Soumu and SM were stupid

i mean, Source should actually coordinate since they are under the same parent, but SM has too many acts to promote to have another company dictate their release schedule.

If Aespa didn’t release when they did, who knows when they could next, plus it was already delayed to due SM company fights.

Plus i think more and more, album printing is becoming a problem, as we saw with EXO & Jimin. Who knows how much factors like, how much albums can we have ready to ship by X date etc. play into dates.

you know fans of the big five are entitled when they're complaints amount to

"Why didn't X dog walk the top of the charts for seven months in a row"

About songs that are doing better than 99% of the industry and will be on the charts for longer than actual years.

They actually pick the best time to release their songs. pre summer is historically the best opportunity to ensure hit songs, as Koreans love uptempo songs during the summer

Considering Spicy and LSRF arr still at the top 20 even with NJ album bomb I'd say the release window was correct

Actually i would say that Hybe (i think LSRFM is a Hybe group, BangPD has twice been featured promoting with LSRFM while we have never seen the supposed Source CEO once lol) messed up with the song choice, not just the release date. My guess is that Bluebeard could have hit 500k (Unforgiven maxed at 440k and fell fairly fast) and stayed near its peak longer.

Although i do agree with you that they and SM coulda done a better job spacing out their comebacks knowing that Ive, NJ and Idle are the top 3 digimons.

Dec/Jan was NJ.

Mar/Apr was Ive.

May was Idle.

July was NJ.

Which left June and August as much better months for Spicy and Unforgiven. Like if Unforgiven was out now, it would have reached #1 on the Daily and Weekly charts with NJ's UL counts below 400k. Spicy did a little better, i think it did manage to get several #1's on Melon Daily and maybe even one week at #1 before kwinka hit. Unforgiven only managed Melon Top 100 #1.

Having #1s for weeks in Korea are nice, but big picture, it has never been about Korea, as music tastes in Korea are different to the rest of the world. The big money is international concerts.

For the more important aim of increasing the international fanbase, they both scarily over-achieved this comeback, especially Aespa.

There is a reason why both Twice and Stray Kids don't care about how they chart in Korea, and that is because Korea just doesn't matter anymore.

I do wonder sometimes if kpop companies don't collude with each other behind the scenes to like not release music within like xyz days of another big x company

Quote from selfmate

I do wonder sometimes if kpop companies don't collude with each other behind the scenes to like not release music within like xyz days of another big x company

Hybe uses YG to distribute, so Hybe and YG do not overlap.

Kakao owns/distributes Starship (ive), SM (aespa) and Cube(gidle), so these companies do not overlap releases.

Quote from K-PL

Hybe uses YG to distribute, so Hybe and YG do not overlap.

Kakao owns/distributes Starship (ive), SM (aespa) and Cube(gidle), so these companies do not overlap releases.

I was thinking more intercompany collusion

obviously someone with more time on their hands and data might compile a list of all big x releases that have occured within say 1 or 2 weeks of one another

i personally think them releasing back to back was brilliant idea and it worked well for all 4 of the groups.

They basically ramped up their stans to work harder to get better charting, and when more popular groups comeback together, there will be more potential listeners tune it. As evidenced by the ULs, all 4 title tracks have pretty good ULs even by their own standards

Quote from selfmate

I do wonder sometimes if kpop companies don't collude with each other behind the scenes to like not release music within like xyz days of another big x company

They definitely do. Due to many reasons:

1) promotional slots

2) album printing and distributions

3) retailer stores carrying too much new albums

4) and of course, most important, to avoid direct competition

We rarely see big groups comeback on same day / same week. When 1 comeback from top group is announced, usually other companies will amend the schedule to avoid direct competition

Were?

You mean ARE STUPID.

Quote from bartkun

I'm always surprised why not so many groups chose january/early feb as release time.

Even for music shows I remember how successful was (G)I-DLE's Hwaa, and it was released on 11th January

Honestly if groups or companies are gunning for SOTY, they should just release them earlier in the year to get as much points as they can.

The gap between Love Dive and Tomboy was so close last year although Love Dive won despite being released later.

Unless you are BTS, you are better off releasing way earlier to have a headstart

Quote from Fluffers

you know fans of the big five are entitled when they're complaints amount to

"Why didn't X dog walk the top of the charts for seven months in a row"

About songs that are doing better than 99% of the industry and will be on the charts for longer than actual years.

nobody cares about climate change, world hunger or other trivial things. misplacing airpods or a bad haircut is what really troubles people...

how do i take kpop fans serious if they release threads like op?

Quote from bartkun

I'm always surprised why not so many groups chose january/early feb as release time.

Even for music shows I remember how successful was (G)I-DLE's Hwaa, and it was released on 11th January

The ULs during those periods are usually low i.e. less impact a song can make in long rum. Take Taeyeon's INVU last year Feb, it was #1 but actually peak ULs are quite low.

ALSO, idol songs tend to do poorer in 1st quarter (not sure about the reason). And usually the more mellow songs will fare better in Q1. There are exceptions of course, there was idol songs with more mellow melody which did extremely well - Love scenario, Ditto

Quote from catzi

if that doesnt interest you you can just leave the thread cause as you can see other responses show just as much interest as i do and its very cynical of u to pretend charts isnt something kpop stans talk about all the time and cherrypick my thread in particular like... What a choice to be obnoxious here instead of making a thread about climate change or something like that if thats so much more interesting to you

no. its very interesting to see what the kids care about.

maybe your are right and what soumu and sm did was amonst the most stupid decisions a kpop company did this year. but im also free to have another point of view.

Anyone else think it's actually a great idea to release at the same time as huge acts?

Like it's just bonus exposure to fans that might never have checked you out.

Fans of groups are more likely to "work harder" due to the competition.

Like there's just a lot of hidden benefits to it. In this time, those tik tok challenges are an example. Interactions between groups can improve relationships between their fandoms. As some other examples.

The timing was perfect for a summer cb. If a summer song like Spicy was released later, it wouldn't serve longevity. For Unforgiven, the song isn't that summerish compared to Spicy, so it could have been released sooner or later.