The year 2021 has been a wonderful year for K-pop as its influence spread further across the globe, being accepted as one of the major music genres in the global music market.

There has been an exponential increase in the number of K-pop listeners, and many K-pop artists are making the global music charts. As a year-end wrap-up, Spotify released the list of top 20 K-pop artists of 2021:

Various artists made the list, such as ATEEZ, BLACKPINK, BTS, DAY6, ENHYPEN, EXO, (G)I-DLE, ITZY, IU, Lisa, MAMAMOO, NCT 127, NCT Dream, Red Velvet, Rose, Stray Kids, Agust D, TWICE, and TXT. Rose, IU, Lisa, and Suga are the only soloists in the top 20.

Korean netizens commented, "these idols are amazing," "TXT is pretty amazing to be that high on the ranking, cause BTS is definitely on another level, so is BLACKPINK," "Wow, ENHYPEN is rank 11, when they debuted not too long ago," "Wow, IU is a higher rank than Rose or Lisa, I thought they would be higher on the list," "BTS is unbeatable," "Wow, BLACKPINK is really high on the ranking when they didn'tmakeo a comeback this year as a group," "I think (G)I-DLE is amazing making the list," and "K-pop idols are really awesome."