Has The World’s Biggest K-Pop Group Already Come And Gone?

Blackpink is the biggest global group in K-pop. With BTS on hiatus and NewJeans in the midst of a prolonged contract dispute, they don’t have much competition, so long as they stay active themselves. Yet their current world tour carries a title that suggests an endpoint: Deadline. Two years after renewing their contracts as a group, they have released a new single, “Jump,” in their signature style but with a heavier beat, and embarked on what may be their final arena-sized project together. The tour, which runs from July through January, includes 31 stadium shows over 16 cities, with even four stops in Europe, often neglected by K-pop acts. One month in, and they have had no issues selling out stadiums, sometimes doing so twice, and have even catered to local sports fans, launching merchandise collaborations with Mitchell & Ness and Paris Saint-German.

It is commonly understood that individual success jeopardizes the longevity of a group. Justin Timberlake became the breakaway star of NSYNC; it’s possible younger fans of Beyoncé don’t know more than one Destiny’s Child song; One Direction—the biggest boy band in the world—made a multi-hyphenate pop idol out of Harry Styles. In K-pop, individual success is just one threat to a band’s sustainability. Few groups survive past the industry’s standard (and dreaded) seven-year initial contract term, and those who do often see new releases, referred to in K-pop as “comebacks” more as fan service endeavors than a meaningful return. Members may be lost to mandatory military service or, historically, Chinese members leaving, and scheduling is catered around solo ventures that are more popular or simply less grueling for the individuals.

In the space between renewing their contracts and releasing their new single, the members of Blackpink—Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé, and Lisa—have reached a level of Western visibility unprecedented in the K-pop industry. Five of Jennie’s songs from her debut studio album Ruby have made it onto the Billboard Hot 100. It is one thing to know of BTS and NewJeans and Twice; it is another to watch an Italian MotoGP team manager dance along to Rosé’s “APT” (featuring Bruno Mars!) during a post-race celebration or see Lisa perform at the Oscars.

This level of success would have been incomprehensible in 2009, when producer Park Jin-young tried, unsuccessfully, to break Wonder Girls into the American market. Even BTS, for their ubiquity, haven’t found the same impact as soloists—perhaps limited by a lack of English fluency, or the historical tendency for Korean boy groups to find success in concentrated fanbases rather than the larger public consciousness.

That Blackpink have managed a group return despite their solo success is a minor miracle. In recent interviews, the members refer to their solo careers as an act of freedom or self-discovery. “I spent six years as a trainee, and throughout that process, I was so focused on becoming a performer, I didn’t really understand the meaning of becoming an artist,” Jennie said. Rosé reflected, “I feel like I’ve since learned to sit with myself and accept it and be comfortable with it. I’m really, really happy about that, and I think it’s a tool that I picked up on myself. I love it.”

Naturally, the Deadline World Tour has been shrouded by rampant speculation that it will also be their last. Whatever love and affection the members have for each other—Rosé remarked, “Each of us has gone out and been inspired and learned so much about ourselves”—can’t supersede the simple truth that being an idol is hard and difficult. Frankly, it sucks. The tour’s ominous title, “Deadline,” offers little reassurance. When Blackpink renewed their contracts, they and their agency promised to deliver new music and a world tour. With “Jump” and Deadline, it’s very possible they are simply delivering on their final obligations.

In the context of Blackpink’s outrageous popularity, it’s worth noting that, conceptually or musically, little about them was particularly unique to the K-pop industry when they debuted in 2016. By the start of K-pop’s third generation in 2012—a decade before Min Hee-jin would reinvent K-pop girl group aesthetics with NewJeans—the formula to make a girl group was well-established. An entertainment company would select a roster of four to 11 performers (or idols, as they’re called in the industry), assign them color-coded hair for easy recognition, and then choose from three dominant aesthetic concepts: “cute” (Apink, Twice), “sexy” (AOA, Miss A), or “girlboss” (2NE1). 

