SEOUL, April 4 — In just a few years, K-pop has become an international musical phenomenon. Such is the enthusiasm for this South Korean musical genre that almost all the records in the chart of best-selling albums for 2023 are K-pop albums.

In detail, 19 of the world’s 20 best-selling albums last year (physical and digital sales) belong to the K-pop genre. Taylor Swift‘s fourth re-recorded album, 1989 (Taylor’s Version), is the only outlier in the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s (IFPI), global album sales chart for 2023, taking sixth place.