on average a total of 7 years preparing themselves as artists before

debuting. When looking on Figure 2, the Hofstede country comparison, the Republic of Korea

scores a maximum punctuation of 100 in long-term orientation. There is no country nor music

genre that spends that much time in an artist without having them performing or generate

musical content for the discography. But of course, without the time spent studying the market

and perfecting the product to it before launching it to the international market it will not be

possible to have the immediate success that K-pop music video have. The training program

includes intensive singing and dancing classes to potentiate the talent of the future idols. They

have to be familiar with different music genres as the same artist or group of artists change the

style of their songs in almost every new music video uploaded in YouTube according to current

trend of the moment. Other important skills that help them in their future career is to learn

several languages: English, Japanese and sometimes even Chinese as a same song can be

produced in different languages especially in Chinese and Japanese because they are not as

open to foreign music as in other part of the world.

A second aspect that makes K-pop to be identified as Korean is the physical appearance of the

people that appear in the music videos. In K-pop groups the dominant nationality of the

members is Korean, but it is usual to find other nationalities like Japanese, Chinese or even

Taiwanese. In cases where members are from an English-speaking country like the US or

Australia, they are usually first or second generation of Korean immigrants, so they still have

Asian features even though they come from other countries. Surprisingly, this aspect is most

important for the international audience rather than national or fans from an East Asian country.

K-pop group like EXP EDITION or KAACHI have at least one Asian looking member but the

rest no and that raised unacceptance from non-Asian K-pop consumers. The companies behind

this groups followed all the training and marketing process of any regular K-pop group but still

got hate on it just because of the fact of not being Korean (or at least look East Asian). This is

one of the tacit characteristics mentioned earlier.

K-pop trainees usually go through a process of physical appearance embellishments. In South

Korea they take a great care of looks and companies obligate their trainees to go under strict

diets, and exercise intensively to achieve a body that fits the Korean beauty standard. In some

case, K-pop idols go under plastic surgeries and of course they have a beauty team that is in

charge of their hair style and clothing, so they are always on trend when appearing in the music

videos. According to Ingyu Oh (Oh, 2017), that studied the physical characteristics of the body

and face of K-pop artists, both male and female, he concluded in his research that their facial

features have a Renaissance style and that their bodies follow the golden ratio. That makes them

to have a physical presence rarely found anywhere else and makes them visually appealing for

anyone. Another factor that he mentions in his research is regarding gender fluidity which is a

characteristic that differ from other music videos from other countries. The make-up, clothing,

hair and dance move that male artist show in the music videos are considered to be feminine

for a western view and the same goes for female artists that are overwhelmingly empowered.

Girls groups show a proactive, empowered attitude that could be considered to be masculine.

When it comes to the composition of the music videos (the choreography and the song), these

are the recurrent methods used. In terms of colour, they stick with a colour palette and theme

and used How they appear in the music video, one by one, rap line

5.3 Global’

The last step from this strategy is the international distribution of the final product. The music

industry usually releases the audio of the song first or the entire album and later the music video.

However, in the K-pop industry, the song and music video are released together as a unit. In

some cases, K-pop artist do not even have albums as they just upload music videos in YouTube

frequently. This is due to the fact that through audio-visuals is easy to get over the language

and culture barrier thanks to the choreography, the visuals, looks, setting, between other factors

that cannot be appreciated when only listening to the audio of the song. The rhythm and

musicality added as well as the combination of the Korean language and English makes it

possible for local and international consumers to enjoyed equally. When compared to American

pop productions, the rhythm of K-pop music video is twice or even three times faster (Surcouf,

O., 2020) to not lose the engagement of the watchers.

But the most relevant issue in this part of the implementation of the g-l-g strategy is the use of

YouTube. This online platform is a Google product that allows the publication of videos with

no cost neither for the content creators nor the watchers. It is the number one platform or video

sharing and it is broadly used by almost all countries of the global. The greatest advantages of

this distribution channel is that distribution costs are non-existing and K-pop music videos can

gain profits from YouTube because of royalties, sponsorships and YouTube advertising.

Another relevant benefit of this US digital platform is the change of the dynamics of the music

market. Users can freely access to YouTube and choose which video to reproduce unlimitedly,

like, share and comment. Other functions that this platform has is the possibility to add subtitles,

hashtags and the algorithm that recommends to users the trendiest videos of the moments or

content that might fit with their preferences. Another feature is that users can subscribe to their

favourite K-pop artist channel and be notified whenever a new music video is posted. This helps

with the spread of K-pop’s popularity and at the same time, provides to the industry valuable

market information when analysing the precedents of the viewers as well as the comments to

know how the public is responding and use that data for future concept that fit with the always

changing demand. This retroactive relationship between K-pop music videos and its

distribution channels allows to a better adaptability of K-pop music videos to the global and

local market.

IV. RESULTS: K-POP MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS

The practical part of the final degree project consists of the evaluation and analysis of K-pop

music videos. The sample under study are the K-pop MV with most YouTube views because

are the one who had a greater international impact and therefore succeeded with their

globalization strategy. In order to analyse the evolution of the g-l-g strategy I took the most

viewed video from each year since 2012 which was a decisive point in the third Hallyu wave

until 2020. The list of the MV under study is shown in the table below together with the name

of the artist, the company they work for and the views in YouTube.

Year

Title

Artist

Company

YouTube

Views

2012

GANGNAM STYLE

(강남스타일)

PSY

Entertainment

3.907.450.777

2013

GENTLEMAN

PSY

Entertainment

1.369.042.827

2014

Boy In Luv(상남자)

BTS(방탄소년단)

Big Hit

Entertainment

363.629.227

2015

DOPE(쩔어)

BTS(방탄소년단)

Big Hit

Entertainment

610.273.966

2016

붐바야'(BOOMBAYAH)

BLACKPINK

Entertainment

1.067.697.736

2017

DNA

BTS(방탄소년단)

Big Hit

Entertainment

1.164.418.107

2018

뚜두뚜두 (DDU-DU

DDU-DU)

BLACKPINK

Entertainment

1.437.024.683

2019

Kill This Love

BLACKPINK

Entertainment

1.153.005.630

2020

Dynamite

BTS(방탄소년단)

Big Hit

Entertainment

725.644.126

Several aspects are taken into consideration in the analysis to determine how the g-l-g is used.

Such elements are the nationality of the composers, producers and songwriters. Lyric wise, the

use of English in the title of the MV as well as in the song itself and other musical elements that

help with the fluidity of the song and makes it easier for the audience to remember it. As for

the visuals, both Korean and the international influences are identified. All explanations are

supported with images from the MV and fragments of the lyrics. The complete lyrics are

included in the Annex to not surpass the extension limit.

The meaning behind the songs and the lyrics are not discussed because goes beyond the scope

of this research. The popularity of K-pop has not much to do with the message of the lyrics and

Number of YouTube views by 26

December of 2020

it was not even a criterion that international fans take into consideration as it is shown in Figure

4. This is due to the fact that they are partially in Korean and makes it impossible for foreigners

no understand it unless they turn on the subtitles. When it comes to the English part of the

songs, the expressions used are simple and do not hold any real meaning because if so, Korean

fans as well as K-pop consumers from a non-English speaking country would not understand it

and in that scene K-pop would fail to satisfy them,

Another disclaimer to make is that some of these music videos have their Korean or Japanese

MV version in YouTube made by the same artists but are not analysed in here as they do not

have as many YouTube views as the original version.

1. 2012: GANGNAM STYLE (강남스타일) - PSY (YG Entertainment)

This is the K-pop music video with most views on YouTube. With a total of 3.9 billion views

is currently ranked as the 8th most-watched music video on this platform. The music video was

published on July 15th of 2012 on YouTube licensed by YG Entertainment. The artistic name

of the artists is PSY and the title of the song is in both in English and Korean. The virality of

this music video was a decisive point in the globalization of K-pop, especially when we consider

the fact that it was not meant to have such success on markets outside the Asian one as PSY

declared in an interview with Fuse TV. Even though the Hallyu wave was starting to develop

its marketing strategy to enter the western market, it was not yet consolidated. This is the reason

why, in the music video, they focused more on the Korean culture without realizing that they

hit the nail in terms of visuals and music. A YouTube tool that helps with the popularity of a

particular video is the use of hashtags. All PSY’s MV use hashtags and eventually provides the

possibility of future recommendation for YouTube users. Those who clicked on the video

and/or liked the video and shared it, are more likely to get a recommendation of future work of

the same artist when using the same hashtag. The hashtags used are the name of the song in

both English and Korean as well as the name of the artist.

This K-pop music videos was produced by Yoo Gun-Hyung and PSY. Both of them are South

Korean but have studied abroad in the US for years. Several Korean artists and celebrities made

an appearance such as Hwang Min-woo, Hyuna, Yoo Jae-suk and Noh Hong-Chul. In terms of

the visuals, ‘Gangnam Style’ and PSY are far away from the Korean beauty standards (Lee

C.S., Kuwahara Y.,2014) and the characteristics that define today’s K-pop idols and music

videos that were described earlier. The whole concept of the video is a parody of the lifestyle

and the image that people who live in Gangnam (district in Seoul where the highest

socioeconomic citizens live in) portrait. The scenes of the video were recorded in different areas

of Gangnam and representative places for the Korean way of living like the Han River, a public

bath or the subway:

Figure 8 PSY in the bath house

The humour used all throughout the video is reinforced with facial expressions and gestures

that can be understood without understanding the Korean language or the meaning behind the

concept of ‘Gangnam Style’ and why the artist is making fun of it. This together with the easy

choreography, especially the ‘horse dance move’ who is the main feature of the MV and

repeated constantly throughout the video together with the title of the song. Another

characteristic of the video is the strong sexualization of the women that appear imitating

Western MVs and making it more familiar to that part of the audience as this type of explicit

content is much censored in South Korea but grabs the popular attention at the same time.

As to the song itself, even though it is categorized as K-pop, combines styles like rap and electro

house which are music genres born in western cultures. The lyrics are all in Korean for the

exception of the chorus because is the result of the combination of both languages and are the

most frequent words used in the music video. The chorus is composed by two lines, the first

one is ‘Oppan Gangnam style’ which is repeated 12 times and the sentence ‘sexy lady’ 6 times

throughout the whole song. Other English words like for instance ‘one shot’, ‘baby’ and the

sentence ‘you know what I’m saying’ are included in the lyrics as well but only said once. This

makes it easier for a person who does not know the Korean language to still follow the song as

it is easy to recognize these three English sentences as are said repeatedly. When timing how

long does the English parts together with the parts in which there is no singing, it turns out that

it represents 2 minutes and 11 out of the 4 minutes and 12 seconds that the music video, which

Figure 6 PSY doing the 'Gangnam Style' dance while

crossing the Han River on a boat

Figure 7 HYUNA on the subway

is exactly half of it. The time is perfectly divided in half for the Korean lyrics and the English

lyrics despite that there are no more than 10 English words compared to the 95 of Korean words

but are much less repeated. It is important to highlight the meaning of ‘Oppa’ and the use of it

in the Korean society as it is a word used in other K-pop music videos of the sample. The literal

meaning of this word is elder brother, but it is used as the English equivalent of ‘baby’ when

referring to a significant other.

2. 2013: GENTLEMAN - PSY (YG Entertainment)

The most streamed K-pop music video in 2013 is also by PSY which is no surprise when taking

into account that his last year’s video was the first YouTube video to reach more than one

billion views and becoming the most watched YouTube video in history. The key difference

here is that unlike the previous MV, YG Entertainment has now consolidated a fanbase outside

their domestic borders and even outside the Asian market. The creation of this song was

premeditated to satisfy both local and foreign consumers and to achieve such goal, global-local-

global strategies were used. The firs techniques being used is the study of the market. When

going over the comments of the last video, the international comments used to discuss and ask

about the cultural origin of PSY (Xu, W., Park, Jy. & Park, H.W., 2017). This demonstrated the

attraction that the Korean elements of the video generated and being aware of that, YG

Entertainment opted to still maintain the inclusion of scenes representing the Korean lifestyle

in the music video but adding other global elements that were not included in Gangnam Style

but still made the music video to get more than 1 billion views in YouTube.

When taking a first look at the visuals and comparing both PSY’s music videos, it is easy to

spot that they preferred to not risk much and use exactly the same structure and even including

elements that make a direct reference to ‘Gangnam style’. Such details include the trustiness on

contracting the same producer and the song writer, but also it has to do the South Korean

business mentality in where they have long-term relation with the people they work with.

Furthermore, this video count with the appearance of other Korean artists like Yoo Jae-Suk who

is wearing a very similar outfit that in the previous video, and they also had the participation of

female singers from the K-pop group Brown Eyed Girls. The music video still holds a

humoristic attitude, but this time is used is to mock the concept of gentlemen. Sexual references

especially by the female figures are used in here too.

All back dancers are ethnically Asian, and some scenes represent typical Korean scenarios like

in minute 1:49 where PSY and Ga In are in a street restaurant having rice cake accompanied

with soju.

Figure 9 PSY and Ga In eating in a Korean street restaurant

A very simple choreography with just few dance moves is also used to make it easy for everyone

to learn it and recreate. As stated earlier there are reference scenes from the other video. The

pictures below in the left side are from ‘Gangnam style’ and next their respective tribute in

‘Gentleman’. Another element that it was included is an advertisement of the English mobile

game Candy Crush in minute 0:35.

Figure 10 Yoo Jae-Suk in 'Gangnam stye' music video

Figure 12 elevator dance move in ‘Gangnam style’

When looking at the lyrics, the first thing noticeable is that the title of the MV is no longer in

both languages but only in English. This also happens in the song itself. Even though most of

the song is in Korean, there are more sentences in English in between the Korean verses (for

every four lines in Korean, there is one in English) and from minute 1:45 till the end of the

music video, the whole song is just in English. In the Korean verses, they added more repetition

Figure 11 Yoo Jae-Suk in 'Gentleman' wearing the same outfit

Figure 13 elevator dance move reference in ‘Gentleman'

in them than in last year like for example starting always with ‘allang-ga molla’ and finishing

with ‘mal-iya’ throughout all the song apporting rhythm making the melody memorable and

catchy despite the fact that it is in another language for international listeners. This goes with

accordance to the results of the survey in Figure 4 where the number one reason people enjoy

K-pop music videos is because of how catchy and rhythms are.

The chorus and the bridge are entirely in English not like in the previous song in where he still

said some words in the first language of the artist. There are 12 lines in total sung in Korean

and 9 in English but if we take into account the frequency (how much each sentence is repeated),

the same thing happens as in the previous song. English words are repeated more than the

Korean ones and in terms of time, they take 3 minutes out of the 4 minutes that lasts the music

video which represents a 25% increase compared to ‘Gangnam Style’.

In terms of the meanings of the lyrics, it does not seem to be the reason behind the success of

this artist. But it is relevant to mention that the English vocabulary used are simple easily

recognizable by non-English speakers. Examples of these words are the name title ‘gentlemen’,

‘I’m a mother father’ as resource to avoid saying explicit words, ‘we like party’, etc. Another

aspect used here that other K-pop artists use too is to refer himself with his artistic name several

time ‘You know who I am Wet PSY!’ as a reminder to the audience of who they are listening

and watching.

3. 2014: Boy In Luv(상남자) - BTS(방탄소년단) (Big Hit Entertainment)

The most viewed 2014 K-pop MV is ‘Boy In Luv’ by the K-pop group BTS but it is at the same

time the one with the lowest number of reproductions compared to the other music videos on

the list with 350 million reproductions approximately. This is due in part of the fact that Big

Hit Entertainment was a small company at that time and did not had as much resources as YG

Entertainment or the other companies of the industry. As BTS gained international population

and recognition, BigHit Entertainment increased the budget of the music videos and

consequently BTS’s MVs gained much more YouTube reproductions comparable to artists

from other important South Korean companies. A big difference that the nature of the company

caused is that instead of uploading the music video in the YouTube channel of the artists (like

in the case of PSY). Instead, this music video was uploaded in the channel named ‘1theK

(원더케이)’ that works as a K-pop music video hub for small K-pop artist who do not have yet

a significant fan base because their company lacks the market prestige compared to the big

three. They did not use hashtags in the MV and it could be also one of the reasons of the lack

of popularity compared to other MV of this K-pop group.

One of the composers of this song is John Cumming (foreigner) while the songwriters and

producers were Pdogg, the CEO of Big Hit Entertainment and the members of BTS (all

Korean). When listening to it, the music it does not have the characteristics of a K-pop or even

pop song because uses beats characteristic of a rock band with some rap lines on it. The overall

attitude is aggressive and matches the styling of BTS members in this particular MV immolating

US rock bands. The only characteristic in their looks attributable to the Korean style is their

makeup and hair colour stylism and even the use of jewellery and accessories which is the same

used for girls enhancing the gender fluidity of K-pop idols and following South Korean beauty

standards:

Figure 14 HYUNA's makeup and hair stylism in 'Gagnam Style'

The title of the music videos and the name of the band are both written in English and in Korean

while the title of the album of the song that appears in minute 0:49 ‘School Luv Affair’ is

written in English only. This is the first song of the ones analysed that offers the option to turn

the English subtitles on when watching the music video so international viewers can understand

the words sung in Korean. It is a way to balance the fact that the entire song is written in Korea

and only uses a few words in English. In the description box, there is an explanation of the

concept of the MV first in English, then in Korean and lastly in Japanese.

As well as in PSY’s music videos, they use a female figure used to the story telling of the music

videos. The difference here is that instead of sexualizing her, she represents an innocent love

interest that the members of BTS try to approach her and get her attention in the MV. This goes

along with the meaning of the lyrics because it is a love song and the theme of the album.

