> K-pop is probably the most commercial genre that ever existed

Italo Disco would like to have a word I think ;)

Arte TV aired a really good documentary about the Italo Disco phenomenon recently, unfortunately it doesn't seem to be officially available on the internet yet - but they basically had it all, factory-line produced music with singers and "stage artists" being entirely different people, but among all that trash also sometimes really good stuff.

And they used synthesizers as "shameless" as nobody else, today they would go full AI slop I think.