The music industry has always evolved in cycles, with the next artists always looking to fill in roles from their predecessors; who’s going to be the next Elvis, the next Beatles, the next Madonna, the next Whitney Houston? The pattern continues to this date with contemporary successes. LANY finds many of its newer fans from comments wanting the band to collaborate with The 1975, drawing similarities between both not for their music style even, but for their similar aesthetics and fanbase. Chase Atlantic’s vocalist Mitchel Cave generated great buzz with the band’s first singles for sounding like Matty Healy, The 1975’s frontman. New bands and artists are always compared to their outstanding forerunners, often for similarities in their music, their aesthetics, or even just their recording company.

These comparisons, while not uncommon in the industry as a whole, are unfortunately heightened in K-Pop. While a pattern was expected for Fuelled by Ramen signees back in the emo days, bands were always expected to have an x-factor of their own. “Company culture” in K-Pop is naturally exaggerated, creating boxes a new group should check off based on what company they belong to and who their sunbaes are. Whenever a company announces a new project, fans of their active acts run to support the new rookies and trainees as a result of love and admiration for their current idols. This assumption that every group from a certain company will have a certain set of characteristics limits groups from trying news sounds, with their new styles solely based on what their company is known for.

Fans aren’t the only ones to blame. Korean entertainment companies ingrained this pattern in their idol factories and, naturally, fans picked up on it. TXT just had their debut, one of the most anticipated debuts of the year so far. Being BigHit Entertainment’s first project after BTS’s global superstardom, all eyes were on Big Hit and TXT. There was no room for error and, even if done subconsciously, everyone was expecting a mini-BTS. People were quick to call out ARMYs who rushed to support TXT, claiming their interest was largely, if not only, due to the group being BTS’s dongsaengs. Luckily, even with just the first teaser videos revealing each member, Big Hit made it incredibly clear that TXT was not going to be a reinvention of BTS. From its early stages, the group showed a softer side to the company, targeting a younger audience for their likeness in style and innocence, instead of bombarding fans of a similar age with political critique from the get-go like BTS. TXT has created their own style, surprising many due to their unlikeness to BTS. Big Hit might be onto something with their marketing formula for success as opposed to maintained compositional and stylistic patterns to their groups.

JYP Entertainment’s 2018 monster rookies Stray Kids have also been a pleasant surprise to both their company and K-Pop. While the group is filled with talented rappers, vocalists, and dancers, keeping it true to K-Pop culture and JYP’s reputation, Stray Kids’ songs are infused with a pop-punk influence never before seen in K-Pop. It’s still pop, it’s still K-Pop, and it still carries powerful rap verses set against impactful dance moves, but Stray Kids’ sound is accompanied by jaw-dropping shredding guitar solos in the background. Coming from a bigger company with several sunbaes to be compared to, Stray Kids had different expectations than TXT. No one was directly expecting a new 2PM or the latest GOT7, but they did have all of those names to represent and live up to. Stray Kids is known for being involved in composing and producing their songs since their pre-debut mixtapes, and it’s working. JYP and survival program fanatics were drawn to the group with high expectations and were met with innovation and a lot of personality, both on and off stage.

Groups like LOONA have an upper hand in this climate. Created by Polaris Entertainment’s Blockberry Creative, LOONA had no sunbae to live up to. Fans were quickly receptive to new ideas, including inventive ways of introducing members and the group’s identity. In the case of LOONA, the group is compared to others alike, not necessarily from their own company. This is when a new group is automatically seen as similar to a sunbae due to minimal or defining characteristics, such as the fact that LOONA is a large girl group, being compared to Girls’ Generation, or their darker concepts, being compared to Dreamcatcher. In cases in which the group has no direct sunbae from the same company, these comparisons are often negative, seen as a new company attempting to copy another’s successful formula. LOONA was gratefully met with extensive support, especially from the LGBTQ+ community, with “stan LOONA” becoming a popular meme across social media platforms.

We all naturally have styles we gravitate towards and that is perfectly fine and understandable. Within K-Pop, being a fan of a company at large is more common than in any other industry due to their factory-like creation of idols. Yet, it’s important we don’t forget these “ready-made-idols” are artists with their own artistic endeavors and dreams, who have their own idealizations of their music and aesthetics. As fans, we should become more receptive to new ideas and innovations, case after case proving that new groups with fresh ideas do please the larger public. Keep on stanning, keep on loving your idols and their successors, but keep an open mind and try new things, even in K-Pop.