The global hits would only come from an English pop album. All of this changed when South Korea’s K-pop star group Psy rocked the international music world with their hit record Gangnam style in the year 2012. Until this time, a global music icon was always an English-speaking rock or pop album artist which would sell millions of copies worldwide. A large chunk of their revenue is generated by developing Asian economies.

This paradigm shift was facilitated by a chain of development of Asian music. Musician Zhe Chen was the first Asian artist to set up his website in 1997 in China. By the wake of the 21st century, there were hundreds of music websites to promote the Asian music sensation Lou Geng Sed and his song ‘butterfly flower’.

Another rising star of the Chinese music industry, Xuecun, created an internet sensation through his song ‘All the people in northeast China are living Lei Feng’ in the year 2001. These moments opened the floodgates of many singers and musicians to become global icons. South Korea became the first country in 2003 where the profit generated by the digital form of music exceeded the revenue generated by the sale of physical CDs.

Gradually, Asian music, cultures, and techniques are being sold globally. Asia’s music industry has been growing with international recognition of K-pop for Korea, C-pop for Chinese, J-pop for Japan, and I-pop for India.
Local talents are also brushing up their skills under the influence of a western market. They are experimenting in genres like hip hop, indie rock, country, etc. Now, the fusion of traditional Asian music has made it relevant for most of the audience and it has caught the attention of global music labels.

IFPI Global Music Market report published in 2020 has revealed that the revenue generated by the recorded music in Asia saw a hike of 3.4%. however, it is way too slower than the global rate of 8.2%, development is still developing. It is a silver lining in the cloud where music is sold in physical forms such as on CDs and vinyl records.
Now, three Asian countries namely, Japan, China, and South Korea come under the world’s top 10 music markets by revenue.

Digital Growth

The number of music listeners in Asia has exceeded the 3.5 billion mark as of 2020. The data reflects statistics from research in China, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia. A significant number of the population residing in these countries are accessing music via new technology. Most of the music is streamed through applications installed on smartphones.

The growing standard of life and improvement in per capita income in the developing countries to have access to high-end services such as watching live-streamed online content that comes at a premium subscription. Asian music is growing day by day and paving way for a new era of global acceptance.