Can K-Pop Build a "Global Girl Group" on Dream Academy?

This piece originally appeared on September 21, 2023 in Sound Signal, our biweekly newsletter that identifies emerging artists, scenes, and trending tracks, crafted by the world's best writers and curators. Sign up here to never miss our take on what's next in music.

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What if you produced a girl group by casting internationally but trained, developed, and marketed the young artists through the K-pop system? That’s the question that HYBE (the South Korean media conglomerate home to BTS and NewJeans) and Universal Music Group label Geffen are exploring with their joint venture Dream Academy.

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On September 1, two years after first announcing auditions for the project, the two labels unveiled 20 finalists from around the globe aged 14 to 21. Through the web series The Debut: Dream Academy, they will be evaluated by a global audience, who live vote for the members that make the final group, as well as an expert panel: a VP of A&R/Marketing at Interscope, an executive creative director from HYBExGeffen, and HxG’s president. Fans have already bought in. The trainees’ first mission videos, which show them covering both American and Korean pop songs, have amassed a combined 3M YouTube views in the first five days.

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Though K-pop agencies like JYP are already attempting to create US crossover acts through the K-pop approach—which usually means rigorous training, high beauty standards, and highly conceptual, glossy visuals—what sets HYBE’s Dream Academy apart is its emphasis on making a “global girl group.” While the US-based Geffen provides infrastructure for the group to be marketed in America, its contestants hail from all over the world—mainly from South Korea and the US, Slovakia, the Philippines, and Belarus. Its brand revolves around the fantasy of multinational harmony, established in its brand trailer (1.7M views) that debuted August 28, which sees the contestants speaking to each other in their native languages and dancing to funk carioca in one scene, while doing Bollywood moves in another.

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The concept is a natural outgrowth of the increasing globalization of K-pop, where labels pick members from different countries to bolster the group’s popularity in multiple international markets—a strategy that first found success in the mid-2000s with groups like Super Junior. With the proliferation of K-pop, South Korean companies have the resources from Western labels to cast a wider net and produce a group directly for an English-speaking audience. With followers clamoring to root for the contestants representing their home country and praising Dream Academy for its “diversity,” its success could mark a turning point for South Korea’s presence in the international pop market.

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