Why do most idols abandon music, once they find success in acting?

Music career isn't for everyone lbr. Either they lack the passion or skills or both.

Acting is also not really for everyone either but it's more accommodating. Personally i feel most idols prefer acting and being cf modeling than music. Idol life is a stepping stone.

Everyone has the same hyper strict visual standards, but actors dont have to crash diet AND practice choreo till 2AM in the morning or do 20 concerts in 40 days and push their bodies to the limit.

Actors aren't expected to do regular fanservice and forced to manage every microexpression on their face or every syllable that comes out of their mouths. Actors arent forced to live and work with people they hate for seven plus years.

You have to really truly love singing and dancing, being in front of the camera, and interacting day and night with strangers and acquaintances alike to stay in idol life for the long term.

Quote from Lulu_Key

Another reason is bc their solo stans want them to

Once they hit big with acting, their solo stans will throw hissy fits if they go back to their groups for music

This is actually a great point about what the idols even want vs the fan expectations. Haechan's fans were clamoring for him to have acting work to the point he had to say "I don't want to act, I just want to make music." Sometimes the fandoms are a lot more worried about it than the idols.

I'd also say that sometimes it's difficult, just from a scheduling perspective, to maintain acting AND music careers simultaneously, so some might choose to just focus on one.

One more thought: it also depends on your role in the group. It feels like most main vocalists stay in music but main vocalists only represent 2 to 3 members of a 7 to 9 person group. Unless you are a top group with a strong fanbase, it's very hard to have a successful solo career when you are a lead or sub-vocalist, a main dancer or a rapper (we all know most idols rappers are not at the level of overall k hip hop.) It's not impossible, but it's not easy. Even if you are successful, people micro-manage your sales performance against the group's performance.

Like Suho (a lead vocalist) had a successful solo album this year. But people dragged the sales because it wasn't as high as the group or one of the main vocalists (Baekhyun). Yet, for a soloist, he crushed it and it's one of the top selling solos of the year. Suho is tremendously talented and successful, so I don't think he's sweating it, but not every idol has been in a group with the success and visibility of EXO..

Quote from bbgc

The only exceptions seem to be IU and Eunji, everyone else either completely abandons or drastically reduce their work in music.

Workload, profits can only be part of the reason.

If they genuinely enjoyed perfoming music, why would they drop it so quickly?

Not even Youtube covers etc.

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Aside from all the others mentioned in the thread Siwon still does yearly comebacks, Lay is putting out solo albums, Seolhyun has perfectly good reasons beyond acting for why her group stopped but since you mentioned it, she does do Youtube covers when she wants too.