(KPop History) Would SNSD have conquered the world if SM supported it better in 2011?

    Would SNSD have become as big as BlackPink if SM supported it better in 2011? 14

    1. No. The timing was not right yet (13) 93%
    2. No. Lee Jieun would have stopped SNSD anyways. (1) 7%
    3. Yes (0) 0%

    SNSD's return is seen with favorable eyes among its fans, but the newer generation does not know it.


    Given its complete domination of KPop 2009 - 2011, and its continued reign until around 2014, that is surprising but memories are short.


    Some people might say SNSD's fate was limited because the high brass of SM always emphasized boy groups before girl groups since it was seen that boy groups brought way more revenues.


    In 2011, a bunch of events occurred . For those who don't know its sequence, I will summarize it once again.


    ===


    1. The initial release date of the Boys album was September 2011. Then there was the contract deal with Interscope. The Boys is a song from Teddy Riley, a producer for Michael Jackson, and terms with USA had to be negotiated.


    2. Then I believe Sooyoung was injured just before the promotion start date of Oct 5, 2011. Nowdays, if a member is injured or otherwise unavailable, the promotion will go on without the member. But at that time it was customary that if a member was unavailable everyone had to wait till the member returned.


    3. That 2 week delay would completely knock off SNSD's US promotion plans. Details are not clear to this day, but it is probable that these two week delay caused a similar effect of what Psy did at the height of Gangman Style craze to waste a week performing in Korea's shitty universities because YG refused to send Big Bang or 2NE1 to these third-rate bush league institutions for Beavis and Buttheads, or outright cancel these assignments.


    4. The 2 week delay eventually led SNSD staying in Korea for longer than intended, where they met Wonder Girls and beating them 3 out of 3 times.


    5. Then the SNSD repackage was released . Instead of making a new song its title, SM put MR Taxi, a Japanese release which most Sones had heard before, as the title.


    6. Korean SNSD fans were angry that they were being slighted, and they really got upset because they thought SM was not treating the Korean fans properly. As a protest, they voted for the person , whose "You & I" had just been released, in music shows.


    7. IU defeated SNSD in Music Bank, but more importantly, her Good Day was voted ahead of SNSD's The Boys as the top song of 2011 (despite of the inconvenient fact that Good Day is a 2010 song).


    The veil ofSNSD's complete dominance was lifted by a high school student.


    All of these were possible because the guy who was running SM at that time, Kim Youngmin, was crazy on boy groups and did not like girl groups. He even allowed Donghae&Eunhyuk to be released when SNSD was still in town,just to spite them.


    With a full support from SM,


    1 The album might be delayed but SNSD is sent to USA with a big fanfare

    2 A decent repackage would have silenced IU

    3 SNSD has a successful US promotion.


    Instead, the US venture eventually went nowhere, and now there was a singer who DID beat SNSD, and became an insoluble problem for Korean Pop , a problem which has not been resolved 11 years later


    SNSD at that time was on the cusp of a worldwide explosion, and it was SM's internal politics which stopped that.


    At that time the KPop industry was intoxicated of its own success and didn't know how to plan for the world yet.


    People learn from experience, but for SNSD it would be bittersweet since they had a Tokyo Dome concert in in 2014 and someone who only entered there as a guest among many (SNSD was also there) in 2011 will have a concert at the Chamshil Olympic Stadium this year.


    I will conclude this post with the song "Above the Time" by SNSD's archrival, who was also BTS' archrival. She released this song in 2019 to commemorate the 8th anniversary of knocking SNSD down.


    External Content www.youtube.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

    Get some credible SONEs to accept that they voted for IU instead of SoShi, because they were miffed at SM, then we will see.


    As to Good Day, it is very normal to consider November-December releases for the next year's awards.

    If at all Love Poem was robbed by Melon due to calendar mess.


    SNSDs legacy is secure, complete domination for 2-3 years and 7 years at the top is impressive for groups.

    Not many achieve it.


    Maybe they could have broken out in the West, but that's multi factored and no one knows why few did and others didn't.

    I guess no one knows what would've happened.


    I don't live in the US but I remember a lot of American fans mentioning that their US debut didn't come at the good time, because the interest for kpop there was still too small. Seems like the breakthrough moments was the release of Gangnam Style by Psy and that's when people in the US and all over the world became more interested in kpop.


    I've just checked google and GS was released July 2012, so just a few months after SNSD's American debut. Now it feels like a bit of a shame, cause mabe they could've had more success there if they postponed that. But no one knew back then what was going to happen.

    Quote from Isastar

    I guess no one knows what would've happened.


    I don't live in the US but I remember a lot of American fans mentioning that their US debut didn't come at the good time, because the interest for kpop there was still too small. Seems like the breakthrough moments was the release of Gangnam Style by Psy and that's when people in the US and all over the world became more interested in kpop.


