Southeast Asian artists are knocking K-pop off its pedestal | Music Songs

Filipino call center worker Jaycer Bajo’s Spotify playlist has changed a lot over the past few years.

Bajo used to listen to the best music from the United States, but these days, he has a constant stream of Pinoy Pop, or P-pop, artists in the circuit: from the boys ALAMAT and BGYO, to the girl group BINI, which in April became the first Filipino girl group to participate in the Coachella music festival.

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“In the last five years, I think I’ve left 70 percent of Western music to be, right now, about 70 percent Philippine and then 30 percent elsewhere,” Bajo, who lives north of Metro Manila, told Al Jazeera.

“There were bands and bands in the Philippines making great music before 2020, but it only got bigger after that,” Bajo said.

ALAMAT, BGYO, and BINI, who all released their debut singles in 2021, draw heavily on influences from K-pop, J-pop, and Western pop, R&B and hip-hop, while incorporating Filipino themes and languages ​​into their music.

“They borrowed the structure of K-Pop, but the talent is homegrown,” Bajo said.

In Southeast Asia, homegrown acts are increasingly displacing their Korean, Japanese and American counterparts from the playlists of pop fans.

In Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand, the share of local artists in Spotify’s top 10 increased from 39 percent to 97 percent, 31 percent to 81 percent, and 71 percent to 76 percent, respectively, between 2021 and the first half of 2026, according to data compiled by Soundcharts, a French music platform.

Local artists also gained attention in the top 10 radio stations each week, rising from 29 percent to 55 percent in Indonesia, zero to 5 percent in the Philippines, and from 38 percent to 65 percent in Thailand during the same period, according to Soundcharts data.

Cod Satrusayang, a Thai film producer who works with local musicians on soundtracks, said he has seen a big shift towards homegrown music in recent years.

“For a very long time, T-Pop and Thai music were just based on Korean and American styles, and recently, in the last five years or so, we’re seeing Thai artists making their own,” Satrusayang told Al Jazeera.

Satrusayang’s favorite Thai acts, such as YOUNGOHM, MILLI, and Joey Phuwasit, diverge in many ways from the traditional K-Pop style, but they still appreciate South Korea’s popular cultural group by showing other Asian countries that there is a global audience for their music.

Since the release of Psy’s Gangnam Style in 2012, K-Pop has reached a level of success far beyond that achieved by previous Asian music.

While artists from Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan rose to fame in the 1980s and 1990s, few came close to comparing the appeal of Blackpink’s 2023 performance at Coachella or BTS’s and American rapper Lil Nas X and British rock group Coldplay.

In 2023 alone, the K-pop industry earned $893m overseas, including music sales, online advertising revenue, and K-Pop performances, according to the South Korean government’s Korea Culture and Tourism Institute.

K-pop has proven once and for all that Asian music can be commercially viable, Satrusayang said.

“Manufacturers, studios and independent artists see that it is possible to make good money going to other countries, and they are encouraging startups in the Thai creative scene,” said Satrusayang.

Although the music industry in Southeast Asia is still small compared to its counterparts in South Korea, Japan and China, it is growing rapidly.

In the Philippines, digital music revenue – a figure that includes podcast advertising, music downloads, music downloads, and music advertising – will double from $93m to $180m between 2021 and 2025, according to information shared with Al Jazeera by Julia Stoll, an expert at the international platform Statista.

In Thailand, digital music revenue rose from $132m to $204m during the same period, according to the data, while revenue in Indonesia increased from $164m to $264m.

Creating new market trends

Much of this success would not have been possible without social networks such as TikTok and Instagram, which have enabled artists to reach their fans directly in short videos.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from the Philippines, members of the BGYO boy group said that social media is as important to their work as their studies with South Korean and Filipino teachers.

“We talk to all our fans every day, from when we wake up until we go to bed. We’re on our phones a lot, so we’re posting TikToks, dancing, funny stuff. We’re tweeting, and we’re connecting with them through comments,” said 23-year-old BGYO member Nate Porcalla.

Like their K-pop counterparts, the group connects with local fans through performances and regular events, but on songs like Forever Tonight, their latest single, they sing in a mix of English and Tagalog.

Southeast Asia’s pop revival coincides with a rise in consumer spending across the region, echoing what was seen in the US and East Asia during their post-WWII economic boom, said Mary Ainslie, who researches culture and media in Southeast Asia at the University of Nottingham’s Ningbo Campus in China.

Thailand was ranked as a middle income country by the World Bank in 2011, with Gross National Income per capita hitting $4,210.

Indonesia has been designated as a middle-income country from 2023, after dropping out in 2020 due to economic disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Philippines is considered a middle-income country, but President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has said he wants it to enter the middle-income group when he leaves in 2028.

“All of these ‘waves’ change and create new products for regional and global consumers and seem to coincide with each country’s economic growth,” Ainslie told Al Jazeera.

“K-pop has shown that Asian pop culture is universal and beautiful; this has provided inspiration and a model for local industrial art,” he said.

Foreign affairs

Two of the wealthiest countries in Southeast Asia, Singapore and Malaysia, are notable in this regard.

Western and K-Pop are still the music genres of choice on radio in Singapore and Malaysia, as well as on Singapore’s Spotify playlists, according to Soundcharts data.

While the local scene has thrived in Malaysia, regional artists dominate the country’s playlists.

While the share of Malaysian artists Spotify 10 per week grew from 1 percent in 2021 to about 8.3 percent in the first half of 2026., regional groups rose from 5 percent to 45.7 percent during the same period, according to Soundcharts data.

Much of the regional pop music scene has been driven by Indonesian artists, according to Tsurezure Lab, an independent researcher and data analyst whose work was cited by the Japanese government.

Analyzing Spotify’s top 50 songs from 2023 onwards, Tsurezure Lab found that Indonesian artists rose from 18 percent in Malaysia in 2023 to about 22 percent in early 2026.

The researcher, who asked not to be identified because he works in the private sector, said that this was an example of “cross-border cultural integration”, because Malaysia and Indonesia have similar cultures and languages.

Millions of Indonesians also live and work in Malaysia – among other countries in Asia – bringing their music.

For Elhana Sugaiman, an Indonesian who works at an NGO in Taiwan, the rise of pop music in Indonesia has helped her stay connected to home while living overseas.

Sugaiman said he has been listening to a lot of No Na, a girl group whose members are all from Indonesia, even though they are signed to US label 88Rising, which promotes Asian and Asian-American artists.

No Na’s music gives listeners like Sugaiman an abundance of Indonesian culture and nostalgia, including sounds that locals will instantly recognize, such as local basses and Indonesian games, in their songs, as well as visual Indonesian music in their music videos.

“They put Indonesian culture first in their music,” Sugaiman told Al Jazeera, adding that he likes to be reminded of his homeland and see audiences around the world learn about Indonesian culture through No Na’s music.

He said: “I feel that it makes me proud to be Indonesian.”

“I’m not sure if it’s because I’m living abroad… but part of it is because you get to see (Indonesia) on the window and stand up,” Sugaiman said.