Universal Music and Hybe’s Global Girl Group Is Taking Off
Not long ago, Bang Si-hyuk, chairman of Hybe Co., the Seoul-based music company, bet he could make K-pop an even bigger, global phenomenon. Not through his already successful acts, like BTS, but via a new, multinational girl group that would gather its members from various countries and sing in English.
Approximately 120,000 people applied to participate in the resulting, globe-spanning experiment. Throughout the process, fans joined in. Using Hybe’s audience app Weverse, they cast votes on who should survive the fierce elimination process.
In the end, Bang’s team, alongside executives from Interscope Geffen A&M Records, a division of Universal Music Group NV, auditioned, selected and trained six young women.
The winners, ages 16 to 22, hailed from four countries: the US, South Korea, Switzerland and the Philippines. They now comprise the group known as Katseye.
Last summer, Netflix premiered Pop Star Academy: Katseye, a documentary introducing the group’s story to the streaming service’s legions of subscribers across the planet. In the first five months, the behind-the-scenes film accrued over 3.1 million views. (This year, Netflix had another K-pop hit on its hands with Kpop Demon Hunters.)
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Since the show’s debut, the members have released a string of singles and an extended recording. At first, the songs didn’t appear to break through to mainstream audiences in any significant way. But then in April Katseye put out Gnarly, a fast-paced, bass-heavy banger with a simple hook.
The song invokes a parade of objects and experiences, ranging from boba tea, to fried chicken, to Teslas, to parties in the Hollywood Hills, that can all be described by a single word, “gnarly.”
Fans ate it up. So far, the track has accrued over 166 million streams on Spotify while the music video on YouTube has been viewed over 62 million times. On TikTok, users have feverishly re-created the song’s signature dance moves, driving additional reach.
The popularity of Gnarly, alongside another new track, Gabriela, have propelled Katseye to No. 12 on Bloomberg’s Pop Star Power Rankings this month.
Katseye’s growing success is a validation of Bang’s unique approach to engineering global pop stardom, which continues to evolve since unleashing BTS. Members of that group, which has played in front of frenzied stadiums across the US, have also successfully released their own solo work. In 2023, Jung Kook released an album entirely in English and soon appeared on Bloomberg’s top rankings.
Along the way, he helped to create a blueprint for the next wave of K-pop stars. Now it’s Katseye’s turn to storm the charts.