ON NOVEMBER 11, Ddu-du Ddu-du by Blackpink has joined the billion views club on YouTube as the music video surpassed one billion streams on the said platform.
The K-pop titans only proved that Korean pop music are now becoming more and more mainstream as they are the first group and second K-pop act to have reached this milestone.
The K-pop industry contrasts heavily with its American counterpart. That includes how music videos are produced. Although others may argue that it is too manufactured, it seems as if it’s the right call as dozens of music videos by Korean artists have been viewed more than 300 million times - a feat some American artists nowadays can’t even achieve. Big names like Taylor Swift and Camila Cabello haven’t even reached a hundred million views with their latest releases.
There are key ingredients for a good K-pop music video. From the perfectly synchronized choreography, to the vivid colors showcased in the video, to the catchy music, one of these go missing and it would be difficult to be a hit. Surely, Ddu-du Ddu-du has secured all of the elements. No wonder it has gotten fans (or stans as people call them nowadays) watching it more than a couple of times.
Even the general public was attracted and got hooked by a song they couldn’t understand. People all over the world danced the “shooting guns” during the songs’ epic chorus. Everyone flooded Twitter about how the visuals of the music video slayed them. Coachella was pumped to sing along to the iconic title catchphrase. The influence of K-pop is now a new wave as we see Blackpink owning the charts, YouTube, and Spotify. (Joseph Genesis Soniel)