Within the last five years, Korean pop music, most commonly known as K-pop has hit a major rise of popularity in the US. As the music has reached the U.S., many people have different stories on how they discovered the K-pop music genre. 

 “On YouTube, I saw a reaction video [to a K-pop music video],” Starr’s Mill High School counselor Jordan Finch said.

The common spark of interest in K-pop fans is the variety within the genre. For Americans, Korean pop is a new kind of music. The variety of the genre is what makes listeners feel connected to the music. 

“Before I got into K-pop I pretty much listened to only rock music,” Starr’s Mill High School student information systems operator Kirsten Brooks said.

K-pop music features a wide variety of music. Americans can find similarity in both American pop and Korean pop because they feature similar topics such as heartbreak, friendship, or just plain fun. While topics may overlap, the style of the beat and lyrics to songs create an enthusiasm for the newer genre.

“I feel like [K-pop artists] put a lot of thought into their lyrics,” Finch said. 

Brooks recently attended a concert for the K-pop group Babymonster. She received the tickets through The Prowler and its partnership with music promoter Moxie based in Louisville, Kentucky. 

“It’s usually very high energy, but also calm at the same time,” Brooks said. 

Unlike popular American pop music artists, the Korean pop artists tend to be groups rather than solo artists. Many K-pop groups hold a close bond and friendship. Anybody can find their music because they all come together with a different way to feel an emotion and create the versatile music Korean pop is known for. 

“You take a bunch of different personalities and put them together and they make something that is unique,” Brooks said.

The way K-pop groups have kept a lot of variety is through their albums. K-pop is essentially a genre that blends many other genres together in a pop approach. 

“Usually with an American pop artist their album [has a theme],” Brooks said. “It’s kind of the same for K-pop, but usually within that theme they’ve got several different types of music.”

In summer of 2025, the movie K-pop “Demon Hunters” was released. The movie is close to hitting nearly 300 million views. K-pop fans are loving it and for those who are not yet K-pop fans, it is only a matter of time. 

“[K-pop music] has been around for a while but it has not been widely popular,” Brooks said. 

Because the K-pop genre encompasses so much, anyone can find music within the genre to relate to further increasing its popularity.