K-Pop Boom

I think there has been a growing interest in K-Pop in Japan since last summer. Groups like Brown Eyed Girls, Kara, and Girls' Generation have made a big impact in the music scene here. Just to understand why, take a look at this.

Kara

K-Pop looks a lot like J-Pop, but with more American-style assertiveness. To succeed in Japan, most performers are proficient in Japanese, including Boa, the pioneer K-Pop star who first broke into the Japanese pop scene.

Here's another very popular group, Kara.

K Pop seems to be really booming in the West. Since Demon Hunters won that Oscar, K Pop has been all over British media outlets and I've had the opportunity to listen quite a bit of it. It is Western girl/boy band music. Korea has added nothing new to the sound of the music (other than the language in which it is sung). I suspect a 'blind listening' of K-/J-/Western pop would render them indistinguishable from one another. It's just boy/girl band pop.

It's also booming in Japan: