Hybe, Geffen Records launch second global girl group project following Katseye
Hybe is once again partnering with Geffen Records, a label under Universal Music Group, to launch a new global girl group next year, the company announced Wednesday. This marks the second multinational group to debut under the ongoing collaboration between the two companies.
The new project, titled 'World Scout: The Final Piece,' will begin with a large-scale audition tour across Japan. It aims to discover outstanding global talent and form a next-generation girl group for the international music market.
According to Hybe and Geffen Records, top scouting teams from Hybe will take the lead in identifying promising trainees with high potential. Those who pass the audition will undergo specialized 'K-pop-style training,' adapted for the US market, from October to December.
Selected trainees will then move on to an advanced training camp in the US, where they will compete for a spot in the final debut lineup. The debut is slated for 2026.
The entire journey — from auditions to the group's formation — will be exclusively broadcast in the spring of 2026 via Japanese streaming platform ABEMA.
'The program will capture how talented individuals grow while working alongside world-class producers,' Hybe and Geffen Records said in a statement.
The move marks the latest phase in Hybe's strategy to globalize K-pop by expanding its production model beyond South Korea. In 2023, the two companies launched the audition program 'The Debut: Dream Academy,' which led to the formation of the multinational girl group Katseye.
That project drew wide interest from global viewers, who watched contestants from diverse ethnic and regional backgrounds train and compete under Hybe's K-pop production system — a blueprint previously centered in Korea, but now adapted for the US market. The show became a milestone in exporting the K-pop "DNA" to the global pop mainstream.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Korea Herald
3 hours ago
- Korea Herald
Katseye climbs global charts, ranks among top pop stars in Bloomberg list
Hybe's global girl group earns MTV VMAs nomination, Spotify milestones and praise for pushing pop boundaries Katseye, Hybe's first multinational girl group formed in partnership with Geffen Records, is making strides on the global music scene, ranking No. 12 in Bloomberg's latest "Pop Star Power Rankings," the company said Friday. The six-member group appeared alongside household names such as Post Malone at No. 1, Bruno Mars at No. 3, Beyonce at No. 4 and Sabrina Carpenter at No. 5. BTS member J-Hope placed at No. 18. Bloomberg's monthly rankings factor in concert revenue, ticket sales, album sales, digital streams, social media growth on Instagram and TikTok and YouTube views. The outlet noted that Hybe chairman Bang Si-hyuk recently declared his ambition to make K-pop an even greater global phenomenon — not solely through established acts like BTS, but by assembling multinational groups that sing in English. 'Katseye's growing success is a validation of Bang's unique approach to engineering global pop stardom, which continues to evolve since unleashing BTS,' Bloomberg wrote. 'Now, it's Katseye's turn to storm the charts.' This year, Katseye has stepped firmly into the spotlight. On Tuesday, the group was nominated for Push Performance of the Year at the upcoming 2025 MTV Video Music Awards for its debut single 'Touch.' Two days before, it performed at Lollapalooza Chicago — one of the largest music festivals in the US — only a year after its debut. The group first entered the Billboard Hot 100 in May with the single 'Gnarly,' debuting at No. 92. The B-side track 'Gabriela,' from its second EP 'Beautiful Chaos,' followed in June at No. 94. The EP debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 in July, marking Katseye's highest ranking yet and its second consecutive appearance on the main album chart. As of Tuesday, 'Beautiful Chaos' was at No. 61, holding a spot on the chart for five straight weeks. The EP has drawn praise for its bold, genre-blending sound, distinctive concepts and high-energy performances. On Spotify, the world's largest streaming platform in terms of subscribers, Katseye's presence is equally notable. In the service's Weekly Top Songs Global chart for July 4–10, Katseye had three tracks chart simultaneously: 'Gabriela' at No. 25, 'Gnarly' at No. 81 and 'Gameboy' at No. 149. 'Gabriela' also became the group's fastest track to reach 100 million streams, hitting the milestone in just 38 days.
