A lot of the confusion about the definition of "K-pop" comes from the failure to realize that the term "K-pop" is not a Korean term.

The term "K-pop" emerged as a term for non-Korean, international fans to indicate "pop music of Korea." And that's still what it means.

The word "K-pop" appears in the int'l media much earlier than it does in the Korean media. By late 1990s, Channel V in Hong Kong had a regular program called "K-pop Station," mostly featuring first gen K-pop idol music. The word appears on Billboard for the first time in 1999.

In contrast, the very first time when the word 케이팝 appears in the Korean media was 2001 - and the word was not about any genre of music. There actually was a (quickly forgotten) boy band whose name was "K-pop." Goes to show the Koreans' grasp of the term.

The word 케이팝 does not appear in the Korean media on a regular basis until around '08-09, a full decade after non-Koreans were using the term. Why? Because the Korean media was beginning to pick up on the int'l popularity of the likes of BoA and Rain, the first big int'l stars.

In other words, Koreans' understanding of the word "K-pop" is - and still is to a large degree - the type of Korean pop music that (in their view) appeals to int'l fans. This understanding often got reduced to "idol pop", because that was the case in the late 2000s.

From late 2000s to mid/late 2010s, this definition held, only because idol pop was effectively the only Korean pop music with significant popularity outside of Korea.

Here's an analogue: until around mid-2000s, if an American said he liked Irish whiskey, what he was really saying was that he liked Jameson. Why? Because Jameson was the only Irish whiskey available throughout the US until that point in time.

There's a lot of Irish whiskeys that are quite different from Jameson, but for Americans, the entire universe of Irish whiskey is Jameson.

Same with int'l fans of Korean pop music. Until around mid-2010s, the entire universe of "K-pop" for int'l fans was idol pop music.

BUT - this is important - in the minds of the int'l fans, the operative part of the definition of the term "K-pop" was "K", or "Korea", not any particular type of music, any particular type of performance, any particular mode of production.

In other words, there was very little effort on the part of the int'l fans to gate-keep the definition of "K-pop", and draw a line between Korean pop music that was "K-pop" and Korean pop music that was not. ANY Korean pop music known to them was "K-pop."

So when Gangnam Style became a global hit in 2012, PSY was incorporated into the definition of "K-pop" with minimal resistance, although PSY and Gangnam Style did not fit at all into the "idol pop" mold.

And the rest of the story should be pretty familiar.

To close the thread, Lim Kim is just blowing my mind lately.