Tag: Korea

K-Pop Girl Group NMIXX Brings the Buzz as Spotify’s New RADAR Korea Artist

March 3, 2022

Two years ago, Spotify announced the launch of RADAR, a new emerging-artist program aimed at spotlighting rising talent from around the globe. From Sweden and the United States to France and India, the artists on Spotify’s RADAR have gone from being nascent figures in the industry to stealing the hearts of fans around the world. Now, following NMIXX’s successful first year in South Korea, home to K-Pop, Spotify has selected the girl group as its first RADAR Korea artist of 2022. 

NMIXX (pronounced “n mix”) came onto the scene last year as part of JYP Entertainment’s latest global K-Pop project. The group comprises seven members—LILY, HAEWON, SULLYOON, JINNI, BAE, JIWOO, and KYUJIN—and together, they embody the meaning of NMIXX. 

“Our name, NMIXX, combines the letter ‘N’—for now, new, next, or an unknown variable—and ‘mix,’ which symbolizes harmony and diversity. It’s about being the ideal mix for the new world,” NMIXX told For the Record. “We think the best substitutes of the letter ‘N’ for us are the words ‘now’ and ‘need.’ We chose the word now because we, NMIXX, are just getting started! And we chose the word need in the hope that more people will want and need us in the future.”

The group’s debut EP, AD MARE (which means “to the sea” in Latin), was released in early February. Along with the EP’s four tracks, NMIXX shared audio liners in which they greet Spotify listeners and express their excitement—in multiple languages, no less—about their new music. 

To celebrate NMIXX’s selection as Spotify’s first RADAR Korea artist of the year, For the Record asked the group to share their thoughts and experiences as they take on K-Pop’s global music scene. 

What was your reaction when you heard that you were selected for RADAR?

Spotify RADAR is a project that reaches many people from all over the world, and when we heard that we had the honor of being selected, we were moved and delighted! We are excited for the opportunity to connect with such a diverse audience.

What do you hope to take out of the RADAR experience?

It’s a real pleasure and honor to be able to get closer to more fans with our music through RADAR. We are looking forward to being featured on Spotify Singles with music that is unique to us, and we dream about one day being featured on the billboards in New York’s Times Square. We would also love to collaborate with other artists from around the world who work in different genres, like the project between AleXa and Bader AlShuaibi.

As a new K-Pop group, what do you want prospective fans to know about you?

We want people to know that we are an all-around group whose music features everything from rap to vocals to dance. Our goal is to make MIXX POP a worldwide phenomenon. It’s our own genre that brings multiple genres into one, and we want everyone to know its magic so they can really get into our music.

What messages do you want people to take from your music?

Our title track, “O.O,” symbolizes our eyes being wide open after peeking into the unknown. And our worldview became bigger with our discovery, so we would like you to join us in this incredible journey by listening to this song. “TANK” is about the tank-like confidence that burst from us when we were finally unveiled. We hope that those who listen to our music will take away the same powerful energy that’s been propelling us as we introduce the new genre of MIXX POP.

Why was it important for you to incorporate multiple languages into your audio liners?

We wanted to reach our fans around the world, and we thought the language was an important way to show more people who NMIXX is. That’s why we’ve been putting a lot of effort into learning different languages and sharing audio messages on Spotify both in English and Spanish, and we’re so thrilled by all the compliments we received!

Which artists have most influenced your music?

LILY: Taylor Swift has always been a role model for me, and I love and respect her dearly. I look up to her songwriting skills so much. She is also a strong and smart business woman who has done so well in this industry, and I hope I can navigate it with as much grace and wit as her.

HAEWON: For me, it’s The Weeknd and Imagine Dragons. The Weeknd is the artist that opened my eyes to R&B, and Imagine Dragons got me into pop. I first heard the song “Demons” when I was in elementary school, and although I didn’t understand the lyrics in English, the song touched me deeply.

SULLYOON: I listen and sing to Anne-Marie’s music a lot. It was her albums that made me love music even more.

JINNI: Beyoncé for me. I was blown away by how professional she was on stage. Just one line of her song, and she had the whole crowd wrapped around her finger. She has an incredible stage presence and energy, and I always try to learn from her.

BAE: Ariana Grande’s music has always comforted me and made me feel better. I have been listening to her songs since I was young, and the songs still remind me of the seasons, situations, scents, or emotions I experienced when I first listened to them. She’s the role model who started my dream of becoming a singer. I still listen to her music and see my own image in her songs.

JIWOO: I’d say Billie Eilish. She always has this confidence when she sings, and she delivers all the emotion and depth in each song to her fans, which really touched me. I learned a lot by watching her perform.

KYUJIN: I get a lot of my musical influence from TAEYEON! I absolutely love her unique stage presence, her voice, and her emotional depth. Her music has allowed me to feel and experience so much. It’s because of her that I first dreamed of becoming an artist.

As you look to the future, what are your goals as a group?

