Banzai Japan

Inevitably enough, Taylor Swift was the biggest-selling artist in the world last year – but new figures from the recording industry suggest that Western artists have lost their grip on the charts.

Four of 2023’s top 10 best-selling acts came from South Korea, with bands such as Stray Kids and Seventeen outselling stars like Drake and The Weeknd.

The international sales figures were compiled by the IFPI, which represents the global music industry. Bad Bunny and Lana Del Rey also made the top 10.

Although none of the South Korean bands in the list have broken the UK Top 40, they are responsible for millions of streams around the world, as K-Pop continues its phenomenal growth.

In the 12 years since Psy’s Gangnam Style, the genre has continually expanded its reach – even making a notable impact on America’s typically impenetrable music industry.

The charge was led by boyband phenomenon BTS, whose high-concept anthems (with references to Carl Jung and Herman Hesse) found them topping the charts worldwide, even before their swerve into English-language pop on hits like Butter and Dynamite.

In 2019, they became the first K-Pop band to headline Wembley Stadium. Within two years, they were performing at the Grammys and collaborating with Coldplay.

Their female counterparts, Blackpink, have achieved similar levels of success – last year headlining both the Coachella festival in California, and London’s BST Hyde Park.

Their success can be chalked up bleeding-edge pop hits like Whistle, Ddu-du Ddu-du and Shut Down, the latter of which samples Paganini’s second violin concerto.

But neither band featured in the IFPI’s best-seller list: BTS are on hiatus while its members complete compulsory military service; while Blackpink spent the latter half of 2023 renegotiating their contracts with YG Entertainment – the media conglomerate that put the band together in 2016.