"K-Pop But No Korean Lyrics" After BLACKPINK's Success, Girl Groups Favor English Lyrics

"Expansion of Girl Group Market, Targeting Global Audience"
Boy Groups Have 24.3% English Lyrics Ratio

As K-pop gains global popularity, the proportion of English lyrics has significantly increased. This trend is more pronounced in girl groups.

Group (G)I-DLE.
[Photo by Cube Entertainment]

According to Kim Jin-woo, senior research fellow at Circle Chart, the proportion of English lyrics in girl group songs that ranked in the digital chart top 400 in the first half of this year was 41.3%, an increase of 18.9 percentage points compared to the same period in 2018.

By group, (G)I-DLE had the highest proportion of English lyrics in the first half of this year at 53.6%. They were followed by LE SSERAFIM at 50.6%, BLACKPINK at 50%, NMIXX at 49.3%, and NewJeans at 48.4%.

On the other hand, IVE's lyrics had a relatively low English proportion of 24.9%.

Their English lyrics mainly included words such as "I," "You," "Like," and "Love."

Research fellow Kim explained, "After BLACKPINK's global success, the girl group market, which was previously focused on the domestic market, has expanded overseas, increasing the use of English. Looking at each group, the higher the number of overseas consumers, the higher the proportion of English used."

Additionally, popular music critic Kang Tae-gyu analyzed, "The MZ generation has no resistance to English lyrics, and this phenomenon is actually reflected in the charts. There is no longer a need to limit lyrics strictly to Korean."

Group Tomorrow X Together.
[Photo by BigHit Music]

Meanwhile, although boy groups also saw an increase in the proportion of English lyrics like girl groups, the growth rate was relatively lower.

For boy groups, the proportion of English lyrics in the first half of this year was 24.3%, an increase of 5.6 percentage points compared to the first half of 2018.

Research fellow Kim explained, "Girl groups are targeting not only fandoms but also the global audience, which results in a differentiated phenomenon compared to male idols who focus mainly on fandoms."

The survey targeted idol songs (including unit and solo activities) that ranked in the digital chart top 400 according to Circle Chart: 38 girl group songs and 76 boy group songs in the first half of 2018, and 63 girl group songs and 24 boy group songs in the first half of 2023. Songs entirely in English were excluded from the survey.

Meanwhile, the survey also found that the number of people involved in producing K-pop songs has increased. This is presumed to be influenced by idol members’ participation in songwriting and composing, as well as the activities of overseas composers in the K-pop market.

In the first half of this year, the number of people involved in producing one K-pop song was 3.9 for lyrics, 4.8 for composition, and 2.2 for arrangement, which increased by 1, 1.4, and 0.5 respectively compared to the same period in 2018.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.