The last time the Olympics came to South Korea, in 1988, Korean pop music was awash in soft-focus ballads, a gentle and demure version of the sounds that were taking hold elsewhere in the world. This year, the country is hosting the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, and is greeting it with a vastly evolved approach to pop music and culture.

South Korea’s prime export is K-pop, the umbrella term used to describe the ecstatic, vibrant, outrageously polished and often hyperreal version of pop music that dominates the country’s music industry, thanks to entertainment conglomerates that aggressively recruit and train young talent. The genre is known for pinpoint precision, flamboyant fashion and smoothed-over borrowings from American R&B and hip-hop that, taken in total, have amounted to the creation of a style and sound that’s unmistakable, and without global peer. Along with K-drama and various other youth-driven pop culture offsprings, it’s become essential to South Korea’s global image.

K-pop will reportedly have a limited presence at the Olympics opening ceremony on Friday, which will feature performances from Ha Hyun Woo of the indie rock band Guckkasten, Ahn Ji Young of the K-pop duo Bolbbalgan4 and Jeon In Kwon of the long-running Korean rock band Deulgukhwa.

It will, however, be more prominently featured at the closing ceremony on Feb. 25, with performances by CL, who got her start in the essential girl group 2NE1, and the boy band EXO. Other K-pop performances — including a reunion of the boy band 2PM — are scheduled for events throughout the Games. And last month, the North Korean singer Hyon Song-wol led a delegation of North Korean officials to the South to prepare for the cultural performances that will be a part of the events.