YG Entertainment had already mastered the formula. In 2016, the label launched Blackpink as a four-member girlboss group, each with a distinct hair color, among the BTS-era hallyu wave—the accelerated globalization of South Korean popular culture into the Western mainstream that began in the ’90s. The decisions were targeted for international reach. Four members are easy to memorize; that three of those members were already fluent in English didn’t hurt. Their music was shaped by Teddy Park, YG’s in-house producer, known for glossy, attitude-heavy vocals, loud instrumentals, and chant-laden choruses. The “girlbossery” translated easily across borders, unlike “sexiness” which might stir controversy, or “cuteness,” which might feel cringe.

Since “Gangnam Style,” the commercial potential of K-pop collaborations—especially with boy groups, who bring large fanbases with a tendency toward hyperconsumerism with them—has been obvious. Serious artistic value was an entirely separate, even secondary, matter. While second-generation K-pop marked the peak of K-pop campiness, third-generation groups still leaned toward gimmick and tweeness. 

Domestically, Blackpink’s closest peers, Twice and GFriend, were arguably more popular at their peaks, but both were tied to “cute” aesthetics. GFriend was often considered the more respectable group to enjoy, especially internationally, thanks to their tougher choreography, their hailing from a smaller agency (a sister company and later subsidiary of the company that made BTS), and a viral fancam that caught the members slipping on a wet stage but persisting through their performance. Still, GFriend had the schoolgirl image, and like Twice, they had to age out of it eventually. For both, the shift meant great additions to their respective discographies, but at the cost of mainstream popularity. (Twice has since seen a massive resurgence thanks to the success of Netflix animated movie KPop Demon Hunters; GFriend, who shockingly disbanded at the conclusion of their initial contracts, have since managed a comeback.) Girlbossery, however, doesn’t require the same transition. Girlbossery is forever; it can sustain itself across decades.

The most honest way of engaging with K-pop is to acknowledge its inherent artifice, but doing so fundamentally undermines K-pop’s artistic legitimacy. In this context, the highest compliment for an idol is that they don’t seem like an idol at all. Between fan discourse about “self-produced idols” and debates over “real talent,” artistic authenticity is the greatest prize. Here, image and reputation matter as much, as if not more than, actual production input—and Blackpink had both. YG had previously cultivated “real/serious artist” idols in BigBang and, to a slightly lesser extent, 2NE1. They were girlbosses! And, perhaps most importantly, the individual members found an on-ramp to seriousness outside of music.

Where Blackpink most dramatically differed from their predecessors was the speed at which their individual members ascended to both “idol as brand ambassador” and also “idol as influencer-socialite.” Endorsements are about as important as music to an idol’s image or popularity. Many idols model for East Asian skincare brands or release full-length songs to promote major sponsors. An idol with a variety show reputation for having intense eyes might film a charming tinned tuna ad highlighting that feature of hers. But Blackpink successfully tapped into the difficult space of Western high fashion—endorsements that lead to cultural capital. Just two years after the group’s debut, Jennie became a brand ambassador for Chanel; the next year Jisoo became a local ambassador for Dior, and Lisa became muse to Celine; a year later, Rosé became the global ambassador for Yves Saint Laurent.

After playing the game for long enough—attending the Met Gala and sitting front-row at fashion weeks—the English-speaking members of Blackpink developed serious crossover potential. Jennie took a minor acting role on The Idol, the Weeknd’s disastrous HBO show about the pop idol industry. For all its horrors and eventual failure, it was, at least, proof of concept for the slew of Western collaborations that followed: Rosé’s “APT” with Bruno Mars; Jennie’s album featuring—deep breath—FKJ, Dua Lipa, Doechii, Dominic Fike, Childish Gambino, and Kali Uchis; Lisa’s album featuring—another deep breath—Rosalía, Tyla, Doja Cat, Raye, and Megan Thee Stallion. If “breaking into the Western market” needs a pathway, it might be built by some of that list of names.