There are several South Korean elements included in the visuals. The setting of the music video

is based on a Korean high school and the members of the band, as well as the extras, are wearing

school uniforms. At the beginning, each singer is doing everyday activities very common in the

Korean student life like staying in class during leisure time instead of going out into the

playground, listen to K-pop (in this case is another BTS song for self-promotion), read manhwas

Figure 13 Kim Tae-hyung’s makeup and hair in ‘Boy In Luv’

(Korean graphic novel) or cleaning the bathroom because in South Korea and other Asian

countries like China and Japan the students are the ones in charge of cleaning the school’s

facilities:

The only words in English slang used in the lyrics are ‘Say what you want’, ‘bad bad girl’, ‘I

got 'em, hol' up’, and the expression popularized in the movie the Lion King ‘hakuna matata’.

These English lines are not repeated and are not the principal characteristics of the chorus like

in the songs of PSY. There is a lack of use of sounds such as ‘na na na’ or ‘la la la’ and so on.

This may be another reason that explains why this song is not as popular as other BTS songs

who reached the 1 billion of views.

4. 2015: DOPE(쩔어) - BTS(방탄소년단) (Big Hit Entertainment)

In 2015, the K-pop music video with most views is from BTS as well. It is the second least

watched MV in the list with over 600 million views which is almost the double compared to

the views they had in the MV published in 2014. It has been uploaded once again in 1theK

(원더케이) YouTube channel instead of one particularly created for the band by the company.

Like in the previous one, English subtitles are available, and the description of the video is in

Korean, English and Japanese as well.

Figure 17 Jungkook studying in class during class break

Figure 16 Jin listening to a BTS song

Figure 15 Kim Tae-hyung reading a Korean graphic novel

Figure 14 Park Jimin cleaning school’s restrooms

This is the first MV so far in where there are no back-up dancer or extras. The only ones that

appear are the members of the group. The construction and flow of the scenes is different from

the previous MV and from now on is the style used in their upcoming projects. Each member

is dressed differently enhancing their individuality but still maintaining the cohesion of all 7

members as they all follow the same theme which is job uniforms. This factor is not only evident

in the props but also on the way that the song is divided. Each member appears alone when

singing their verses and introduce the next one until the moments where eventually they gather

together during the chorus and the bridge of the song to perform a group choreography. The

member that sings the verse is always the one that is in the middle of the composition. They

take turns on who is in the spotlight by switching positions and making the video more dynamic

and easier to follow.

This switch from wearing all the same uniform in the MV ‘Boy In Luv’ to a more differentiable

and personalized outfit but that still fits with the overall concept is a response to the

individualism dimension of the Hofstede model. Each singer is visually easy to identify from

the rest by Westerners as they are used to high levels of individualism. The scarcity of that level

in East Asian countries which are looking for the unity and uniformity is compiled with by

staying within a same these. Another noticeable difference is that there is no storytelling,

making the MV to be more focused on the choreography and the dance moves that are more

complex.

Lyric wise, the is a significant increase of English sentences and expression as well as the use

of sounds like ‘oooh’. To introduce the song, Jungkook (the youngest member of BTS) starts

by saying ‘Ayo ladies & gentleman’ as a way to welcome the audience. Other examples or lines

in English are ‘I got a feel’, ‘I don't wanna say yes’, ‘I gotta make it’, ‘Say what’ and they are

all repeated twice. The English in the lyrics is not that extended because Koreans in general

have a vague knowledge of that language. When a K-pop group is still growing like in the case

of BTS in this year, they still have to adapt more to the characteristics of the domestic demand

compared to the international one.

Figure 18 BTS performing together in job uniforms

5. 2016: 붐바야'(BOOMBAYAH) - BLACKPINK (YG Entertainment)

By this year, the female K-pop band named Blackpink debuted for the first time by released its

first song and music video after 6 years of training under the discography of YG Entertainment.

This music video was uploaded in the K-pop group’s channel and has more than one billion

views in YouTube having as much fame and recognition as PSY who also works for YG

Entertainment. It is decisive for the K-pop industry to start in a big company because that

translates into better training and a higher production budget that is reflected in the quality of

the audiovisuals. This group marked a before and after in the Korean music industry since from

this year on, the top MV reached the one billion views in YouTube in record times.

The name of the song is in both English and Korean like with Gangnam Style’s MV. This MV

does have English subtitles available and use uses YouTube hashtags for all their videos. The

song was produced by the Korean rapper Teddy Park in collaboration with the American

composer and songwriter that works under the artistic name of Bekuh BOOM. The direction

was under the supervision of Seo Hyun Seung. Even though the song falls into the category of

K-pop it is actually a dance song that uses electronic beats and is meant to be played and danced

in night clubs.

The video starts with one of the members saying an introduction line just like BTS’s ‘Dope’

video but the difference here is that instead of a welcoming sentence, what they do is

introducing themselves into the audience with the line ‘BLACKPINK in your area’. The name

of the group is reminded twice more in the course of the MV and some of the names of the

member too. PSY used the same method in his ‘Gentleman’ video by referring to himself. This

is used to remind the watcher the name of the artists to get to know the K-pop idols. It is no

secret why they have chosen English words to name this K-pop group and it is simply because

it was designed to go global as soon as they published their first single. It is common for

Koreans to have two names, the Korean one and an English one that is used for international

purposes like for instance to work or study abroad. It makes it easy for the rest of the world as

they are not used to Korean names. For the South Korean citizens whenever they see someone

who is Korean but refers to himself/herself with an international name they see it as something

possible and valuable because it means that he or she has enough money to have a life abroad.

So even though it might seem that naming K-pop artists in English is a way to approach the

international fandom, it is actually a way to position themselves in the South Korean society as

they will be perceived as an artist with international fame.

The entire first introduction chorus is in English so at first glance it would look like you are

listening to an American production. The same goes for the chorus and the verse right after the

chorus that are sung entirely in English too. It demonstrated here the effectiveness of well-

training and castings to contract the most competent persons to be K-pop idols. The two

members who sing in perfect English are Jennie who studied abroad in New Zealand and Lisa

who is Taiwanese but learnt English and Korean for her career. It is not until the second verse

that some lines are sung in Korean, but it is balanced with English lyrics and words that actually

does not mean nothing but add musicality to the song like ‘badda bing badda boom’. This

technique is used in all verses like in the third one where they say ‘like ttaradaradanttan

ttaradaradanttan, ttudurubbau’. This technique is also applied in the chorus, that consists of the

over repetition of the title of the song ‘boombayah’, another word without any meaning in any

language, making it an ideal way to make K-pop songs enjoyable for the audience despite their

lack of knowledge of Korean nor English. The only Korean word used in the entire chorus is

‘Oppa’ like in ‘Gangnam style’. Another similitude that this music video shares with PSY’s

music video and it look like a persistent technique that YG Entertainment is aware of and uses

it for all their production is that when timing the song with the exception of the parts in where

the girls sing in Korean, it is exactly half of the music video. Out of the four minutes that the

music video lasts, two minutes are sung in Korean while the other two minutes are English

words, words without meaning or just the beat and the melody by its own.

There is another aspect in common, but this time is related to the visuals. The saturation of the

color is very high and makes the color to be more vibrant and highlighted. As well as it happens

with the lyrics, which is a combination of western and domestic influences, the same goes for

the clothing and the settings. In fact, up until this year, this is the MV with more foreign

references rather than Korean aspect. To begin with, the first scenario is a representation of

California with the shadows of palm trees in the background. The next scene is Blackpink

getting of a US high school bus and getting in a set that represents an American high school

with the lockers on the side:

Figure 19 BLACKPINK riding in a set that represents Santa

Monica

Figure 20 BLACKPINK getting off a pink US school bus

In the scene of Figure 21, from the waist down, they are wearing Korean fashion clothing items

like pleated mini skirts and high socks but when it comes to the upper part, they are wearing

shirts with American singers and bands on them such as David Bowie. Other references to

American culture can be appreciated in the following scenes in where the Lisa when singing

the rap line of the song is wearing thick golden chains which is a characteristic of US hip-hop

singers. Figure 23 is from the last scene of the music video where the girls are in an indoor

roller skating, very popular in the US, while wearing 80’s inspired clothing and hairstyle and

items linked to the American culture like for instance a baseball shirt:

There are elements from other cultures like Bollywood dance moves. Middle East influences

are represented in the architecture of the background and other décor that resemble the desert

as well as the use of hoot in the chorus. And coming back with the topic of the clothing, in the

fourth picture Rosé is wearing a shirt that has a word in English and another one in Japanese:

Figure 21 BLACKPINK dancing in a set that represents the corridor of a US high

school

Figure 22 Lisa dressed up as a US hip hop singer

Figure 23 BLACKPINK roller-skating

To sum up, this music video was created with the goal to have international success and

therefore they have used the global-local-global strategy to achieve it. This is appreciated from

the use of both local and foreign composer to the use of different cultural nods in the visuals

and the use of English and meaningless expressions in the song. Besides their willing to satisfy

the international market, they did not forget their Korean roots by still singing some parts in

Korean and of course being representants of the Korean community just by their features. This

combined with electronic beats and bright visuals accompanied by a strong choreography seems

like it is the winning formula for a K-pop group to succeed in their debut stage and reach billions

of views.