We want NMIXX to be a group that brings smiles and happy energy to our fans every time we go on stage. We want to become the kind of artists who are loved by many for a long time to come. And we always want to keep growing and improving. We want to follow the footsteps of the Korean groups that have come before us and become the kinds of artists who continue spreading K-Pop love worldwide.

5 Questions (and Answers) with David Sang Wook Park, Spotify Korea Managing Director

March 23, 2021

In 2014, Spotify debuted our first K-Pop playlist, K-Pop Daebak, on the platform. From that day on, we’ve served as a global stage and partner for Korean artists and helped them introduce their music to the world. We doubled down on that commitment in 2015 with the launch of our K-Pop hub, enabling us to further introduce Korean music—including K-Pop, hip-hop, indie, OST, and R&B—to fans globally. 

Then, this February, Spotify launched in South Korea, creating an opportunity to amplify Korean musicians and spread their music to listeners like never before. And that opportunity expanded even more when, just 50 days later, Spotify became available across 80+ more markets for a total of 178.

For the Record caught up with David Park, Spotify Korea Managing Director, to talk more about why now was the right time to launch in South Korea, his own background supporting content creators, and Spotify’s mission to connect artists to fans in Korea and across the world. 

It’s been 50 days since Spotify launched in South Korea. What are some initial reactions you can share?

We’re taking into account feedback both from listeners and artists, constantly working to improve and innovate our service. From the artist community, we have generally received a warm welcome and positive feedback that our launch has activated the local music streaming market. We’re hoping that more listeners will be able to connect with a more diverse range of artists and music genres, both in Korea and around the world. Our team on the ground is deeply committed to this. 

From listeners, we continue to get extremely positive feedback on our unmatched personalization and discovery technologies. They’re seeing a very high level of music-related editorial input, powered by data and the depth of our algorithmic machine learning. We already see how listeners are discovering new artists and music, expanding their listening range and experience.  We believe in Spotify as more than a listening platform, but as a tool that brings the world of audio to you.

Tell us about your professional background prior to Spotify. How did that prepare you for your current role?

I’ve worked in the intersection of content media and IT/tech throughout my career, most recently founding a startup and setting up a business in Korea for a global company. One of the highlights during my career was definitely fostering and nurturing the video creator community and ecosystem in the APAC region. Helping Korean creators boost their presence not just in Korea but around the world—through the support of tools and data—was one of the key experiences that helped set me up for this role. There was one fact prevalent throughout the different roles I had taken: that content is king.

Spotify has been avid in serving as K-Pop’s bridge to the world years before launch. Can you talk about the timing of this launch? Why was now the right time?

While Spotify’s been very active in serving Korea’s music streaming market, it is a highly mature, unique, and complex one. With that, we had to invest an immense amount of time, resources, and research years before the launch. In every country we enter, we have to take market specificities into consideration and align with the local industry. 

All in all, building up a strong foundation to our long-term vision in Korea took some time, and we’re taking a step-by-step, hyper-sophisticated approach by considering market specificities and all relevant stakeholders. Our focus is on democratizing audio and music in the long run, and helping to accelerate the growth of Korea’s entire music streaming ecosystem, benefitting creators, labels, distributors, and fans. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. 

How will Spotify support Korean artists, both through launch and going forward?

We’re now hoping to take Korean music and artists’ global popularity to another level. Just recently we saw a variety of different artists, such as ROSÉ, DPR IAN, SHINee, Epik High, CHUNG HA, and more landing in the top 10 of the global Spotify debut charts. Korea’s music industry has been the epicenter of new cultural trends and music for many years, and it’s important for us to embed even further into this unique market, forging closer relationships with even more artists and labels and connecting them with fans across the globe. An example is our Spotify for Artists master classes, which we’ve proactively held for labels and artists so that they can better leverage our data and tools alongside our music team’s guidance and support. We want to empower them to connect with even larger audiences—both local and global.

What’s Spotify’s ultimate vision and goal in Korea?

Our ultimate goal is to provide the best audio experience to our listeners in Korea, and to continue to connect artists and fans on a scale that has never before existed. For listeners, we are committed to creating an environment in which they can enjoy a personalized experience tailored for their lifestyle, as well as diverse new content from all over the world. 

We see ourselves as a catalyst for additional growth in the market, with discovery of new artists and music being a key strength. We’re proud of that and are actively refining our algorithms to enable even more fan discoveries of new artists each month. We’re also confident that there is ample room for Korea’s music market to grow further as listeners’ audio and music consumption habits transform gradually. The shift has already begun. It’s only a matter of time and we’re working hard to speed things up. As our CEO, Daniel Ek, mentioned at Stream On, “It’s just the beginning.”

Ready to discover music and playlists for yourself? Check out David’s top working playlists—Lo-Fi Beats, Lo-Fi Cafe, and Lo-Fi House—or one of his new favorite playlists, In The K-Indie. “Recently, youra is a new gem I discovered through it. There’s just so much musical talent like youra in Korea that needs to be heard both in Korea and globally.”