Following the success of H.O.T, SM Entertainment decided to capitalizing the success by forming another boy group Shinhwa (meaning "Myth" in Korean) in 1998 with six members, Eric Mun, Lee Min-woo, Kim Dong-wan, Shin Hye-sung, Jun Jin, and Andy Lee. They debuted in 1998 with the album Resolver which was not very successful. Their second album T.O.P. was much better received and made them one of the top boy groups in Korea. They are one of the longest-running K-Pop group and have never switched members or disbanded in between.

As mentioned in the introduction to H.O.T, K-Pop lyrics involves a lot of random English during that period of time and T.O.P. was no exception. This song even included an N-word. And SM Entertainment seems to like using acronyms in their groups, song titles and lyrics, like their groups H.O.T and S.E.S, this song T.O.P and even the lyrics of T.O.P was consisted of acronyms (D.O.P, D.O.G). Such naming methodology even influenced Taiwan and their girl group S.H.E was obtained inspired by S.E.S. And sampling of Classical Music is also noted in many songs of SM, like T.O.P. (Tchaikovsky - Lake in the Moonlight), H.O.T's I Yah! (Mozart - Symphony No. 25), DBSK's Triangle (Mozart - Symphony No. 40 in G minor). S.H.E made a similar song of T.O.P. with sampling of Lake in the Moonlight as well.

H.O.T如此成功，SM Entertainment決定在1998年成立另一個男孩團體《神話》，由Eric（文晸赫）、李玟雨、金烔完、申彗星（鄭弼教）、JunJin（朴忠栽）、Andy（李先鎬）六名成員組成。1998年首張專輯《終結者》不大成功，使他們差點解散。幸好他們第二張專輯《T.O.P.》大受歡迎，更令他們成為韓國頂尖團體之一。而且他們是歷史最悠久的K-Pop團體，成員未曾更換或中途解散過。

正如我在上一篇文章說過，K-Pop歌詞在90年代有大量不知所云的英語，《T.O.P.》也不例外，什至出現N-word。另外，SM Entertainment似乎喜歡以英文字首縮寫命名他們的組合（如H.O.T和S.E.S）、歌曲標題（T.O.P.）以至《T.O.P.》歌詞中（D.O.P、D.O.G）。這種命名方法甚至影響了台灣，她們的女子組合S.H.E明顯受S.E.S啟發，而且許多SM的歌曲都採用了不少古典音樂，如《T.O.P.》（柴可夫斯基 - 月光下的湖），H.O.T的《I Yah!》（莫扎特 - 第25交響曲），東方神起的《三角》（莫扎特 - G小調第40交響曲）。 S.H.E在《T.O.P.》推出後也有一首類似的歌曲，都採用了《月光下的湖》。