6. 2017: DNA – BTS (방탄소년단) (Big Hit Entertainment)

DNA is the third BTS music video in this list and yet the first one that has surpassed the billion

views. It is also the first one to be uploaded in the channel of Big Hit Entertainment. From 2016

and on, the most popular K-pop music video in YouTube is diverged between two K-pop bands,

BTS and Blackpink.

The music video and song production were in hands of Korean professionals for the exception

of the choreography that was made by American choreographs (Christopher Martin, Keone and

Mari). In this video, all aspects related to the music video were levelled up compared to the

ones seen so far. The choreography is the most elaborated one out of all and the artists had to

Figure 24 BLACKPINK performing Bollywood dance moves

Figure 25 Lisa and truck used to drive though the dessert

Figure 26 BLACKPINK in a set that uses Arab architecture style

Figure 27 Resé waring a T-shit with the words ‘beyond kawaii’

dance without the support of back-up dancers. The camera works is also much more expressive

and plays with the angles which makes the video to be more interesting. Same goes with the

background where the scenes use digital tool such as green screen to provide interesting and

artsy scenarios. It does not feel like a regular MV in where they try to tell a story with the actors

but instead it is an audio-visual experience when combining the song, the dance and the visuals.

As this band got more recognition, the company did have a greater budget to invest on

production, especially on the digital resources and it payed off when seeing the great response

that they had on this music video compared to their old ones.

Not only they changed the quality but also the whole theme of the band in terms of style and

song type. This is how versatile K-pop is. Artists do not get stuck with just one style because

they have had sufficient training that gives them the capacity to explore with new music styles

or to work on the ones that are trendy at the moment. The colour palette used in here is much

brighter, saturated and vibrant than the in used in their 2014 or 2015 MV. The attitude of the

members of the group and the music styles is different too. For instance, instead of an aggressive

attitude to match the underground genre used in ‘Boy In Luv’ they adopted a more joyful and

fresh one.

As it happened with Blakpink’s video ‘Boombayah’, there is a mix in terms of the style of the

idols in the video. The clothing is mostly western inspired like basketball shirt or with English

words. Nevertheless, the makeup, eye color, jewelry, and hairstyle (color and styling) follow

Figure 28 Kim Tae-hyung backward and upside-down in a

digital created background

Figure 29 BTS with a digital created background

Figure 30 BTS with bright clothes and hair color in a saturated

background

Figure 31 BTS wearing shirts with English words on it

Korean fashion style. These elements strictly follow the theme of the MV, and are changed with

every new video that they upload as they considered as another element of expression. In

general terms, all the parts that constitute the artist itself is taken into account to fit with the

aesthetic that they are expecting to portrait:

Musically wise, BTS still uses Korean as the main language for their songs when compared to

Blackpink. The difference this time compared to their previous songs is the use of more musical

sounds to help go through the song despite the fact that it is sung in a language that is not

familiar to millions of watchers (even when there are English subtitles available). Examples of

that are the whistling of the melody at the beginning, as well as the dance electronic beats used

for the chorus.

7. 2018: 뚜두뚜두 (DDU-DU DDU-DU) – BLACKPINK (YG Entertainment)

This is the most viewed K-pop band music video in history with more than 1.4 billion YouTube

reproductions. The title of the song is again a sound rather than an actual word, but it is still in

both languages Korean and English. This time, because the lyrics have more lines in Korean

rather than in English they made available the English subtitles as well as Japanese subtitles.

Figure 32 Jimin with curly blonde hair, orange eye make-up

and a long earing

Figure 33 Jin using gray eye color contacts

Figure 34 Jungkook (left) with blond hair, blue eye contacts and a ear piercing. Tae-hyung

(right) with matching hair and eye gray color and earrings

The producers and songwriters are the same as in ‘Boombayah’ and they are also the ones who

did the majority of the upcoming singles of this group like for instance ‘Kill this Love’.

In general traits, they use the same cultural combination as in their debut music video. Examples

are the use of a meaningless sound as the tittle of the song and in the chorus that goes ‘Hit you

with that ddu-du, ddu-du, du (Ah yeah, ah yeah!)’ together with dance music beats. They do

introduce themselves at the beginning of the song as well as throughout the song including a

giant sculpture of the name of the K-pop group in Figure 37. The choreography difficulty

remained the same and even in some part like the chorus, the dance moves were even simplified

making them easy to copy (the exact opposite of what BTS did in ‘DNA’). The colours used

are again vibrant and the members of the group hold the same empowered attitude which goes

along with the beat of the song that is the same style as in the other song rather than exploiting

their sexuality like the female K-pop idols that appear in both PSY’s music video discussed.

The differences to be mentioned are the increase of quality of the camera work as now the

images have a higher quality and are neater. This also applies to the recreation of the scene that

are more pretentious and like in BTS’s 2017 MV they were looking for the artistry of the

visuals:

Figure 35 Jennie as the queen of a giant chess game

Figure 36 Jisoo wearing a formal blackdress

Figure 37 Jennie in a giant tank with the name of the K-

pop group behind

Figure 38 Jisoo beign pointed with phones that look like guns

This is be also noticed in the wardrobe as in the whole music video the four members outfits

are from Western high-end designers such as Marine Serre or Paco Rabanne. Collaborations

with designer also contributes on the individualization of the members (Choi, 2011).

What also did change is the scarcity of English sentences in between the Korean verses

compared their previous works (but they still use more English lyrics than any BTS song so

far). Surprisingly, when timing how much of the music video was exclusively in Korean it turns

out that it is only 1 minute out of the 3 minutes and a half which is less compared to the

‘Boombayah’. This is due to the fact that two of the Korean verses were rapped allowing them

to say more words in that language in less time and also because the chorus is the one repeated

twice and it is entirely in English and the bridge is also almost entirely sung in English because

are the part that audience remember the most from a pop song.

8. 2019: Kill This Love - BLACKPINK (YG Entertainment)

This is the only Blackpink song of the list that has a title with meaning but also the only one

just written in English and not in Korean as well. When it comes to the subtitles, the only one

available is English but not they do not offer the Japanese option anymore. When looking at the

MV and the lyrics, it seems like they switched from trying to include different languages and

cultures to only focus on the US market without losing their Korean identity.

Electro-dance is still the main genre that this K-pop group uses but adding an instrumental base

with trumpets and tambourines. The base adopts a military march tone that matches with the

theme of the music video, the clothing and the dance moves. Lyrically wise is the same as in

‘Boombayah’. There is a predominance of English and sounds in the chorus, bridge and some

verses. The verses in Korean have English lines in between. The following verse is the chorus

of the song:

Let's kill this love!

Yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah

Figure 39 Rosé hanging on a chandelier

Figure 40 Rosé posing like a roman Goddess under a roof

covered in flowers

Rum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum

Let's kill this love!

Rum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum

The artwork in the video is impressive and that goes as well for the outfits and the makeup:

The choreography is simple to copy but this time is powerful and energetic and makes an impact

when done with dozens of back-up dancers which they did not include in their previous music

videos:

As to other cultural references, as stated before they took a great inspiration from America’s

style. In Figure 44 there is one of the members of Blackpink with box braids, a hairstyle used

by the black community and it is also a representative hairstyle of the American hip-hop. The

setting is a cereal store, and all the labels are written in English:

Figure 41 Jennie on top of two giant swans sculptures

Figure 42 Jisso wearing a head piece made of glass

Figure 43 BLACKPINK dancing together with backup dancers

Nevertheless, in minute 1:33 of the music video there is product placement of a Samsung

smartphone. Therefore, YG Entertainment changed from advertising US products like the game

‘Candy crush’ in ‘Gentleman’ to a South Korean brand.

9. 2020: Dynamite - BTS (방탄소년단) (Big Hit Entertainment)

This official music video was published on 21st of August of 2020 and it still not reached the

billion views yet but it holds the current YouTube record of the video most watched within the

first 24 hours with a total of 101.1 million views. The previous MV that had that record was

Blackpink’s ‘How you like that’ song that was published two months before this song and had

86.4 million YouTube views within the first 24 hours. Another Blackpink YouTube music

videos that got this record was ‘Kill This Love’. Taking into account that in 2012 PSY also

achieved a YouTube record by being the most reproduced video on the platform and for being

also the first video to have more than one billion views demonstrates how K-pop took over the

platform.

The music video was uploaded by Big Hit Labels’ channel and it is the same channel used for

all K-pop artists that work for this company. The channel of the discography has more than 50

million subscribers compared to the almost 45 million subscribers of BTS’s YouTube channel

named BANGTANTV where they post other content related to this K-pop group like vlogs.

This is also done by other companies of the K-pop entertainment industry like JYP

Entertainment and SM Entertainment. Making YG the only one that posts the official MV in

the YouTube channel of their respective artists. It is the first time that a BTS MV uses YouTube

hashtags even though it is not the first MV that they upload in their company’s channel. The

use of hashtags may have helped them reach that rapid burst of visualization because of the

algorithms of the platform.

