Last year we celebrated 30 years since the birth of K-Pop, when Seo Taiji and Boys debuted on a music show with the song Nan Arayo. To have some fun with the celebration we baptized K-Pop with the name King Poppie, gave it a personality, shared its history, and played games as any good Korean show would. Now for this year’s birthday we enlisted the help of some friends to celebrate the evolution of the music that took over our lives by storm!

Listen here:

Today’s episode is both fun and maybe a bit controversial, because we’re sharing each generation’s THE song! That’s right. We’re going to be showcasing (and playing a clip of) one top song from each generation, and we’ll share with you how each of the songs were selected. 

Before we start, we want to thank some collaborators whom we reached out to for help to make this episode come to life. Since we wanted to cover each generation of K-Pop but we ourselves have only been around for about 3 years, we had to reach out to the experts: 

• For Gen 1 we want to thank Shannon and Angélica over at Ask Me About K-Pop 
• For Gen 2 we want to thank Chris and Chan over at CCTV Pops 
• For Gen 3 we want to thank our friends over at Official K-Pop Highway Radio 

Thank you all for your contributions!

The second thing we want to do before jumping in is to encourage you to think of the song that you yourself would pick as the top for each of the generations – and if you’re a K-Pop newbie, this is the perfect episode for you to learn how K-Pop started and evolved to become what it is today.

Please note: music generations in the world of K-Pop aren’t decided solely by drawing lines in the sand at a specific year range. Those who study the industry also take into account if there was a massive shift that warrants a bookend and turning the page towards a new generation.

Gen 1’s THE song

The Gen 1 range we’re covering today is from 1997–2002. 

To find Gen 1’s THE song, we reached out to Ask Me About K-Pop, an educational K-Pop podcast. A little bit about them:

Have you ever been curious about K-Pop, but don’t know where to start? Or are you a huge K-Pop fan with no one else to geek out with about it? Lucky for you, best friends Shannon & Angélica love talking about K-Pop more than anything!

We asked Shannon and Angélica for their pick, and here’s what they had to say:

“We talked about this and I think we both agree that if it’s only ONE song then it has to be H.O.T’s ‘Candy’ because it truly created the mold for all Korean boy groups that came after and it’s still such a good song as evidenced by its resurgence with the NCT version.”

Shannon also added “but also just cause I’m extra and cannot just leave it at that cause I love first gen music then my personal fave list of songs I listen to a lot is…”

• Roora “3! 4!” (1996)
• Baby VOX “get up” (1999)
• G.O.D “Road” (2000)
• 5tion “more than words” (2001)
• M.I.L.K “come to me” (2001)
• UN “wave” (2002)

With that said, let’s give it up for Gen 1’s THE song, H.O.T’s Candy!

Thank you Shannon and Angélica for sharing your pick and insights with us!

Gen 2’s THE song

The Gen 2 range we’re covering today is from 2003–2011. 

To find Gen 2’s THE song, we reached out to CCTV Pops, The Nonstop Pop Show. A little bit about them:

Hi! We’re Chris and Chan, hosts of the global pop music podcast, CCTV: The Nonstop Pop Show!

As music industry professionals with experience both on stage as dancers and performers and behind the scenes at record labels and in music publishing, we know a great deal about the crazy music industry. On our show, we look at and listen to pop music – old, new, near and far – and discuss and react to the business decisions and creative choices made. Join us as we take a deep dive into the amazing world of pop music!

We asked Chris & Chan for their pick, and here’s what they had to say:

“After much discussion, we have decided to choose Wonder Girls’ ‘Nobody’ as THE SONG of Gen 2. This song is important for many reasons. First and foremost, it was the first K-Pop song to enter the Billboard Hot 100, paving the way for other Korean artists to make their mark in the Western market. Additionally, the Wonder Girls were the first K-pop group to perform on US television, appearing on So You Think You Can Dance and the Wendy Williams Show.

‘Nobody’ was also one of the first K-Pop songs to go viral and inspire dance covers, which helped to increase the group’s visibility and popularity. Its success led to unprecedented opportunities for the group, including a movie on Nickelodeon and touring with the Jonas Brothers.

