The Most Successful Artists of All-Time on Melon

As mentioned in a recent thread of mine, I've looked up the top 100 songs on Melon for each month, going all the way back to when the music download/streaming service was first launched in November 2004, and compiled all the data into one spreadsheet.

For this analysis, I want to take a look at which artists have been the most successful on Melon. To do that, my methodology was to assign a point value to each song in my spreadsheet: 100 points for the #1 song of a given month, then decreasing linearly to 1 point for the #100 song of a given month.

From there, I simply added up the points for all songs for every artist. The top 100 artists are thus presented in the table below. I've also included the number of times each artist appeared in my data set.

It should come as no surprise that IU tops the ranking. BTS and Big Bang should also not be unexpected.

However, my guess is that you may be shocked that SG Wannabe, Davichi, and MC the MAX take up the next three spots, since they're far less talked about in the international K-pop community.

What are some other names that you're surprised to see on the list? Or, which names are you surprised *didn't* make the cut? Which artists did you expect to be ranked higher, or lower?

Further Reading on This Topic

Artists Ranked #101 to #200

Artists Ranked #201 to #300

A Ranking Only Featuring Idol Groups

A Ranking Only Featuring Non-Idol Group Artists
Ranking Only Fourth Generation Artists

A Look at Points/Appearances Ratios

Revising My Analysis to Only Look at Songs in the Top 20

Refining My Analysis with a Points Distribution Scheme Based on Monthly Unique Listeners

Quote from gamma

Wow that must have been long to make.

I'm surprised by Red Velvet in front of Wonder Girls.

Oh yeah, it was definitely a pain in the arse to cut and paste all the data from Melon into Excel!

Now with Wonder Girls, a problem with them is that, although they had a huge peak (one of the biggest ever), their career was cut short when the girls were shipped off to promote in the US. Red Velvet has been much more stable. Also, Wonder Girls was popular during the download era, and during this time, I think songs just didn't last as long on the charts compared to what we see now in the streaming era.

Quote from bbgc

Non Groups dominate.

Top BGs do better than Top GGs - even digitally

But probably more GGs than BGs in the top 100

Can you group by the list by GGs, BGs and NGs (non-groups which should include duo and non-Kpop)?

And make graphical representations, when you have time.

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Yeah that sounds about right.

And indeed, I was also thinking about breaking out the data by girl groups and boy groups, so look out for that later.

Quote from Lulu_Key

I expected sistar to be higher

Me too. So I looked into their numbers a bit more, and the problem was that, although Sistar had numerous high peaks, their songs lacked longevity. They only had three songs that lasted more than five months: So Cool, Alone, Shake It (at six months each).

Quote from rosietwerk

Just curios how do you get the data, I want to do some digging myself

Also, I am kind of surprised Psy is that low and SISTAR being 4th in 2nd Gen GG ranking I remember them being better in digitals than WG & SNSD??

You can use this handy link to look up historical Melon data: https://www.melon.com/chart/search/index.htm

So yes, I was surprised at Sistar as well. Upon looking into their numbers a bit more, it turns out that they had many hit songs with high peaks, but their songs lacked longevity, and thus couldn't stay on the chart for more than six months.

In Psy's case, he suffered because he had no appearances on the Melon monthly chart at all from October 2017 to May 2022, when "That That" was released. His songs also don't have very good longevity in general. Even "Gangnam Style" only lasted six months.

Quote from pchromo4

Sistar usually only came back once or twice a year and they only released singles (or their b-sides never charted).

Regarding Sistar's non-title tracks, what you're saying appears to be true. I found 17 appearances in my data set, with 11 of those coming from their Give It to Me album.

Quote from ISaidISaid

OP are you sure you didn’t miss out CN Blue? I do know they made it a few times even in the top 20 of the Gaon digital chart and their label mates f t island are here. Wonder why they wouldn’t be on this list at all 👀

I just checked, and CNBLUE comes in at 127th place, so they didn't make the top 100 cut.

They had 14 appearances on the Melon monthly chart in 2010, six in 2011 and 2012, four in 2013, three in 2014, and one each in 2015 and 2016.

They also had 13 appearances in the top 20. Overall, it looks like they peaked in the early 2010s and haven't really made much of an impact since.

Quote from atropos

So u used the monthly melon chart for this?

Indeed I did. Now it would be interesting to compare this with Melon weekly data, but that would require at least four times the effort to compile, so it's not a task that I wish to take on at this time.

Quote from nevermindmejin

I’m surprised that Blackpink is lower than Exo

In this case, it looks like Blackpink simply has far fewer charting songs than EXO does, even though BP's songs do chart higher on average. Also, EXO has been active for quite a few years longer.

Quote from jinaland

i was scrolling and then there's maroon 5 lmao

Yes, they're the only "Western" artist in the top 100, though Anne-Marie and Justin Bieber are close to making the cut-off. Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande, and Sam Smith are ranked pretty highly too.

Quote from atropos

You gave points according to position based on all the months a song charted on the monthly chart? A song charts for 52 weeks, points have calculated for all the rankings of 12 months.

Correct, I believe. I've attached a screenshot of the actual Excel file used to calculate these rankings, which I think will help explain things:

MelonMonthlyData.png

So in column G, I assign 100 to 1 points based on a monthly rank of 1 to 100 (column C). In column H, I use the SUMIF function to look at the artist value in column D, then use that as a key to sum up values in column G that match the artist.