Aespa started the year strong with savage still charting high, DCT peaked top 10, Step Back top 5 and they were trending everywhere.
Now I barely see articles about them and girls is about to leave top 30 and Illusion isn't nowhere close to being a hit.
What went wrong for Aespa? Why couldn't they keep their success like IVE?
My take as a non-fan / casual fan who listens to their music a decent amount:
Girls just didn't cut it as a title track. Switching to Illusion probably would not have changed much, it's good but not good enough to be a TT either. They just needed a better title track, Girls is without a doubt their weakest title so far and I stopped listening to it after the release week.
Illusion had the potential to be a NL/Savage-tier song but there are some awkward parts and it gets a bit repetitive. I can completely see why they made Girls the TT though and I think they did the right choice.
When you are at a starting point where ALL eyes are on you and you can sell millions of records without people even hearing the music there's zero valid excuses like 'no promotions' or whatever bs. The song was not good enough, that's all there is to it. It's not a BAD song by any means but you can't expect to be getting PAKs by default with a mediocre release like this.
the music didn't hit off and SM wanting to make them blackpink 2.0 with less promo and exclusive image doesn't help, too much competition to play hard to get, why would knetz wait for SM to let aespa appear on TV after 10 years when they can get IVE which company actually let them on TV, they killed the hype too with 2 pre releases too
But is not the end of it, they could recover, better song, better promos, jaw dropping teasers to regain the hype, aespa is a still young group
Girls was boring and forgettable. It tried to be experiential and at the same time a normal song but it did neither that well and met in an awkward middle ground.
Most the top 10 chart for the last couple months have been more normal songs like IVE, NJ, SNSD and Itzy so that's probably what they should've gone for. Only pink venom was more experimental and lbh is only doing well because of BP name because otherwise it would be a flop.
SM are running low on songs and releasing more mediocre TTs as a result. Hopefully the mini hiatus will get them hit-level songs
Agree with this. Just heard the MV teaser for NCT 127's comeback title track song and it's so cringe, assuming that it's the chorus since they mentioned 2BADDIES. The instrumental is actually nice but the lyrics 💀. Wth is 2BADDIES 1 PORSCHE? They are just throwing random words together. SM needs to work on finding better songs for these two groups.
wrong choice of title track and messy to non existent Korean promos
I think their songs being around the same topic it's just boring, it's not a concept but a theme and lyrics matter in koop songs for Koreans
Like talking about love, boyd, being the best can be repetitive but it's always approach in different ways but aespa focus is kwanya (or however u write it) and naevis and after a while it just sound gimmicky, it make u wonder if all their tt will always be about that even when they are a older gg
the song they are releasing lately are not good enough. Not to the same level other 4 gg like Ive or New Jeans.
They are trying to be the new BP but they are not even the same level of their same generation peers.
SM thinks just saying the are like BP and giving a "cool" image its done. But they are doing a lazy work both with music and MV.
Ive and New Jeans look fresher on Stage, with good stage presence and Charismatic members
they were not ready to debut, these girls still look green on stage. Younger generations are doing better
It's not just the song, the song just iced a shitty cake.
Even before Girls landed with all the impact of a toddler punching Mike Tyson, the cracks were beginning to appear in the aespa facade. Less loyal kfans and ifans were already jumping ship to IVE and others. There were more and more minor scandals about the members, especially NingNing and Giselle. There was a lot of scrutiny on the quality of their live performances, all the way back to MAMA 2021 (when a group aespa supposedly "ended" schooled them). There were already a thousand small cuts, but that could have been recovered with a strong comeback. Instead, all Girls did was compound some growing problems.
Also, and this is probably just my opinion, but SM shelters the aespa girls too much. They seem very boring and restrained, like SM won't let them be themselves properly.
In the beginning of the year, I kept saying that mys should stop bragging that much, to stop picking fights with other fandoms because the future is unknown and we've seen many times how groups at the top had a big fall. now i guess it's time for mys to get humbled and realize that aespa aren't as unreachable as they had thought they were
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