Joon: I flew to Korea in 1997 to form the group. I was like, came with the thought of, yo man, I'm going to make it. I'm going to do it and then the IMF hit.

(dramatic music) Joon: IMF is the International Money Fund. Korea was really, really in debt. Joon: It was pretty bad.

A lot of people went bankrupt. Aside from the economy being bad it was a time where, you know, CDs weren't selling. I would call it the dark ages.

There was really no way to monetize our music. Joon: Not a lot of people were investing in K-Pop groups or dramas or whatnot. They were really afraid because, yeah, of course, you don't know if you're going to get a payback.

It was like, oh man, is this going to be the end? Did I really just come here and do I really have to go back without accomplishing anything? Bernie: The IMF crushed the Korean economy.

It crushed the confidence of Koreans. In many ways, I think it was a blessing in disguise. It really forced the music industry to refocus, rethink and relaunch out of the Korean market.

Where do we go from here? (soft hip hop music) Bernie: In the late 90s and early 2000s, K-Pop was at a crossroads in terms of figuring out how, when and where they could export world wide. (cars revving) (soft music) (cars revving) The biggest market that Korean music acts could aspire to was not the U.

S. , not the U. K.

It was Japan. Japan is the number two market in the world and it was also the closest market. But the idea of exporting, let alone finding success, was considered nearly impossible.

(soft rhythmic music) (plane engine whirring) (ticking) (BoA vocalizing) (backstage chatter) (soft dance music) ("ID; Peace B" by BoA) ("ID; Peace B" by BoA) (crowd cheers) (uptempo dance music) (uptempo dance music) (soft dance music) Bernie: She obviously was a great singer, obviously was a great dancer, but she learned the language. She could speak and sing comfortably in Japanese, and so for a lot of Korean acts who were looking to find success in Japan, it pretty much was understood and known that you have to be fluent in Japanese. (crowd cheers) (rhythmic dance music) Interviewer: What is Hallyu?

Joon: Hallyu is like basically Korean influence. (rhythmic dance music) Joon: You're not just selling the music, you're not just selling the-the-the image. You're actually selling the culture.

(rhythmic dance music) Hallyu is, uh, you know, basically awareness of K-Pop outside of Korea. (upbeat pop music) Announcer: Wonder Girls! Announcer 2: Wonder Girls!

(rhythmic synth-pop music) (rhythmic synth-pop music) ♪ Tell me, Tell me, da, da, da, Tell me ♪ ♪ ♪ Tell me, Tell me, da, da, da, Tell me ♪ They are like queen of retro. ♪ Tell me, Tell me, da, da, da, Tell me ♪ Tamar: Everyone loves nostalgia. Everyone loves the idea of modernizing the past but it was more, they're so good.

♪ (echoing) Tell me ♪ Joon: JYP was already a, you know, very well known singer. He liked westernized music. (ticking) (upbeat pop music) (upbeat pop music) ♪ I want nobody nobody but you ♪ ♪ I want nobody nobody but you ♪ (singing in foreign language) Tamar: Wonder Girls really tapped into that and JYP really tapped into that with the music and it's so smart to tap into what people already recognize when you're introducing something new.

(cheering and applause) (upbeat rhythmic music) (upbeat rhythmic music) (crowd cheers) JinJoo: I went on tour with Jonas Brothers, playing for Jordan Sparks. She was opening act. And at the same time Wonder Girls was opening.

(speaking in foreign language) JinJoo: I knew Wonder Girls because the were number one at the time in Korea for years and I was also fan of them. I was so happy that I have my people on this tour. (cheering) Joe Jonas: Please welcome our new friends all the way from Korea- (in unison) The Wonder Girls!

(crowd cheers) Wonder Girls: Los Angeles, we are the Wonder Girls! Hi! JinJoo: I remember it was dead quiet.

They are not use to silence. JinJoo: Korean people, we cannot live without music and when they love something, they love something, they have a connection with it. They were definitely sad because they missed their favourite artist.

So, 2009 is the year of girl groups in Korea, there are a lot of girl groups. Uh, how does it feel to, uh, not be part of that? Do you guys want to join in the fun?

Oh. . .

Tamar: People in Korea considered that it was a failure because they didn't, you know, gain traction long-term and at this point it kind of just felt like Wonder Girl's singular focus on the U. S. ended up hurting them in the long run.

