Breaking Into the American Mainstream - Korean Pop\u27s Expansion and American Influences

American popular music has been constantly evolving, providing new sounds from various genres, and its latest addition has been the Korean export of K-pop. The United States has had an incredible impact in the musical world but the scope of this paper will cover that influence in Korean pop music. Specifically, this paper will answer these two questions: Why is Korean pop, or K-pop, becoming so popular globally, and what is the United States’ influence on K-pop? To find these answers, this paper will explore influential periods in American musical history, draw possible links between them and current K-pop trends, discuss the current music consumer climate, and distinguish what is different in K-pop from other world genres that is making it stand out in present times