Sometimes it’s not just the “stars” that are important but the apparatus behind the stars. Where are the cutting edge producers, songwriters, studios, and musicians located? Stockholm is hot now. Back in the 1970s and '80s Munich, Germany was hot - Donna Summer’s disco hits were made there, as were a ton of other pop hits you might not realize have a German provenance (e.g. “Axel F” from Beverly Hills Cop and the famous stuff by Milli Vanilli). Northern Italy produced a lot of hit dance records circa the early 1990s from groups like Black Box. Countries like Germany, Italy, France and so on may not be exporting many singing stars per se, but they do produce a lot of the pop we hear.
I remember, back in the 1980s, reading an interview in Hit Parader with Scorpions’ lead singer, Klaus Meine. He was asked why he chose to sing in English and replied with something like, “When you combine a harsh language like German with harsh music like metal, it just comes out CRUNCH.”
I believe the most internationally-successful K-pop group is a girl-group called 2NE1 (pronounced, alternately, as “Twenty-One” or “To Anyone”). Here’s the English version of their second hit, “Can’t Nobody” from a couple years ago:
And here’s one from this summer, “I Love You”:
They got away from the heavy autotune effects after their first album, possibly in response to suggestions that maybe they couldn’t really sing.
I like them largely because they’ve broken away from the “traditional” girl-group formula, which basically (IMO) copied — and still copies — what Japanese girl-groups were doing 10+ years ago. For example, most of the Korean girl-groups I’ve looked at have too many girls, often 6 to 8 members, in an attempt to appeal to as many different “appearance” tastes as possible. That has the unfortunate effect of none of the members getting adequate face-time in videos, because they have to take turns singing one or two lines with the camera constantly cutting from one member to the next. You can’t keep track of who’s who. 2NE1 instead has only four members, and in each song, each girl gets to sing longer sections and receive more individual focus. That also lets their personalities come through more.
The other thing is the tendency among the girl-groups to have everybody dress alike. 2NE1 gets away from this by having each member with her own unique style and trademarks. Bom is almost always in a short dress that shows off her legs; Dara has the silly hats and hairstyles; CL looks like a high-maintenance model; Minzy manages to look cute and glamorous at the same time. The other interesting thing about them is that, even with Bom’s bare legs, this group shows far less skin than most other girl-groups, but somehow manages to be sexier than any of the others. IMO.
It’s worked - 2NE1 is soon to be the first Korean pop act to do a world tour. They’re also working with will.i.am to produce an English-language album (they’re all fluent to one degree or another - CL speaks nearly-accent-free English) for the American market.