Has Taylor Swift taken a page from the K-pop playbook?

Taylor Swift performs at Wembley Stadium in London as part of her ″Eras Tour” June 21, 2024. [AP/YONHAP]

 
Taylor Swift’s latest chart-dominating album “The Life of a Showgirl” has taken the world by storm — and sparked an equally loud debate over marketing that feels all too familiar to many K-pop observers.
 
Beyond its musical composition and critical reception, much of the conversation online centers on Swift’s decision to release more than 30 variants of the album, both physical and digital.
 
The move has fueled debates over whether the pop superstar is “exploiting her fans” to maximize sales figures with aggressive tactics, including creating a sense of urgency with limited-time editions and collectible exclusives.
 

Album covers of ″The Life of a Showgirl″ by Taylor Swift [REPUBLIC RECORDS]

 
Yet it’s hardly a new territory for Swift, who released nine vinyl variants for her 2020 album “folkore” and over 20 editions of the “Midnights” album back in 2022, including four CD variants and four vinyl variants, as well as a Target edition with exclusive tracks. “The Tortured Poets Department” (2024) also came in more than 30 variants, including four “Collector’s Edition Deluxe” versions, each with different collectibles and exclusive bonus tracks.
 
And for many K-pop fans, this kind of “superfan” strategy — defined by its exclusivity, variants and random collectibles — feels like déjà vu.
The K-pop model, proven and profitable
 
K-pop has long been evolving into an art of selling not just music but fandom identity and a feeling of emotional connection with artists. Musicians usually release multiple versions of the same album, each with unique covers, photo books and random goodies featuring individual members — which devoted fans ardently purchase to enjoy personally, complete their collections, boost their favorite acts’ charting performance or win a chance to meet them in person.
 
BTS, for example, had four standard versions of its 2017 “Love Yourself: Her” album, namely “L,” “O,” “V,” and “E,” and also four versions for its “Love Yourself: Tear” (2018) which came in “Y,” “O,” “U,” and “R” variants, all with different cover art and photo booklets. And the following “Love Yourself: Answer” (2018) had, of course, “S,” “E,” “L,” and “F” versions. The cover art for all versions of the albums in the trilogy creates a complete work of art when put together.
 

Four different album covers of BTS’s “Love Yourself: Tear” (2018) put together to form a complete artwork [SCREEN CAPTURE]

 
Swift took a similar approach with her “Midnights” LPs, releasing four colored vinyl variants that form clock-inspired artwork when put together.
 
Of course, well before the global rise of K-pop, many pop stars, including Swift, have long been adopting a similar marketing strategy of releasing multiple album variants with collectible goods.
 
However, it seems that things have escalated significantly over the past half-decade, especially since the start of the 2020s, where K-pop’s model of chart dominance through hyper-collectible physical sales driven by loyal “superfans” — who are extremely devoted and emotionally invested with strong purchasing power — proved its global effectiveness.
 

Four different LP covers of Taylor Swift’s ″Midnights″ (2022) put together to form a clock-inspired artwork [SCREEN CAPTURE]

 
Last year, albums from Enhypen, Seventeen and Stray Kids ranked among the top 20 best sellers of the year as compiled by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, or IFPI, alongside Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Sabrina Carpenter and SZA. BTS topped the annual list in 2020 and 2021, before Taylor Swift reclaimed the top spot in 2022 and 2023.
 
At the same time, the average number of distinct physical variants per Top 10 album on the Billboard 200 albums chart jumped from 3.3 in 2019 to 8.9 in 2023, according to Luminate.
 

Taylor Swift performs at the Monumental stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina, during an ″Eras Tour″ concert on Nov. 9, 2023. [AP/YONHAP]

Is pop becoming K-popified?
 
K-pop’s marketing playbook extends well beyond album variants, built on an entire fan economy defined by its active fan engagement, collectibles and exclusivity.
 
And it seems Western artists are increasingly adopting some of the most notable elements of K-pop culture.
 
Rapper Doechii recently offered an official lightstick as part of her concert merchandise for her “Live from the Swamp” tour. Lightsticks are not just souvenirs in K-pop; they serve as an identity symbol for each fandom. Among the most recognizable are BTS’s official Army Bomb lightstick and Seventeen’s Carat Bong, which inspired a mascot character named Bongbongie that represents the boy band’s fandom, Carat.
 
However, there still remain some crucial distinctions, including the direct commodification of human interaction deeply embedded in K-pop’s marketing. Physical albums serve as a ticket for exclusive experiences such as video calls or fan signing events, which motivate the most enthusiastic fans to hoard them in bulk to secure access.
 

Doechii’s official lightstick, sold as part of the concert merchandise for the rapper’s ″Live from the Swamp″ tour, posted by X user @12ANGELSRISE [X/SCREEN CAPTURE]

 
“The fundamental elements that shaped K-pop’s standard marketing model are that the genre’s acts have multiple members, with extremely loyal fandoms and sub-fandoms for each respective member of a group,” music critic Lim Hee-yoon pointed out.
 
This allows an endless array of random goodies and member-specific versions that fans feel compelled to collect.
 
Stray Kids, for example, put out 16 versions of its fourth full-length album “Karma” released in August, including “Accordion” versions with specific covers for all eight members. Seventeen, the famously massive group with 13 members, presents a member-specific version with unique covers of each member as the Carat version.
 

A product image for the Carat Version of Seventeen’s 12th EP, ″Spill the Feels″ (2024) [PLEDIS ENTERTAINMENT]

 
“It is important to note that one of the key reasons that K-pop album sales surged during the pandemic era was the introduction of video fan signing events during the lockdown,” said Lim.
The question of waste lingers
 
The long-standing culture of hyper-collectibility and random access has long drawn criticism for its environmental toll in Korea. Some fans purchase dozens — or even hundreds — of albums to secure event access, only to throw out the copies afterward.
 
As global pop increasingly adopts similar tactics, concerns about waste have only grown louder. Billie Eilish publicly criticized the marketing strategy in her interview with Billboard last year, saying, “I can’t even express to you how wasteful it is.”
 
Over the years, K-pop fans have been speaking out against such marketing practices.
 
As such, Korean singer Lim Young-woong opted not to release physical CDs for his latest album, foregoing album chart eligibility and instead issuing a printed photo album with merchandise but no CD.
 
Still, K-pop agencies are still strongly incentivized to release physical CDs in the current industry landscape. Hanteo Global CEO Kwak Young-ho told the Korea JoongAng Daily in a recent interview that physical album sales “remain the only way to generate maximum profit in the shortest time,” noting that an act needs to sell at least 200,000 units per album to sustain its career.
 
Lim agrees as well.
 
“Given how much of K-pop’s revenue depends on physical albums, it’s almost impossible for agencies to give them up,” noted the critic.
 

K-pop albums are displayed at a music store in Seoul on Feb. 11. [NEWS1]

 
Potential regulatory solutions can come in the form of an environmental impact certification system for each album, similar to carbon labeling. Yet with K-pop positioned as one of Korea’s leading cultural exports, meaningful regulations are unlikely to come in the near future, said Lim.
 
“But as sustainability concerns rise across every industry, K-pop shouldn’t be immune to such scrutiny,” he added.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [[email protected]]