Big Bang's 'Fantastic Baby' Secret to Ranking First on YouTube

Worldwide popularity of K-Pop is discussed everywhere. Many times we are able to see different overseas fans of different ethnic background showing their passion and craze over K-Pop singers on stage. Yet still some Korean fans are still doubt wondering if "it's all excessive promotion of the singer's agency." However there has been plethora of data that proves, even doubtful fans cannot deny, K-Pop's global popularity.

Recently YouTube announced the list of top 10 K-Pop music videos in terms of international views in the first half of this year. Big Bang's "Fantastic Baby" emerged on the top of the list. The number of views on YouTube confirms the growing popularity and quality of K-Pop.

Big Bang dominated the K-Pop scene for the first half of 2012 this is proven as the group's album of Alive and Still Alive placed 4 songs in the top 10. Also Girls' Generation's first unit TaeTiSeo "Twinkle" ranked third and f(x)'s "Electric Shock" ranked fifth.

Big Bang's "Fantastic Baby" recorded 33.2 million worldwide views. Last year 2NE1's "Lonely" grabbed the top spot for the same period. "Lonely" recorded 23 million views, which means in the same period, in just one year the views increased over a whopping 44 percent.

The increase was not only visible in quantity but also in quality as well. The fans that viewed Big Bang's music video through the official YouTube channel was not concentrated on one country but was evenly distributed. YouTube Korea explained, "We cannot say their popularity is global if 30-40% of the views were concentrated from one country. However Big Bang, Super Junior as well as other K-Pop stars fans seems to be evenly distributed all around various countries. Also there is rather more overseas click than from South Korea itself."

In reality according to YG Entertainment analysis of YouTube data, Big Bang's music video is most viewed in Japan and United States instead of Korea. It seems U.S. and Japan known as the world's largest music market is consuming more music that is "Made in Korea." We are able to see that music is consumed not only in Asia but in countries of North and South America, Europe and Middle East.

YouTube was surprised by the rapid growth of K-Pop. Google Korea's managing director Seo Hwang Guk stated, "K-Pop has established itself as a genre that music fans all around the world can enjoy. Last year 2NE1 ranked first with 23 million and in 2012 the record is 33 million. Even a simply comparison displays a scary growth rate. Along with the qualitative growth in contents the actual K-Pop users is on the rise as well. Google is introducing a variety of K-Pop and other genres allowing more domestic and foreign fans to exchange content and spread the influence of K-Pop."

In reality YouTube opened the K-Pop genre last year keeping up to the demand of the rapidly growing K-Pop users. K-Pop has been added in the popular music genres such as Pop, R&B, Rap and much more. This is the first time YouTube opened a music channel solely dedicated to a single country's music. YouTube Korea stated, "We expect the total number of K-Pop click in the first half of the year to already surpass the number recorded for the first half of last year."

Big Bang's agency YG Entertainment revealed, "Now days with increasing number of foreign fans, we focus on making global content aimed for overseas fans from the planning stage. The music promotions are also done using YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and more for our international fans. With the increase of international fans we continuously strive to put Korean elements in our music. This is also why we introduced a new genre of combining trot and electronic in 2NE1's latest single "I Love You."

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Big Bang
Fantastic Baby
YouTube
G-Dragon
Taeyang
Seungri
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