    I've just checked google and GS was released July 2012, so just a few months after SNSD's American debut. Now it feels like a bit of a shame, cause mabe they could've had more success there if they postponed that. But no one knew back then what was going to happen.

    Yeah kpop really started picking up more in 2012 onwards when there were a lot more concerts happening worldwide (SM towns in America and France, kbs concerts in Japan, Google concert in America to name a few) even without Psy happening. So SNSD timing was a little early.


    However the worst thing is that even with the first bash appearing on letterman and the hallyu expansion in 2012 SM basically fully stopped with SNSD in America for no reason. With the hype of The Boys and Kpop growing influence that was the perfect opportunity to have a (brand new) English single or even mini album or at the very least expand their tours to include places outside Asia. SNSD could’ve potentially found some level fo success in the west, if they flopped they still likely would’ve made bank just by trying because of stronger currencies.


    SM didnt and wasted a huge opportunity. SM American dream died until Super M which may not have been successful on charts but made a killing regardless through tours and albums

    Quote from harambelives

    Yeah kpop really started picking up more in 2012 onwards when there were a lot more concerts happening worldwide (SM towns in America and France, kbs concerts in Japan, Google concert in America to name a few) even without Psy happening. So SNSD timing was a little early.


    However the worst thing is that even with the first bash appearing on letterman and the hallyu expansion in 2012 SM basically fully stopped with SNSD in America for no reason. With the hype of The Boys and Kpop growing influence that was the perfect opportunity to have a (brand new) English single or even mini album or at the very least expand their tours to include places outside Asia. SNSD could’ve potentially found some level fo success in the west, if they flopped they still likely would’ve made bank just by trying because of stronger currencies.


    SM didnt and wasted a huge opportunity. SM American dream died until Super M which may not have been successful on charts but made a killing regardless through tours and albums

    I compared IU's defeat of SNSD to battle of Trafalgar. It will probably be remembered by SNSD for a long time.


    Kim Youngmin, running SM at that time, had a clear preference on boy groups. Why , I don't know. So he would support boy groups and did everything to undermine SNSD and F(x). For the next 10 years, until aespa made its mark, girl groups were not the priority in SM.


    SM also wasted time trying to promote BoA.

    Never forget the time factor, Kpop was not nearly as widespread as it is today, it was starting to become an alternative choice to mainstream pop and people who listened to it were still very small in number and limited to very few acts.


    Kpop has been trying to break into the West for a long time, the problem is every company was fighting to be the one to have that "successful break," with varying results. But as someone has pointed out it wasn't the right time.


    Finally, SNSD debut was meh, they try to do it with one of their most successful Korean songs but they try to make it sound American and it didn't fully work out. Plus, SNSD's image at the time was not the image of Western female stars at the time, and people were less open to accepting foreign acts. I read some comments at the time and people thought their music were for children or Disney radio.


    Acts like 2ne1 and Big Bang had better acceptance because they were close to what the West liked, however, only 2ne1 was put in involuntary hiatus when YG tried to push CL's career in the US. I don't know if Big Bang actively tried to break into the West but they were one of the few kpop acts who were known outside of Korea.

  • AllKill VIP
    Quote from soshilovelife

    Never forget the time factor, Kpop was not nearly as widespread as it is today, it was starting to become an alternative choice to mainstream pop and people who listened to it were still very small in number and limited to very few acts.

    I am a good example of that, I found kpop through Gee's gifs on Tumblr and felt in love with the clothes and the sync choreo. It was a breath of fresh air for pop music.


    Now I'm running away again because it's starting to be too much like the west. 😔

    Quote from susanamendes

    I am a good example of that, I found kpop through Gee's gifs on Tumblr and felt in love with the clothes and the sync choreo. It was a breath of fresh air for pop music.


    Now I'm running away again because it's starting to be too much like the west. 😔

    Same, one thing I used to like about kpop was how different it was despite being something so familiar as pop music.


    MAybe is the fact music has changed or I've gotten old but I´m not a huge fan of music nowadays.

    I think they would have been more “top of (GP) mind” of early mainstream frontrunners with additional “paving the way claims” for K-Pop in the West.


    If they had another west world appealing single/song between and after “The Boys” and “Got A Boy”, I also think it would have made a difference if promo’ed properly.


    I wish their team knew how to muti-region pivot like how Twice’s team has done between S.Korea, Japan, and the US.

  • AllKill VIP

    No. In hindsight none of the top groups of that era had what it took to breach the US or European markets (except maybe BB). SM probably looked at other girl groups who tried to expand there and assessed that the return on investment was just not worth it. Still sad that they never held a solo concert outside of Asia, but then again SM was always risk averse when it comes to touring with their girl groups.

    tumblr_mbacq1PDzs1rvedkto1_500.gifv

    少女時代

Participate now!

Don’t have an account yet? Register yourself now and be a part of our community!

Register Yourself Login