The Big Three

Hey everyone. For this post, I wanted to talk to you guys briefly about "The Big Three". The Big Three are the 3 top, most popular agencies in K-Pop because of their strong market shares. I'll go into more about what exactly these agencies do and how these artist debut. So, your Big Three are the following...

-SM Entertainment
-YG Entertainment
-JYP Entertainment

I'll give you guys a few of their artists too if you want to check them out. (Some I have mentioned on this blog already.)

SM Entertainment...
-TVXQ
-BoA
-Super Junior
-SNSD/Girl's Generation
-SHINee
-and others.

YG Entertainment...
-Big Bang (this is G-Dragon's group)
-2NE1
-PSY
-Epik High (Tablo's group, who was interviewed by BBC)
-and others.

JYP Entertainment...
-Rain (Lead actor in the movie, Ninja Assassin, too!)
-2PM
-Wonder Girls
-Miss A
-and others.

So, what exactly do these agencies do? They double as both record labels and agencies. The agencies recruit, train, handle finances, promote, record albums, EVERYTHING. It's quite a nifty little package. A lot of the stars first start off by auditioning at a very young age and train for many years under the agency (sometimes 5+ years) before they are allowed to debut with a group or as solo artists. This training includes dance lessons, singing lessons, English lessons, and more. Once they get closer to debuting, the agency places them in a group or if they are good enough, as solo artists. They then begin to record their first single/album/whatever and then promotions begins. Then promotions are done by appearing on music shows and other competitions, which we would view as places like TRL, except the artists perform live. Before a single drops, the agency releases many teasers of the audio and of the music video to spark interest in fans.

All of this is done by and under the agency. All of it.

I am always so amazed at how much work gets put into these artists by the agencies. Some may call it harsh to train such young kids for many years. But some may say that the final product benefits from this training. Are the agencies being too harsh? I'll let you be the judge.

This is just a brief description of the Big Three and what these agencies do. If you have anymore questions, let me know! Just comment below.