From the jump, YG Entertainment seemed intent on getting a soloist out of Blackpink, and the first would be Jennie. All four members had some form of pre-debut exposure, but Jennie was the only one to be named and promoted several years before Blackpink’s official debut. In 2018—two years after her debut—she released “SOLO,” another Teddy Park production, to great domestic success. The gap until her next solo release was much longer: 2023, the final year of her contract, a delay attributable to the Burning Sun scandal, which implicated YG’s founder, Yang Hyun-suk in gambling, and what was likely straight-up mismanagement.

Even for the time, debuting a solo career in two years was aggressive. Rival entertainment company JYP had taken the opposite approach, perhaps after seeing their popular girl group Miss A peter out after one member found a successful acting career. With Twice, JYP held back individual branding entirely—members didn’t even have their own Instagram accounts until after they reached the seven-year renewal point. The result was that JYP got the most of Twice as a group during what would inevitably be their most prolific years. Early K-pop groups could regularly make two comebacks a year; Miss A released only eight singles during their lifespan as a group, Blackpink only released 12 (with the same caveats about scandal and mismanagement), while Twice released 18 Korean singles and 12 Japanese singles in their first seven years as a group.

It is an organizational philosophy that will be familiar to sports fans: Maximize your young stars while they’re under the tightest corporate control and while you keep the largest share of the revenue they generate. An idol might benefit from a successful solo career, but not necessarily the company. With Blackpink’s solo careers, the incentives did. YG had a precedent—2NE1 had CL (still the baddest bitch), BigBang (still your idol’s favorite idols) had G-Dragon and T.O.P.—and the same framework could be applied again.

The success of Blackpink’s solo careers underscores a larger shift. Gone are the days of idols re-signing with their original company for lack of serious alternatives, when the “big three” (SM, YG, and JYP) dominated the industry. Increasingly, established idols trade the security of a large agency for small or self-founded management companies, gaining more control, dedicated attention, and almost certainly seeing more of the money they earn. Blackpink’s own renewal has broadly followed the trend: All the members signed with individual record labels (none of their solo music was produced under the iron grip of Teddy Park), and all but Rosé—who joined YG associate company the Black Label—founded their own management companies. Their group activities still fall under YG, but their frequency is now limited. There’s a kind of poetic justice in this; it is always for the better when a K-pop company loses.

If there will never be another Blackpink, Blackpink themselves may be the reason. Why should K-pop companies be motivated to invest and develop an artist they will not be able to retain? The NewJeans “normal teenage girls” aesthetic that has come to define modern K-pop groups makes it harder to distinguish individual idols of the group, no matter how popular their music becomes. An idol has always been more than a singer—they must be actors, variety stars, brand spokespeople—but Blackpink’s success as brand ambassadors, once unique, has now become the defining factor of many idols’ careers. IVE’s Wonyoung, with her 14.7 million Instagram followers, is so incredible at being an idol that it has provoked people into getting very, very mad, yet it’s impossible to imagine what a solo music career would look like for her. And in today’s industry, it’s hard to imagine a group debuting without minors in the lineup.

Ironically, the idol show—which partially got us into this mess—may now be a young idols’ saving grace. The format involves building your own case as an individual first, and then places contestants into a temporary group with an expiration date much shorter than seven years. Many of those idols, especially those signed to smaller companies who have seen the graveyard of many attempted survival show spinoff groups, will pivot their individual popularity into a solo career instead.

It’s too bold to declare that there will never be another Blackpink; the way into the West is clearer now, and a popular K-pop group will always draw collaborators. But the conditions in which Blackpink’s individual members found their success no longer exist. They were born from the norms of an earlier era, before K-pop was fully professionalized, yet benefit from a newer one, in which older idols can take control over their own careers. If there is to be another Blackpink, it will require some part of the K-pop machinery to break from its current conventions. Otherwise, if the Deadline World Tour is indeed their last hurrah, it’ll also be a eulogy for something even bigger than Blackpink themselves.