Dynamite is the first BTS song entirely written in English and thanks to it they are now the first

K-pop group to be nominated to a Grammy. As not all the international and local audience

Figure 44 Lisa with box braids in a cereal store

understand English, this music video enjoys with the great range of subtitles including Chinese,

Korean, Spanish, English and Japanese. Usually when a K-pop music video is mostly written

in English is because the songwriter or producer is not from South Korea but from another

country usually from the US. Surprisingly this is not the case because all the production was on

hands of Korean people.

The theme of this music video is disco music from the 70’s. The dance moves, the beat and the

outfits are 70’s inspired as well as the set that take place in locations popular during that time

such as vinyl record stores:

Throughout the video and the lyrics there are several references to Western artists. In the scene

recorded in a room, the walls are filled with posters of The Beatles, David Bowie and in the

lyrics, they mention The Rolling Stones ‘rolling on like a Rolling Stone’. They also mention

other American icons like the basketball player LeBron ‘Jump up to the top, LeBron’.

Figure 45 BTS wearing 70’s clothes and doing disco dance

moves

Figure 46 BTS in front of an American style restaurant

Figure 47 RM in a vinyl’s store holding the new BTS album

Unlike YG Entertainment artists, BTS did not use the same scenography for their videos but

kept changing and developing each year always offering a new perspective of themselves. This

also is applied to their songs as they went from rock to pop up to disco and from singing mostly

in Korean to produce a song entirely in English and of sounds (na-na-na, na-na, na-na) which

they did not use to include nor repeat as much as in this MV. During the MV they used a yellow

filter over the images to make it feel like it was recorded during the 70’s. But at the end of the

video there is an explosion of colors behind the members. The usage of bright colors seems to

be consistent over the years as it helps to transmit to the audience the vibe of the song and the

feeling of the members together with the dance moves surpassing the language barrier and it

very characteristic of pop music but especially in K-pop (Surcouf, O., 2020):

Figure 48 Jungkook in a room with posters of American artits

Figure 49 BTS dancing in front of an explosion of color made digitally

V. K-POP MUSIC VIDEOS’ GLOBAL-LOCAL-GLOBAL OVER

TIME

The analysis of K-pop music videos based and compared to the information obtained from the

bibliographic research leaded to the following results.

First of all, according to the academic research that this project is based on, K-pop music video

contract foreigners for the production of both the songs and the video. While it was true in every

BLACKPINK’s MV, it was not the case with PSY and BTS where they worked with

professionals of the field from South Korea. However, not having international producers in the

team does not mean that there are fewer international references and elements included in the

music video and the lyrics of the song compared to the Korean ones. The two videos with more

western cultural elements and more words in English in the song are in first place ‘Dynamite’

produced by Koreans and in second ‘BOOMBAYAH’ that was produced in collaboration with

US composers.

Besides that, a characteristic that all K-pop music videos have in common and follows what the

theory says is the music genre. The music style of K-pop is a product of remastering genres

from other countries rather. The countries that influenced K-pop the most are Japan and the US

but in the music videos the styles used where taken from English speaking countries specially

UK and the US (hip-hop, pop, EDM, rap, etc.).

When it comes to the South Korean elements on the audio-visuals, there are two extreme cases.

On one hand, both music videos of PSY and the first music video of BTS on the list ‘Boy In

Luv’ are based entirely on the Korean way of living (location and clothing) and there are almost

no visual references of other cultures. On the other hand, all BLACKPINK music videos and

the last MV of BTS have more elements from other cultures. This leads to the conclusion that

the success of an MV does not depend on how local or global the visuals are rejecting the second

hypothesis. That is because PSY gained fame with his Korean style music video while

BLACKPINK succeed also in the international market but for the opposite reason than PSY. In

the case of BTS the MV with western references have more popularity than the ones who did

not have. The feature that does have a positive correlation with the number of YouTube

reproduction is the use of English in the lyrics and musical words that lack meaning. The greater

these two elements are in a K-pop song, the better the international response which proves the

first hypothesis.

The last part of the globalization strategy is the use of YouTube. Those music videos that used

YouTube tools like subtitles, hashtags and a proper YouTube channel have more views than

those music videos who did not use any of those or only one or two of them.

Second of all, from an evolution point of view, there are several aspects of K-pop music video

that had changed during the last 6 years while others remained the same over the years. The

most relevant changing aspect is the increase of the quality of the visuals as well as the fits of

the artists that appear on them. From 2017 until 2020 music videos, the visuals are more

elaborated and artistic and the same goes for the choreography rejecting the third hypothesis.

But the use of color and saturation has been the same in all music videos for the exception of

‘Boy In Luv’ which is the K-pop music video under study with less views.

As mentioned earlier, when it comes to the comparison of the use of Korean elements against

the international ones, as years passed by and K-pop gained more international recognition, the

use of English in the songs went from only being in the chorus like in ‘Gangnam style’ to to be

used in other parts of the song like the bridge like in ‘Kill this love’ to a song written entirely

in English as BTS did in ‘Dynamite’.

Another aspect that changed is gender fluidity. Female K-pop idols in the music video went

from being sexualized to empowered, while male singers went from having a natural hair and

no make-up to the complete opposite.

VI. CONCLUSIONS

K-pop music videos are the result of the implementation of the global-local-global

internationalization strategy. Despite the global interest that K-pop is generating, there is a lack

of academic research explaining how this strategy is applied. When analyzing the music videos

based on the aspects described in the bibliographic screen, new perspectives of the strategy

were found that in some cases disagree. Examples of that can be found in the first part and

second part of the strategy implementation. For the global part, K-pop music video not

necessarily rely on foreign producers to make music videos in English and using music genres

born and popularized in other countries rather than South Korea. When it comes to the local

part of the strategy implementation, apparently K-pop depended on the South Korean aspects

included in the music video but that does not seem to be what happens in practice. Recent music

videos opted to base them on American cultural aspects and having the lyrics written entirely

in English rather than Korean.

Therefore, the first hypothesis ‘Korean cultural aspects dominate when it comes to the visuals

of K-pop music videos rather than aspects from other cultures to differentiate themselves from

others’ is partially rejected. The second hypothesis ‘As a consequence of K-pop globalization,

English lyrics predominate over Korean lyric’ is completely confirmed and the last hypothesis

‘For the cultural hybridity to reach the international audience, the production of K-pop music

videos is done by non-South Korean professionals’ is partially rejected as well.

All four general objectives have been covered during the course of this research but some

challenges were faced and consequently now ways of facing this objectives and applications of

this ideas raised. A limitation that I faced is that the sample chosen for the music video analyses

did not allow me to study music video productions from other South Korean K-pop producers

like JYP Entertainment and SM Entertainment. The same happened with the range of K-pop

artists. All nine videos were from the same three, PSY, BTS and BLACKPINK. Therefore, for

further investigations a greater number of videos should be analyzed as other K-pop idols may

have implemented the global-local-global internationalization strategy differently. Another

aspect that could have provided more depth to this research would be an interview to someone

who works in the industry like K-pop music producers and K-pop artists but unluckily that was

something that could not be done because of lack of time.

Putting the limitations and aspects to improve in the future, there are future possible projections

for this research project idea. The internationalization strategy discussed in this academic work

can be used in the context of other music genres that share the same limitations as K-pop. A

local example are Catalan music genres that because of the limited population that understands

Catalan face with a barrier to get to the international market compared to English or Spanish

music genres.

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47 
ANNEX 
Lyrics
i
 of the songs Romanized. The lyrics are presented in chronological order of the day of 
publication:  
GANGNAM STYLE (강남스타일) – PSY 
[Intro] 
Oppan gang-namseutayil 
Kang-namseutayil 
 
[Verse 1] 
Naje-neun ttasaroun inkanjeo-gin yeoja 
Keopi hanjanye yeoyureuraneun pumkyeok i-nneun yeoja 
Bami omyeon shimjangi tteugeowojineun yeoja 
Keureon banjeon i-nneun yeoja 
 
Naneun sana-i 
Naje-neun neomankeum ttasaroun geureon sana-i 
Keopi shikgido jeone wonsyas ttaerineun sana-i 
Bami omyeon shimjangi teojyeobeorineun sana-i 
Keureon sana-i 
 
[Pre-Chorus] 
Areumdawo sarangseureowo 
Keurae neo hey keurae baro neo hey 
Areumdawo sarangseureowo 
Keurae neo hey keurae baro neo hey 
Chigeumbu-teo kal dekkaji kabol-kka 
 
[Chorus] 
Oppan Gangnam style 
Gangnam style 
Oppan Gangnam style 
Gangnam style 
Oppan Gangnam style 
 
Eh- sexy lady 
Oppan Gangnam style 
Eh- sexy lady 
O-oo-o 
 
[Verse 2] 
Jeongsu-khae boijiman nol ttaen noneun yeoja 
Ittaeda shipeumyeon mukkeot-deon meori puneun yeoja 

 
48 
Karyeot-jiman wen-manhan nochulboda yahan yeoja 
Keureon gamkakjeo-gin yeoja 
 
Naneun sana-i 
Jeomjanha boijiman nol ttaen noneun sana-i 
Ttae-ga dwehmyeon wahnjeon michyeobeorineun sana-i 
Keunyukboda sasangi ul-tungbul-tung-han sana-i 
Keureon sana-i 
 
