Fans Discuss The 13 K-Pop Songs That Introduced Them To The Genre

Which song did it for you?

Fans recently started discussing on a forum about the K-Pop songs that introduced them to the genre. While some fans got into the music right away with their first listen of one song, others took a little longer to warm up to the industry. Of course, there are countless songs that got people hooked on K-Pop, but there were some with a general consensus that many people discovered K-Pop through, and here are 13 of the most commonly discussed.

1. “DNA” by BTS

“DNA by BTS, I was shuffling Apple Music’s a list pop playlist and DNA came on. Then after that I was obsessed with the mic drop remix with Desiigner. I actually didn’t become a Kpop fan until at least 6 months after that though!”

“I listened to it on Top 100 Spotify playlist. Now it’s almost 2,5 years ago that I started being a kpop fan”

2. “HUH” by 4MINUTE

“For me it was Huh almost a decade ago. Then it became a case of checking out different things that appeared in my YouTube ‘Recommended’ list and I was off to the races.”

“I’ll always remember first seeing the video to HuH featuring Beast. Such a great time!”

3. “DDU-DU DDU-DU” by BLACKPINK

“i got into kpop in just june 2018 so, ddududdudu by blackpink. it seems like such a new song still oml”

“It came up in my recommended and never looked back”

4. “Gangnam Style” by Psy

“Gangnam Style was my first, and I’m assuming that’s the case with most people”

“Maybe showing my age here but HyunA ‘Bubble Pop’ was my first real exposure to KPop, it wasn’t until she cameo’d in Gangnam Style a year later that I was really like ‘OK I need to know more about this woman!'”

“Gangnam Style -> Oppa Is Just My Style -> HyunA -> Kpop”

5. “Run Devil Run” by Girls’ Generation

“For me my first REAL exposure to kpop was way back around 2012 when I was a big Kesha Stan and realized that her unreleased song Run Devil Run was sung by another group so I checked out SNSD’s version. I ignored that version but oh how a fool I was now I’m obsessed with SNSD’s version”

“TTS – Twinkle, then SNSD – Gee and Run Devil Run, then Gangnam Style got big and got me to search out Twinkle again, which led me back to SNSD and I got sucked in and never left”

6. “Likey” by TWICE

“Likey -Twice. I heard it on a twitch stream one night and thought then song was super catchy. Did some research on the kpop scene and next thing I know I was down the kpop rabbit hole..”

7. “Gee” by Girls’ Generation

“My buddy from highschool showed me Gee – Girls Generation, then I became a SONE.”

“Gee by SNSD and then ten years later Fake Love by BTS had me fall down the rabbit hole in a big, irrevocable way”

“My first Kpop MV was Gee when it blew up in 2009, I saw it on an anime forum. But my first like “Oh, this is KPOP!” experience was either Abracadabra by BEG or Fire by 2NE1, I can’t remember which came first!”

8. “Voodoo Doll” by VIXX

“Mine is actually an odd one as an introduction as it’s not one of the super popular songs like BTS’s or SNSD, but VIXX’s Voodoo Doll was actually my first. This is because we were doing a lesson on censorship in a music class way back in 2015 and Voodoo Doll was one of the examples for international songs (for violence I the mv & clearly alluding to abusive relationships, even though it wasn’t glorifying).”

9. “I Am the Best” by 2NE1

“I got hooked after listening to I Am The Best by 2NE1.”

“My younger sister had shown me 2ne1 – I am the best back in 2011. I ended up getting obsessed with the song as well as ugly, and hate you. I never really got into them as a group, but it was my introduction into korean music.”

10. “Nobody” by Wonder Girls

“Wonder Girls- Nobody introduced me to Kpop. But it wasn’t until f(x) and electric shock/jet that I was like WTF they do pop music 100x more than I expected.”

“I regularly listened to BoA’s Japanese music in 2006-2007, but MIROTIC by DBSK and Nobody by Wonder Girls introduced me to K-Pop around fall of 2008.”

11. “Ring Ding Dong” by SHINee

“My sister introduced me to kpop and she was a Shawol, so SHINee’s Ring Ding Dong was the first song I ever heard. Lucifer the first one that I loved. And then f(x) Electric Shock sealed the deal.”

“SHINee – Ring Ding Dong, followed by Ready or Not, and then Lucifer. The rest is history.”

12. “Because of You” by After School

“I was just talking about this yesterday on a previous thread but the timeless classic ‘Because of You” by After School got me into K-Pop. I need a group to cover this song and bring it back for current/newer K-Pop fans to discover. I saw the SEVENTEEN vocal team cover which was fantastic.”

“It’s a magazine special that introduce Kpop group so I went ahead to listen to each of the introduced group.. and After School becomes top of my list as they are the only one without cute song at that period with Because of You”

13. “Blood, Sweat, and Tears” by BTS

“Technically, Gangnam Style but I don’t count it since it didn’t get me into the genre, so I’m gonna go with Blood, Sweat & Tears. I remember watching the MV and not really being sure about whether I liked what they were going for but the song was really catchy, so I kept going back to it and then checked out their albums.”

“Blood, Sweat & Tears. It didn’t pop up on my feed. I purposely looked for BTS on YouTube because I wanted to know what it was and what the buzz was all about. BS&T had just dropped and as soon as I watched the video I found myself watching it on a loop. It wasn’t because I wanted to listen to the song on repeat, it was because I was obsessed with the video.”