An idol group's comeback lasts a few weeks on screen and takes months to build. By the time a title track reaches a music show, it has passed through songwriters in several countries, an agency's A&R team, choreographers, a performance director, a visual director and a stylist who has altered the same jacket three times so it survives the dance break. This piece looks at those people and at the documented work behind a few well-known songs.
How a release comes together
Most title tracks start as demos. Large agencies run an A&R (artists and repertoire) department that briefs songwriters, collects submissions and decides which songs fit which artist. In a 2017 report, the JoongAng Ilbo described the process at two of the biggest companies. JYP Entertainment announces a call for, say, a new TWICE single, producers submit tracks, and the songs are discussed in internal meetings; silence after a couple of days means a no. At the time JYP had 22 exclusive producers and had held producer auditions twice a year since 2012.
SM Entertainment works with a much larger outside pool. Its international A&R team told the paper it drew on some 500 foreign producers, and the company has hosted its own songwriting camp since 2009. A song camp puts writers and producers from different countries in studios together for several days with a brief describing an artist's mood and concept. Writers often do not know which group a track will end up with. LDN Noise said EXO's "Lucky One" was first meant for SHINee before EXO's team claimed it.
A demo that survives is then reworked: Korean lyrics are added, sections are rearranged and the song goes back and forth between the agency and the writers, typically over about a week of feedback. A 2026 Hankook Ilbo report summed up the model as songs composed in Europe, polished by American producers and recorded in Seoul, with Swedish writing teams singled out for their melody-first hooks.
Songwriters and producers
Some producers become almost synonymous with an act. Teddy Park wrote and produced BLACKPINK's "DDU-DU DDU-DU" (2018), with co-production from 24, Bekuh Boom and R.Tee. The song entered the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 55, at the time the highest position for a Korean girl group, and in January 2023 its video became the first by a K-pop group to pass two billion views on YouTube.
At Big Hit, Pdogg produced BTS's "Boy With Luv" featuring Halsey (2019). The writing credits show how mixed a K-pop song can be: Pdogg, RM, Suga and J-Hope share them with Bang Si-hyuk ("Hitman" Bang), Halsey and the international writers Melanie Joy Fontana, Michel "Lindgren" Schulz and Emily Weisband. The single debuted at No. 8 on the Hot 100.
Other names are less visible but just as busy. JYP's in-house producer Lee Woo-min was credited on TWICE's run from "Like Ooh-Ahh" to "Cheer Up" and "TT". The British duo LDN Noise worked on SHINee's "View" and EXO's "Monster". Producer Ryan S. Jhun has described to Billboard how he shaped songs such as EXO's "Love Me Right", Red Velvet's "Dumb Dumb" and Taeyeon's "I".
Then there are the self-producers. Stray Kids' Bang Chan, Changbin and Han work as 3RACHA, the group's in-house production unit, and write and compose most of its catalog. For fans, that changes the relationship with the music: the people on stage are the people on the credits.
For fans, that changes the relationship with the music: the people on stage are the people on the credits.
Choreographers and performance directors
Choreography in K-pop is rarely the work of one person. A performance director oversees how an act moves across a whole era, while individual routines may come from in-house teams, outside choreographers or several of them at once. Son Sung-deuk, a former backup dancer for Shinhwa, has directed BTS's performances since the group's debut. Korean media credit him with choreography for "I NEED U", "Fire", "Spring Day", "DNA", "FAKE LOVE" and "IDOL". For "Blood Sweat & Tears" (2016) he supervised the overall routine, while Keone Madrid and Quick Style Crew contributed parts of it.
Lia Kim co-founded 1MILLION Dance Studio in Seoul in 2014. She is a longtime collaborator of Sunmi, including on "24 Hours", and has shaped performances for TWICE, MAMAMOO and BoA. The studio's YouTube channel, with more than 25 million subscribers in 2023, made K-pop choreographers recognizable to fans abroad.
The industry's dance talent is international too. Kiel Tutin, who trained in New Zealand and spent five years in Parris Goebel's Royal Family crew, says he has worked on roughly 30 songs a year for Korean acts since 2020. He was among the choreographers credited when BLACKPINK's "Pink Venom" won Best Choreography at the 2023 MTV VMAs, alongside Sienna Lalau and Leejung Lee and Taryn Cheng of YG's dance company YGX. Leejung had led the YGX crew on the dance competition show Street Woman Fighter in 2021.
Stylists and visual directors
The look of an era is usually set by a visual or creative director before a stylist touches a garment. In a 2016 Allure Korea series on the people who make idols, Big Hit's visual director at the time described the job as covering concepts, music videos, album artwork, stage design and costumes. For BTS's The Most Beautiful Moment in Life series he aimed for a back-alley feel and drew on films for visual references.
Stylists then turn the concept into clothes that work under stage lights. A stylist whose first idol job was Girls' Generation's "Gee", told the same series that she starts from the song's concept and then thinks about movement. Some stage outfits are made from scratch, and she often altered jumpsuits by hand during rehearsals so the singer could dance in them.
The roles at a glance
- A&RThe agency team that briefs writers, chooses songs and matches them to artists.
- Song campA multi-day writing session where international writers and producers create demos to a brief.
- Performance directorOversees choreography and staging across an era, for music shows and concerts.
- Visual directorSets the concept for videos, artwork, sets and costumes.
- StylistSources, adapts and makes the outfits so they match the concept and survive the choreography.
Update: what happened since 2024
Several of the people named here have become better known since this story first ran. Leejung Lee choreographed "How It's Done" and "Soda Pop" for Netflix's animated film KPop Demon Hunters (2025), and competed with her crew Bumsup on World of Street Woman Fighter. Kiel Tutin was performance director and choreographer for the dance video of Jisoo's "Earthquake" in early 2025. In August 2026, Stray Kids released the mini-album This & That, with at least one 3RACHA member credited on every track; Bang Chan's registered compositions with the Korea Music Copyright Association have passed 200.
Editor's note: This story first appeared on kpop-fandom on 25 September 2024. It was rewritten and updated in October 2026: we removed claims we could not verify (including choreography credits for "Mic Drop" and "WANNABE" and unsourced statements about which fashion houses dressed which groups), corrected and completed song credits, added how A&R and song camps work, and added an update on developments since 2024.
Sources Korea JoongAng Daily: The minds behind K-pop's biggest hits, Allure Korea: The people who make idols, Tenasia: BTS performance director Son Sung-deuk, Korea JoongAng Daily: Leejung choreographs KPop Demon Hunters, Sports Kyunghyang: Stray Kids and 3RACHA on This & That.