[Pre-Chorus] 
Areumdawo, sarangseureowo 
Keurae neo hey keurae baro neo hey 
Areumdawo, sarangseureowo 
Keurae neo hey keurae baro neo hey 
Chigeumbu-teo kal dekkaji kabol-kka 
 
[Chorus] 
Oppan Gangnam style 
Gangnam style 
Oppan Gangnam style 
Gangnam style 
Oppan Gangnam style 
 
Eh- sexy lady 
Oppan Gangnam style 
Eh- sexy lady 
O-oo-o 
 
[Bridge] 
Ttwiineun nom keu wiie naneun nom 
Baby baby 
Naneun mwol jom aneun nom 
Ttwiineun nom keu wiie naneun nom 
Baby baby 
Naneun mwol jom aneun nom 
 
You know what I’m sayin' 
 
[Outro] 
Oppan Gangnam style 
 
Eh- Sexy Lady Oppa Gangnam style 
Eh- Sexy Lady Oppa Gangnam style o-oo-o oh 
 
   

GENTLEMAN – PSY

[Verse 1]

Allanggamolla wae hwakkeunhaeya haneungeonji

Allanggamolla wae malkkeumhaeya haneungeonji

Allanggamolla arikkarihamyeon kkarihae

Allanggamolla We like

We-we-we like party hae

[Verse 2]

Itjana mariya

Isarameuro malsseumdeurijamyeon mariya

Yonggi paegi ttolkki meotjaengi mariya

Neoga deutgopeunmal hagopeunge

Nande mariya

Damn, girl

You so freakin' sexy

[Pre-Chorus]

I-I-I-I-I'm a

I-I-I-I-I'm a mother father gentleman

[Chorus]

I'm a

I-I'm a

I'm a mother father gentleman

I'm a

I-I'm a

I'm a mother father gentleman

[Verse 3]

Allanggamolla wae mikkeunhaeyahaneungeonji

Allanggamolla wae ssaekkeunhaeyahaneungeonji

Allanggamolla dalling ppalliwaseo nallihae

Allanggamolla nallinalli nasseo ppallihae

[Verse 4]

Itjana mariya

Neoui meori heori dari

Jongari mariya

Good, feeling, feeling good

Budeureopge mariya

Aju geunyang heoksorinage

Aksori nage mariya

Damn, girl

I'm a party mafia

 
50 
[Pre-Chorus] 
I-I-I-I-I'm a 
I-I-I-I-I'm a mother father gentleman 
 
[Chorus] 
I'm a 
I-I'm a 
I'm a mother father gentleman 
 
I'm a 
I-I'm a 
I'm a mother father gentleman 
 
[Bridge] 
Gonna make you sweat 
Gonna make you wet 
You know who I am 
Wet PSY 
 
Gonna make you sweat 
Gonna make you wet 
You know who I am 
Wet PSY, wet PSY 
Wet PSY, wet PSY 
PSY, PSY, PSY 
I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I'm a mother father gentleman 
 
[Chorus] 
I'm a 
I-I'm a 
I'm a mother father gentleman 
 
I'm a 
I-I'm a 
I'm a mother father gentleman 
 
[Outro] 
Mother father gentleman 
Mother father gentleman 
 
 
   

Boy In Luv(상남자) - BTS(방탄소년단)

[Intro: Jungkook]

Doegopa neoui oppa

Neoui sarangi nan neomu gopa

Doegopa neoui oppa

Neol gatgo mal geoya dugo bwa

[Hook: V]

Wae nae mameul heundeuneun geonde

Heundeuneun geonde

[Verse 1: Jungkook]

Appa, appan daeche eotteoke

Eommahante gobaekan geonji

Pyeonjirado sseoya doelleonji

Mwonji, ni apeseo nan meonji

[Verse 2: RM]

Gwaenhi tiktikdaego ssikssikdaego jingjingdaege dwae

Naneun jinjihande jjijilhage sibina geolge dwae

Mwonde singyeong sseuyeo da keun nal aero mandeureo

Geokkuro dwijibeulkkyeo, inyeoneul yeonineuro

[Verse 3: J-Hope]

Daehakkkajido neorang gandamyeon cham jal gal geot gata

Ganadaramabasaa hakunamatata!

Ttokgateun peuropil sajin wae jakku hwaginhalkka

Geureotago chakgakajima swiun namja anya

[Pre-Chorus: V, Jungkook]

Andal nasseo na andal nasseo

Niga mwonde? neoman jallasseo?

Wae nareul jakku nollyeo nollyeo

Neo ije geuman hol’ up hol’ up

[Chorus: Jungkook, Jimin]

Kkwak jaba nal deopchigi jeone

Nae mami neol nochigi jeone

Say what you want

Niga jinjjaro wonhaneun ge mwoya

Kkwak jaba nal deopchigi jeone

Nae mami neol nochigi jeone

Say what you want

Niga jinjjaro wonhaneun ge mwoya

[Hook: V]

Wae nae mameul heundeuneun geonde

Heundeuneun geonde

[Verse 4: Suga]

Geoteuron bad bad girl, sogeun deo bad bad girl

Na gateun namjal nochimyeon huhoehage doel geol

Mesinjeo hwaginhaenoko nureuji anneun neoui haengwi

“1” jari eopseo jimgwa dongsie songman taji

Nebigeisyeonina salkkabwa

(Ppareum ppareum ppareum) eopilharyeogo

Gyesok nan (adung badung badung)

Jinsim? (I got ‘em) dwitsim? (I got ‘em)

Naega yuilhage gatji mothan geon neoui (areum areumdaum)

[Verse 5: RM]

I naega eotteoke byeonhamyeon doegenni, hol’ up

Mildang? eojang? geureon geo nan jal molleo

Daesin apeumyeon 119 malgo nal bulleo

Niga ullamyeon ureo, useuramyeon useo, gureuramyeon gulleo

[Pre-Chorus: Jin]

Andal nasseo na andal nasseo

Niga mwonde? neoman jallasseo?

Wae nareul jakku nollyeo nollyeo

Neo ije geuman hol’ up hol’ up

[Chorus: Jungkook, Jimin]

Kkwak jaba nal deopchigi jeone

Nae mami neol nochigi jeone

Say what you want

Niga jinjjaro wonhaneun ge mwoya

Kkwak jaba nal deopchigi jeone

Nae mami neol nochigi jeone

Say what you want

Niga jinjjaro wonhaneun ge mwoya

[Bridge: Jungkook, Jin, Jimin]

Doegopa neoui oppa

Neoreul hyanghan naui maeumeul wae molla

Nareul moreun cheokaedo chagaun cheokaedo

Neol mireonaejin mothagesseo

Doegopa neoui oppa

Neoui namjaga doel geoya dugobwa

Naui maeumi nege datorok

Jigeum dallyeogal geoya

[Chorus: Jungkook, Jimin]

Kkwak jaba nal deopchigi jeone

Nae mami neol nochigi jeone

Say what you want

Niga jinjjaro wonhaneun ge mwoya

Kkwak jaba nal deopchigi jeone

Nae mami neol nochigi jeone

Say what you want

Niga jinjjaro wonhaneun ge mwoya

DOPE(쩔어) - BTS(방탄소년단)

[Intro: Rap Monster]

Eoseo wa bangtaneun cheoeumiji?

[Verse 1: Jungkook]

Ayo ladies & gentleman

Junbiga dwaessdamyeon bureulge yeah!

Ttan nyeoseokdeulgwaneun dareuge

Nae seutaillo nae nae nae nae seutaillo eo!

[Verse 2: Jimin]

Bamsae ilhaessji everyday

Niga keulleobeseo nol ttae yeah

Ja nollaji malgo deureo maeil

I got a feel, I got a feel

[Chorus]

Nan jom jjeoreo!

[Verse 3: J-Hope]

A jjeoreo jjeoreo jjeoreo uri yeonseupsil ttamnae

Bwa jjeoreong jjeoreong jjeoreonghan

Nae chumi daphae

Modu bisiri jjijiri jjingjjingi ttilttirideul

Narangeun sanggwani eopseo

Cuz nan huimangi jjeoreo haha

[Verse 4: Suga]

Ok urin meoributeo balkkeutkkaji jeonbu da

Jjeo jjeoreo

Haruui jeolbaneul jageobe jjeo jjeoreo

Jageopsire jjeoreo sareo cheongchuneun sseogeogado

Deokbune moro gado dallineun seonggonggado

Sonyeodeura deo keuge sorijilleo jjeo jjeoreong

[Verse 5: V]

Bamsae ilhaessji everyday

Niga keulleobeseo nol ttae yeah

Ttan nyeoseokdeulgwaneun dareuge

I don’t wanna say yes

[Pre-Chorus: Jin/Jimin, Jungkook]

Sorichyeobwa all right

Momi tabeoridorok all night (all night)

Cause we got fire (fire!)

Higher (higher!)

I gotta make it, I gotta make it

Jjeoreo!