Moreover, ‘Nobody’ was one of the first K-Pop songs to have a full English translation version, making it more accessible to English-speaking audiences. The song itself was a perfect adaptation of the 60s Motown sound, which was having a resurgence in Western popular culture at the time. The catchy hook, handclaps, and sparkles were all production choices that were smartly executed, and the rap at the end made for a great ending. Finally, the dance was super simple and memorable, which helped to further the song’s popularity. All of these factors make ‘Nobody’ not only a fantastic song, but also an extremely important song in the history of K-Pop. It is THE SONG of Gen 2.”

With that said, let’s give it up for Gen 2’s THE song, Wonder Girls’ Nobody! (For the English version, click here)

Thank you Chris and Chan for sharing your pick and such detailed insights with us!

Gen 3’s THE song

The Gen 3 range we’re covering today is from 2012–2017.

To find Gen 3’s THE song, we reached out to K-Pop Highway Radio. A little bit about them: 

We’re K-Pop Highway Radio, serving Canada, Mexico & The U.S. We believe that k-pop has the power to unite fans from all over the world and help us find something in common. We spread the love of k-pop by giving away a ton of k-pop albums, merch, concert tickets and more in our k-pop giveaways to station fan club members. We love k-pop and we want to share it with the world. 

We asked the K-Pop Highway Radio Team for their Gen 3 song pick, and since they’re a radio station they said – and we quote – “That’s like asking a parent to choose which child is their favorite.” So instead of sending us one song, they sent a whole playlist of roughly 50 songs of Gen 3 classics their station listeners know and love.

But you know we couldn’t leave things there… 

We tried to remove ourselves from the process of picking Gen 3’s THE song, but the boomerang found its way back, so here we are.

For us, picking a Gen 3 song isn’t as hard of a decision because Gen 3’s THE group is without a doubt, BTS. We know a lot of hardcore fans of other groups will disagree with that statement, but the reality is that BTS has simply reached heights that no other group has. With that said, we did have 2 main songs from their releases between 2012 and 2017 that battled it out for the top spot: 

• Blood Sweat & Tears came out in 2016 as part of the Wings album and put BTS on the map in a brand new way. Although this episode is about the music, the truth is that the music video and concept behind BS&T gave them a new image and street cred as to what they could accomplish with a bigger budget. The visuals coupled with the music made this song critical for the success of BTS, and this was the year they won their first daesang and started showing signals of what was yet to come. 
• Spring Day was released in 2017 as part of the You Never Walk Alone album and it is a beloved song globally, but it really has a special place in the hearts of South Koreans – to the point where it recently reached 900 million streams on Korea’s premier music app, Melon, making it the most streamed song in the platform’s history. Spring Day’s music video references the Sewol Ferry tragedy and showed them taking a stance against the South Korean administration under which the disaster happened. Army calls Spring Day “The Queen” as it keeps breaking records and blocking new BTS songs from going higher in the charts. 

With all of that said, we chose a winner, and we’re deciding that Gen 3’s THE song is Blood Sweat & Tears by BTS.

We’re more than glad to hear other takes on this, so please do tell us in the comments what’s your pick for Gen 3’s THE song, and why!

Gen 4’s THE song

Last but not least, we’re finally at Gen 4 which is the generation where we entered the K-Pop chat. We didn’t ask anyone for their take on this one since we’re pretty well-acquainted with a lot of the groups and songs here, and we just let the metrics do the work.

When we started our research on the 4th gen groups, we decided to look at Spotify streaming numbers. Even though Itzy has the most streamed song of the 4th gen right now, that will no longer be the case in about two to three weeks if the current growth trend of our top pick continues. The group we chose had 3 out of the 5 top streamed on Spotify – and they’re not even a year old. One of their songs has actually been able to reach the #3 spot in just 3 months. With that, we present to you Gen 4’s THE song. 

NewJeans debuted on July 22nd, 2022 with 5 members – Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin, and Hyein. They are under ADOR, which is a Hybe Label. 

In just their first year (which we’re still within and who knows what other accomplishments they’ll get during the next three and a half months), NewJeans has broken records upon records and also received many awards as rookies during their first awards season in 2022.

NewJeans is so revolutionary in its existence right now, that we even pondered if in a few years once we’re looking back at this time period, the music industry experts will say that NewJeans actually kickstarted Gen 5.

Watch us talk through all of this in detail here:

Thanks again to Ask Me About K-Pop, CCTV Pops, and K-Pop Highway Radio for their contributions! Please check them out!

What are YOUR top picks for each generation’s THE song? Comment below, we’re excited to hear (read) different takes!