Korea Herald
5 hours ago
- Korea Herald
Interview: Ahn Bo-hyun trades tough for tender
K-drama heavyweight embraces vulnerability in 'Pretty Crazy,' playing unemployed softie who tends to demon-possessed woman Ahn Bo-hyun has played his share of tough guys. An alpha male par excellence of Korean dramas, he has terrorized Park Seo-jun as the sneering chaebol heir in "Itaewon Class" and thrown punches alongside Han So-hee in Netflix's "My Name." On the big screen, Ahn has nearly battled Jung Hae-in to the death in "I, Executioner." Meeting him at a Samcheong-dong cafe on Thursday, it's clear why he gets cast this way. The guy stands nearly 190 centimeters tall with a muscular and imposing boxer's frame — he was one, winning gold medals as a teenager before pivoting to modeling, then acting. His hands are cartoonishly huge. But it's his eyes that captivate: set deep beneath heavy brows, they carry an intensity that doesn't translate on screen. "People think I'm intimidating when I don't smile because of how I look," he says, laughing. "But when I do smile, they say I have this dopey charm." "Pretty Crazy," the upcoming fantasy rom-com pairing Ahn with Girls' Generation's Lim Yoona, is an interesting specimen in a number of ways. For one, it bills itself as a romantic comedy in an industry where the genre's virtually extinct. Its premise is drenched in comic-book silliness about a beauty who transforms into a demon every night with no memory the next morning. The film can't decide what it wants to be, and it shows. More interesting is how it throws its A-list leads into completely unexpected territory: Yoona as a jabbering woman wreaking havoc, and Ahn as Gil-goo, a clueless unemployed loser tasked with her nightly care. The role screams pitiful. Gil-goo tails his crush around town, staging "accidental" meetings after falling for her at first sight. When he takes the gig babysitting her possessed alter ego, he mothers her with obsessive care. Gil-goo is a vanilla nice guy, worlds apart from the masculinity Ahn typically projects. "Watching myself on the big screen, I realized I'm really good at looking pathetic," he says. "Like, genuinely wronged and pitiful." He found surprising common ground with the character, though. "I don't talk like him, but I could definitely sympathize. People have a hard time believing it because I look so tough and all, but Gil-goo exists inside me too. I've had my own periods of deep uncertainty, times when I cared too much about what others thought." "I'm actually really detail-oriented," he continues. "I know it doesn't match how I look, but I love cooking elaborate meals for myself, arranging things just so. I like cute little things to the point where you'd question my testosterone levels. I clean obsessively, do laundry religiously." For Ahn, the role was something deeper than comic relief; he saw a narrative about a loser maturing through caring for someone else for the first time. Gil-goo goes to absurd lengths to save Seon-ji from her curse, digging up backyards, stealing phones and racing to the middle of nowhere on Jeju Island. He's awkward in these missions but utterly sincere. "It's a coming-of-age story. This broken guy who can't stand up to anyone meets Seon-ji and her demon side, accepts this insane situation as truth, and realizes he can actually help someone, that he can matter." This understanding allowed him to sink deeply into the character. During the film's tearjerker finale, when Gil-goo finally addresses the demon by her real name, Ahn found himself overwhelmed. "I cried so hard shooting that scene. I wasn't supposed to — if I cry, it looks like romantic love. But I'd developed such affection for the demon character. My eyes swelled up so badly we had to pause filming until they went down." After all, for Ahn, playing someone so gentle turned out to be a revelation. "When Gil-goo's unintentional actions or way of speaking made people laugh, the feedback was immediate — the crew cracking up, the director smiling.
Korea Herald
8 hours ago
- Korea Herald
Le Sserafim tops 100m Spotify streams with ‘Hot'
Le Sserafim reached 100 million streams on Spotify with 'Hot' as of Wednesday, agency Source Music said Friday, citing the platform. The titular track from its fifth EP is the group's 13th song to reach the 100 million mark, and did so in about five months. The pop tune was the most-streamed song outside of Korea from a K-pop group in the first half of this year while the mini album hit Billboard 200 at No. 9. The five-track set made among top 10 bestselling CD albums in the US in the first half at No. 9. In the meantime, the five members flew to Bangkok on Thursday for their weekend show, which is part of their international tour 'Easy Crazy Hot.' Next week, they will go live in Singapore, before heading to the US.