[Chorus]

Geobuneun geobuhae

Nan wonrae neomuhae

Modu da ttara hae

Jjeoreo

Geobuneun geobuhae

Jeonbu naui noye

Modu da ttara hae

Jjeoreo

[Verse 6: Rap Monster, Suga]

3posedae? 5posedae?

Geureom nan yukpoga joheunikka 6posedae

Eonrongwa eoreundeureun uijiga eopsdamyeo

Uril ssak jusikcheoreom maedohae

Wae haebogido jeone jugyeo gyaenen enemy enemy enemy

Wae beolsseobuteo gogaereul sugyeo bada energy energy energy

Jeoldae ma pogi you know you not lonely

Neowa nae saebyeogeun najboda yeppeo

So can I get a little bit of hope? (yeah)

Jamdeun cheongchuneul kkaewo go

[Verse 7: V]

Bamsae ilhaessji everyday

Niga keulleobeseo nol ttae yeah

Ttan nyeoseokdeulgwaneun dareuge

I don’t wanna say yes

[Pre-Chorus 7: Jin]

Sorichyeobwa all right

Momi tabeoridorok all night (all night)

Cause we got fire (fire!)

Higher (higher!)

I gotta make it, I gotta make it

Jjeoreo!

[Chorus]

Geobuneun geobuhae

Nan wonrae neomuhae

Modu da ttara hae

Jjeoreo

Geobuneun geobuhae

Jeonbu naui noye

Modu da ttara hae

Jjeoreo

[Bridge: Jimin, Jungkook]

Ireon ge bangtan seutail

Geojismal wackdeulgwaneun dalla

Maeiri hustle life

I gotta make it fire baby

Ireon ge bangtan seutail

Geojismal wackdeulgwaneun dalla

Maeiri hustle life

I gotta make it, I gotta make it

Nan jom jjeoreo!

[Chorus]

Say what! (god dammit)

Say wo~ wo~

Say what!

Jjeoreo

붐바야'(BOOMBAYAH) – BLACKPINK

[Spoken: Jennie]

(Hot) BLACKPINK in your area

[Intro: Lisa]

Been a bad girl, I know I am

And I'm so hot, I need a fan

I don't want a boy, I need a man

[Verse 1: Jennie]

Click-clack Badda bing badda boom

Muneul bakchamyeon modu nal barabom

Gudi aesseo noryeok an haedo

Modeun namjadeuleun kopiga pangpangpang

Pangpang parapara pangpangpang

Jigeum nal wihan chukbaereul jjanjjanjjan

Hands up nae sonen bottle full o' Henny

Nega malloman deuddeon gyaega naya Jennie

[Refrain: Jisoo & Lisa]

Chumchuneun bulbicheun nal gamssago done

Black to the pink eodiseodeun teukbyeolhae (Oh yes)

Chyeoda bodeun maldeun I wanna dance

Like ttaradaradanttan

Ttaradaradanttan, ttudurubbau

[Pre-Chorus: Rosé & Jisoo]

Joha i bunwigiga joha

Joha nan jigeum nega joha

Jeongmal banhaesseo oneul bam

Neowa chumchugo sipeo

[Chorus: BLACKPINK]

BOOMBAYAH!

Yah yah yah BOOMBAYAH

Yah yah yah yah

BOOM-BOOM-BA, BOOM-BOOM-BA (OPPA!)

Yah, yah yah, yah yah yah yah, yah yah yah

Yah, yah yah, yah yah yah yah, yah yah yah (OPPA!)

Yah, yah yah, yah yah yah yah, yah yah yah

Yah, yah yah, yah yah yah BOOM-BOOM-BA, BOOMBAYAH

[Spoken: Rosé]

(Hot) BLACKPINK in your area

[Verse 2: Lisa]

Uh, ije dallyeoyaji mwol eotteokhae

Nan cheol eobseo geob eobseo Man

Middle finger up, F-U pay me

90's baby, I pump up the jam

Dallyeobwa dallyeobwa oppaya Lambo

Oneuleun neowa na jeolmeumeul Gamble

Gamhi nal makjima hoksina nuga nal makado

I'mma go, brrrr, Rambo

[Pre-Chorus: Jisoo & Jennie]

Ne soni nae heorireul gamssago done

Front to my back Nae mommaeneun teukbyeolhae (Oh yes)

Ne nunbicheun I know you wanna touch

Like touch, touch, to-to-touch

Ttudurubbau

[Pre-Chorus: Rosé & Jisoo]

Joha i bunwigiga joha

Joha nan jigeum nega joha

Jeongmal meosisseo oneul bam

Neowa chumchugo sipeo

[Chorus: BLACKPINK]

BOOMBAYAH!

Yah yah yah BOOMBAYAH

Yah yah yah yah

BOOM-BOOM-BA, BOOM-BOOM-BA (OPPA!)

Yah, yah yah, yah yah yah yah, yah yah yah

Yah, yah yah, yah yah yah yah, yah yah yah (OPPA!)

Yah, yah yah, yah yah yah yah, yah yah yah

Yah, yah yah, yah yah yah BOOM-BOOM-BA, BOOMBAYAH

[Outro: Rosé & Lisa]

Oneuleun maen jeongsin ttawin beorigo

Haneuleul neomeoseo olla gal geoya

Kkeuteul moreuge ppalli dalligo sipeo

Let's go (Ooh-ooh)

Oneuleun maen jeongsin ttawin beorigo

Haneuleul neomeoseo olla gal geoya

Kkeuteul moreuge ppalli dalligo sipeo

Let's go (Ooh-ooh)

DNA – BTS (방탄소년단)

[Verse 1: V]

Cheotnune neol araboge dwaesseo (Hmm-mmm)

Seorol bulleowassdeon geotcheoreom (Ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh)

Nae hyeolgwan sok DNAga malhaejwo (Hmm-mmm)

Naega chaja hemaedeon neoraneun geol (Ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh)

[Verse 2: j-hope & RM]

Uri mannameun (Mannameun) suhagui gongsik (Suhagui gonsik)

Jonggyoui yulbeop (Yulbeop) ujuui seopri (Ujuui seopri)

Naege jueojin unmyeongui jeunggeo (Cheo)

Neoneun nae kkumui chulcheo (Cheo)

Take it, take it

Neoege naemin nae soneun jeonghaejin sukmyeong

[Pre-Chorus: Jungkook & V]

Geokjeonghaji ma, love

I modeun geon uyeoni aninikka

Urin wanjeon dalla, baby

Unmyeongeul chajanaen durinikka

[Chorus: Jimin & Jungkook]

Ujuga saenggin geu nalbuteo gyesok (Gyesok)

Muhanui segireul neomeoseo gyesok (Gyesok, gyesok, yah)

Urin jeonsaengedo (Urin jeonsaengedo)

Ama daeum saengedo (Ama daeum saengedo)

Yeongwonhi hamkkenikka (DNA)

[Post-Chorus: Jungkook]

(I modeun geon uyeoni aninikka) (DNA)

(Unmyeongeul chajanaen durinikka) (DNA)

[Verse 3: SUGA, RM & Jungkook]

I want it, this love (This love), I-I want it, real love (Real love)

Nan neoegeman jipjunghae, jom deo sege nal ikkeune

Taechoui DNA (DNA) ga neol wonhaneunde (Haneunde)

Igeon piryeoniya I love us (Love us)

Urimani true lovers (Lovers)

Geunyeoreul bol ttaemada soseurachige nolla

Singihage jakkuman sumi meojneun ge cham isanghae seolma

Ireon ge malloman deutdeon sarangiran gamjeongilkka (Oh, yeah)

Aechobuteo nae simjangeun neol hyanghae ttwinikka

[Pre-Chorus: Jin]

Geokjeonghaji ma love

I modeun geon uyeoni aninikka

Urin wanjeon dalla baby

Unmyeongeul chajanaen durinikka

[Chorus: Jungkook & Jimin]

Ujuga saenggin geu nalbuteo gyesok (Gyesok)

Muhanui segireul neomeoseo gyesok (Gyesok, gyesok, yah)

Urin jeonsaengedo (Urin jeonsaengedo)

Ama daeum saengedo (Ama daeum saengedo)

Yeongwonhi hamkkenikka (DNA)

[Post-Chorus: Jungkook]

(I modeun geon uyeoni aninikka) (DNA)

Unmyeongeul chajanaen durinikka (DNA)

[Bridge: V, Jin, Jungkook & Jimin]

Doraboji mara

Unmyeongeul chajanaen urinikka

Huhoehaji mara, baby, yeongwonhi

Yeongwonhi, yeongwonhi

Yeongwonhi (Yeongwonhi), hamkkenikka

[Pre-Chorus: Jungkook & Jimin]

Geokjeonghaji ma, love (Oh-oh-oh)

I modeun geon uyeoni aninikka

Urin wanjeon dalla, baby

Unmyeongeul chajanaen durinikka, DNA

[Outro: j-hope & Jungkook]

La-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la-la

Uyeoni aninikka (DNA)

La-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la-la

Uyeoni aninikka, DNA

뚜두뚜두 (DDU-DU DDU-DU) – BLACKPINK

[Intro: All & Rosé]

BLACKPINK!

