Client: The Face
Then there’s K‑pop juggernauts BTS, who debuted with 2 Cool 4 Skool, the first instalment of their School trilogy, featuring spoken-word skits and tracks that took shots at South Korea’s competitive education system. BTS’s urbanism and EXO’s high fantasy put them at opposite ends of the spectrum, but both bands’ creative and commercial successes in the mid-2010s spawned a narrative boom in K‑Pop between 2015 and 2018. What once looked to be a trend became an evolving art form, seeking to go beyond pop’s default love and heartbreak setting. Or, at the very least, give it a fresh spin.
Over the years, other groups’ trilogies have explored subjects like high school, boyhood, Greek mythology, death and time constructs, horror, grief, and rebellion. Even the time-consuming project of creating origin stories for bands has remained, with groups like LOONA and their LOONAVERSE, Kingdom’s historical fantasy storyline, and one of the biggest girl groups in recent years, aespa, whose 2020 debut was shared with their AI avatars from another dimension.
Taylor Glasby 