EDM and other derivative genres are having a big moment in K-pop right now. Both boy and girl groups alike are either dipping their toes into UK-born genres such drum and bass, diving into hyper electropop, or going full-out with house, techno, and other dance-heavy subgenres. However, this shift – that seems to forego K-pop’s long affinity with trap music and the more recent pop-rock and Afrobeats phases – is being met with some surprising resistance, with some fans actively against it.

But dance music never truly left K-pop in the first place. While other genres became quick trends and were soon forgotten, dance and electronic pop has steadily remained in the background – evolving, adapting, and now circling back to the forefront with a spoonful of nostalgia that harkens back to second and third-gen favourites.

K-pop trends tend to follow recognisable patterns. From retro pop to UK garage and club music, K-pop is an interesting time capsule in which every year or era can be easily recognizable based on the soundscape. In more recent years, the surge of electronic and house music has been largely credited to girl groups such as aespa, LE SSERAFIM, NewJeans, Hearts2Hearts, and even BLACKPINK – but the genre’s presence in modern K-pop goes far beyond these last few years.

According to Korean music critic, Lim Hee-yun, dance music in Korea can be traced back to the ‘90s with groups like NOISE and Clon, both of which incorporated house music into their repertoire. Consequently, we see dance-pop slowly becoming prevalent in first-gen K-pop groups through the likes of H.O.T. 's 1996 hit “Candy,” S.E.S’s 1997 debut album, I’m Your Girl, and dance-oriented group Turbo from 1995 to 2001. The trend would continue to stick around well into the mid-to-late 2000s with second-gen groups like Super Junior, 2NE1, T-Ara, and most notably, f(x).

The reason house and EDM are frequently used in K-pop is that house is built on a steady four-on-the-floor beat, which is fundamental to dance music. K-pop is “also electronic dance music at its core, so the combination is natural,” Lim told The Korea Herald. Considering the K-pop industry has largely been known for its explosive, upbeat numbers, it makes sense that companies would want to capitalise off a style that’s literally built to make people want to move around and dance. Plus, it lends itself to the fun and quirky aspects of K-pop choreography – another touchstone that the industry built itself around.

But when longtime K-pop listeners think of the true electronic-heavy era, they’ll usually point to the early-to-mid 2010s, where nearly every group was dropping an EDM-coded song or album. It was a perfect mirror of the electronic/techno craze that was already sweeping Western music charts at the time – now South Korea was following. From Kara’s “Step” and 2PM’s “Hands Up” in 2011 to the 2013 dubstep and complextro style of SHINee’s “Everybody,” the electronic takeover of K-pop was impossible to ignore, and yet beloved by legions of fans during this time.

However, it wasn't until 2015 that house music started becoming more prevalent throughout the Korean industry. With the help of SHINee’s “View” and f(x)’s “4 Walls,” deep house would go on to become more widely known and celebrated within K-pop spaces, which then gave rise to the popular tropical house boom of 2016 and 2017. Since then, companies have become more comfortable experimenting with other variations of electronic music such as future bass, Miami bass, Jersey and Baltimore club, and so many others – proving it’s never fully disappeared in the rear view mirror.

It’s only fitting that the industry comes full circle with an ode to its 2010s predecessors. Evidently, this is the exact era that many of K-pop’s more recent releases seem to be emulating with a modern twist, whether it’s intentional or not. From LE SSERAFIM’s recent comeback with “Celebration” to Hearts2Hearts back-to-back house-driven singles, “Focus” and “RUDE!”, the industry is circling back to sounds that many considered to be K-pop at its best, and that’s not a coincidence.

While Limstates that girl groups are the main ones contributing to this trend – arguing that their overall structure and music consumption benefits dance music more than boy groups – it’s worth noting that several boy groups have also been throwing their hats into the ring lately.

In 2025, SEVENTEEN released “Thunder,” an EDM, house, and dance-pop track that sat apart from anything in the group's discography – its musical DNA closer to second-gen K-pop than anything they'd released before. Similarly, newer boy group 82MAJOR traded in its usual aggressive hip-hop style for a tech-house club banger in “TROPHY,” and its even bouncier house-driven B-side, “Need That Bass.” In 2026, it’s only ramped up even more between both girl and boy groups, and showing no signs of stopping anytime soon.

Music, like everything else, is cyclical – trends come and go until they inevitably reappear in a slightly different form, usually within 20 years of when they were first introduced. Given how fast-paced K-pop is, it's not surprising the industry is already a little ahead of schedule. The fans pushing back against the current wave aren't fighting something new. They're fighting something that was always going to come back.