(Ah yeah, ah yeah!)

BLACKPINK!

(Ah yeah, ah yeah!)

[Verse 1: Jennie, Lisa & All]

Eh, chaghan eolgure geureoji mothan taedo (Huh)

Ganyeorin mommae sok garyeojin volumeeun du baero (Yah, yah, double up) (Woo!)

Geochimeopsi jikjin gudi bojin anhji nunchi

Black hamyeon Pink urin yeppeujanghan Savage (BLACKPINK!)

Wonhal ttaen daenohko ppaetji (Uh)

Neon mwol haedo kallo mul begi (Uh)

Du sonen gadeughan fat check

Gunggeumhamyeon haebwa fact check

Nun nopin kkokdaegi

Mul mannan mulgogi

Jom doghae nan Toxic

You hokae I'm Foxy

[Pre-Chorus: Rosé & Jisoo]

Du beon saenggakae

Heunhan namdeulcheoreom chaghan cheogeun mot hanikka

Chaghakaji ma

Swipge useojuneun geon nal wihan geoya

Ajigeun jal moreugetji

Guji wonhamyeon test me

Neon bul bodeusi ppeonhae

Manmanhan geol wonhaetdamyeon

[Chorus: Jennie]

Oh, wait 'til I do what I do

Hit you with that ddu-du, ddu-du, du

(Ah yeah, ah yeah!)

Hit you with that ddu-du, ddu-du, du

(Ah yeah, ah yeah!)

[Spoken: All]

BLACKPINK!

[Verse 2: Jennie]

Jigeum naega geoleoganeun geolin

BLACKPINK 4 way sageori

Dongseonambuk sabangeulo run it

Need a bucket list ssak da I bought it

Neol dangineun geotdo meolli milchineun geotdo

Jemeotdaero haneun bad girl

Jogheon sileohageon nuga mwora hadeon

When the bass drop, it's another banger

[Pre-Chorus: Jisoo & Rosé]

Du beon saenggakae

Heunhan namdeulcheoreom chaghan cheogeun mot hanikka

Chakgakaji ma

Swipge useojuneun geon nal wihan geoya

Ajigeun jal moreugetji

Guji wonhamyeon test me

Neon bul bodeusi ppeonhae

Manmanhan geol wonhaetdamyeon

[Chorus: Lisa & Rosé]

Oh, wait 'til I do what I do

Hit you with that ddu-du, ddu-du, du

(Ah yeah, ah yeah)

Hit you with that ddu-du, ddu-du, du

(Ah yeah, ah yeah)

[Bridge: Rosé & Lisa]

What you gonna do when I

Come, come through with that, that, uh

Uh-huh

What you gonna do when I

Come, come through with that, that, uh

Uh-huh

Tteugeowo, tteugeowo, tteugeowo like fire

[Drop: All, Rosé & Jisoo]

BLACKPINK!

Hey!

(Ah yeah, ah yeah, ah yeah, ah yeah!)

Tteugeowo, tteugeowo, tteugeowo like fire (Hey!)

Tteugeowo, tteugeowo, tteugeowo like fire

[Outro: Jennie]

Hit you with that ddu-du, ddu-du, du

Kill This Love – BLACKPINK

[Intro: Jennie & Lisa]

Yeah, yeah, yeah

BLACKPINK IN YOUR AREA!

Yeah, yeah, yeah

[Verse 1: Jennie]

Cheonsa gateun "hi" kkeuten angma gateun "bye"

Maebeon michildeuthan high dwien baeteoya haneun price

Igeon dabi eomneun test

Maebeon sokdeorado yes

Ttakan gamjeongui noye

Eoreo jugeul saranghae

[Verse 2: Lisa]

Here I come kickin' the door, uh

Gajang dokan geollo jwo, uh

Ppeonhadi ppeonhan geu love

Deo naenwabwa give me some more

Araseo maedallyeo byeorang kkeute

Hanmadimyeon tto like hebeolle hae

Geu ttatteuthan tteollimi saeppalgan seollemi

Machi heaven gatgetjiman

You might not get in it

[Pre-Chorus: Jisoo & Rosé]

Look at me, look at you

Nuga deo apeulkka

You smart nuga you are

Du nune pinunmul heureuge doendamyeon

So sorry nuga you are

Na eotteokae nayakan nal gyeondil su eopseo

Aesseo du nuneul garin chae

Sarangui sumtongeul kkeuneoyagesseo

[Chorus: All, Lisa, & Jennie]

Let's kill this love!

Yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah

Rum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum

Let's kill this love!

Rum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum

[Verse 3: Jennie, Lisa]

Feelin' like a sinner

It's so fire with him I go boo-hoo

He said "You look crazy"

Thank you, baby

I owe it all to you

Got me all messed up

His love is my favorite

But you plus me

Sadly can be dangerous

[Pre-Chorus: Rosé & Jisoo]

Lucky me, lucky you

Gyeolgugen geojitmal we lie

So what? So what?

Manyage naega neol jiuge

Doendamyeon so sorry

I'm not sorry

Na eotteokae nayakan nal gyeondil su eopseo

Aesseo nunmureul gamchun chae, eh

Sarangui sumtongeul kkeuneoyagesseo

[Chorus: All, Lisa, & Jennie]

Let's kill this love!

Yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah

Rum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum

Let's kill this love!

Rum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum

[Bridge: Rosé]

We all commit to love

That makes you cry, oh-oh

We're all making love

That kills you inside, yeah

[Outro: All]

We must kill this love (Yeah! Yeah!)

Yeah, it's sad but true

Gotta kill this love (Yeah! Yeah!)

Before it kills you too

Kill this love (Yeah! Yeah!)

Yeah, it's sad but true

Gotta kill this love (Yeah! Yeah!)

Gotta kill, let's kill this love!

Dynamite - BTS (방탄소년단)

[Intro: Jungkook]

'Cause I, I, I'm in the stars tonight

So watch me bring the fire and set the night alight

[Verse 1: Jungkook]

Shoes on, get up in the morn'

Cup of milk, let's rock and roll

King Kong, kick the drum

Rolling on like a Rolling Stone

Sing song when I'm walkin' home

Jump up to the top, LeBron

Ding-dong, call me on my phone

Ice tea and a game of ping pong

[Pre-Chorus: RM, j-hope]

This is gettin' heavy, can you hear the bass boom? I'm ready (Woo-hoo)

Life is sweet as honey, yeah, this beat cha-ching like money, huh

Disco overload, I'm into that, I'm good to go

I'm diamond, you know I glow up

Hey, so let's go

[Chorus: Jungkook, Jimin]

'Cause I, I, I'm in the stars tonight

So watch me bring the fire and set the night alight (Hey)

Shinin' through the city with a little funk and soul

So I'ma light it up like dynamite, woah-oh-oh

[Verse 2: V, RM]

Bring a friend, join the crowd, whoever wanna come along

Word up, talk the talk, just move like we off the wall

Day or night, the sky's alight, so we dance to the break of dawn (Hey)

Ladies and gentlemen, I got the medicine so you should keep ya eyes on the ball

[Pre-Chorus: Suga, Jimin, RM]

Huh, this is gettin' heavy, can you hear the bass boom? I'm ready (Woo-hoo)

Life is sweet as honey, yeah, this beat cha-ching like money, huh

Disco overload, I'm into that, I'm good to go

I'm diamond, you know I glow up

Let's go

[Chorus: Jungkook, V]

'Cause I, I, I'm in the stars tonight

So watch me bring the fire and set the night alight (Hey)

Shinin' through the city with a little funk and soul

So I'ma light it up like dynamite, woah-oh-oh

[Post-Chorus: Jungkook, Jimin, Jin]

Dyn-na-na-na, na-na-na-na-na, na-na-na, life is dynamite

Shinin' through the city with a little funk and soul

So I'ma light it up like dynamite, woah-oh-oh

[Bridge: Jungkook, j-hope, Jimin, V]

Dyn-na-na-na, na-na, na-na, ayy

Light it up like dynamite

Dyn-na-na-na, na-na, na-na, ayy

Light it up like dynamite

[Chorus: Jimin, Jungkook, Jin]

'Cause I, I, I'm in the stars tonight

So watch me bring the fire and set the night alight

Shinin' through the city with a little funk and soul

So I'ma light it up like dynamite

(This is ah) 'Cause I, I, I'm in the stars tonight

So watch me bring the fire and set the night alight (Alight, oh)

Shinin' through the city with a little funk and soul

So I'ma light (Light) it (It) up (Up) like (Like) dynamite (Dynamite), woah-oh-oh

[Post-Chorus: Jungkook, Jimin, V]

Dyn-na-na-na, na-na-na-na-na, na-na-na, life is dynamite (Life is dynamite)

Dyn-na-na-na, na-na-na-na-na, na-na-na, life is dynamite (Oh)

Shinin' through the city with a little funk and soul

So I'ma light it up like dynamite, woah-oh-oh

Source: https://genius.com/