Really, they were the girls on top and they decided to try something new and they were so brave to do that, I think, and JYP was pretty, uh, entrepreneurial in trying to do that. At this point, people weren't really ready for it but it-it did take off in the niche audience that kind of has grown K-Pop in the U. S.

to what it is today. ♪ Tell me, Tell me, da, da, da, Tell me ♪ ♪ Gee Gee Gee Gee Baby Baby Baby ♪ ♪ Gee Gee Gee Gee ♪ ♪ Ring ding dong ♪ ♪ Ring diggi ding diggi ♪ ♪ ♪ La la la la la la ♪ ♪ Hey, hey ♪ Tamar: It's this really catchy, easy to learn dance move and in the late 2000s that was a really important thing because that actually became a selling point so you were getting these viral dance trends. ♪ lalalalalalala ♪ ♪ lalalalalalala ♪ ♪ lalalalalalala ♪ Bernie: With K-Pop songs, it's a very visual experience because even though you might not understand the lyrics, what might get lost in translation is often interpreted and then some through the visual aspects.

Not just catchy lyrics but flashy dance moves and so when you see these fans all around the world copying, mimicking and posting these viral videos, it has an amazing amplification and exponential effect in terms of spreading the popularity of K-Pop. (dance music) (crowd cheers) In many ways, the competition between girl bands is not just a good thing, it's a great thing. Because of the training and the competition to succeed in Korea, they're already tested so that when they go overseas, they are world class acts on stages.

Tamar: There was a collision between the rise of K-Pop and the internet becoming more accessible to people around the globe and technology becoming more accessible to people around the globe so at this time that was really when K-Pop started gaining a global audience beyond Asia. (heavy dance beat) ♪ Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry♪ (singing in Korean) ♪ Shawty Shawty Shawty Shawty Shawty ♪ Tamar: Five people dancing in sync is impressive but once you up the game to double digits it just looks so much more impactful. (singing in Korean) (crowd singing "Sorry, Sorry") (crowd cheers) (crowd chanting) Tamar: It's kind of been heralded as this big moment of K-Pop fans letting companies know what they want.

This was the first time Parisian fans really kind of took to the streets and ended up making something happen and ended up getting two nights of concerts in Paris. (cheering and applause) (crowd cheers) Bernie: Over time, a lot of K-Pop music companies and K-Pop music acts realized, you know what? What if we make K-Pop international pop music and so for a kid, whether they be in Vienna or Vietnam, to them- K-Pop was just pop music from Korea.

(crowd cheers) (speaking in foreign langugae) (crowd cheers) (soft music) (speaking in foreign language) (crowd cheers) (soft music) (soft music) (booming) (crowd cheers) Joon: When I was in the States, one day I'm driving on the freeway. ("Gangnam Style" by PSY) I hear ♪ Oppan Gangnam Style ♪ I'm like, what the heck? !

♪ Oppan Gangnam Style ♪ ♪ ♪ Gangnam Style ♪ ♪ Op, op, op, op ♪ ♪ Oppa Gangnam Style ♪ Jae: You know, at the time, EDM was really popping off in America, right? And then sonically it was like up to par with anything that was on the radio. ♪ Sexy lady ♪ Tamar: PSY suddenly became the meme of the moment.

And I remember getting really sick of it. Bernie: PSY was not a young idol. He was an older, more well rounded artist.

("Gangnam Style" by PSY) Tamar: He was already a pretty popular artist in Korea but he wasn't somebody who anyone would have bet on would become, you know, a global star. He was someone who was creating music for Koreans and Gangnam Style was a song that was, you know, satirizing Gangnam. Like, it was making fun of the Gangnam lifestyle.

It was a social criticism. It's kind of comedic that the song ended up getting popularized and everyone totally missed the point of what it was. ("Gangnam Style" by PSY) ♪ Hey, sexy lady ♪ Tamar: The whole world kind of turned PSY into a joke not realizing that PSY was probably laughing at them all at the same time.

Everybody has Gangnam Style in their deeper mind, you know? I believe so. ("Gangnam Style" by PSY) ♪ Joon: How do you go put your stuff on YouTube then all of a sudden it just like blows up that way, over a billion views.

Come on! Tamar: He got to one billion and then YouTube was like, oops, our system is going to break. Well, let's redo the counter system.

YouTube broke. It's now a counter of popularity and it's all thanks to kind of PSY showing that you can turn views into success. ♪ Oppa Gangnam Style ♪ (cheering) Bernie: I think it's safe to say that K-Pop has transitioned from being dismissed as a fad to being recognized as a phenomenon.

The numbers are staggering. 500 million dollars a year just in pure exports. (cheering) (soft music) (cheering) (soft music) Bernie: These fans are hardcore, super passionate.

K-Pop Goes Global