YamaChan's Official Fourth Generation Girl Group Tier List

After nearly two years of debating and discussing the relative accomplishments of the fourth generation girl groups, and countless fanwars, I, YamaChan, have finally put together the ultimate 4th generation girl group tier list, based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to: "I'd blast their music in my car with the windows down" and "trust me. It just feels right"

Without further ado, here is the tier list

Now it would be no fun for me, if I didn't offer a brief explanation for why I arranged these in the way that I did.

A few important notes:

• I ranked groups within each tier from left to right going highest to lowest, so how I placed each group in their individual tiers matters.
• Babymonster and Young Posse's inclusion depend on whether or not you think 5th generation has started, but I wanted to rank them just for fun
• Recency bias does play some factor into my rankings
• By FAR the hardest to sort through were the lower tiers, because I never look at their numbers and they have very little chart presence
• I will not be spamming numbers outside of a thread I linked to. I've done enough of that with all my other threads.

So let me try to succinctly explain each tier. I'm putting each breakdown in spoilers to keep things nice and compact.

S Tier:

A Tier:

B Tier:

C Tier:

D Tier:

F Tier:

I think I cooked with this tier ranking. As a famous TV personality likes to say, this list is fluid. The only constant in life is change, and I fully expect things to shift around over the next year. Maybe a group actually does move up to S tier. Maybe a miracle happens for the F Tiers.

Maybe I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, but this was fun.

Leave me a review on yelp and let me know how I did (vote). The votes will be anonymous.

Quote from KYL

i think kep1er should at least be a c tier

Quote from ellenote

Nah dude, Take Itzy and Nmixx out of B tier and put them in C tier, Bump down everyone else in C tier to D tier, put baby monster in F tier, bump up IVE to S tier, take out Fifty Fifty and put them in C tier because their scandal affected their popularity, Put Stayc in C tier as well, Take NiziU out the list, and then I can say you cooked.

Everything after A tier was difficult to sort through

But Itzy and NMIXX have some hit songs. Not at the level of the other top girl groups, but it's better than the groups below them.

What's the argument for Kepler being higher?

Quote from Dreamer95

I hate you

Waiting for reasons why I shouldn't move them to F Tier tbh

Quote from KYL

kep1er discog is actually good. lotta underrated bsides. they're also do well in variety. all they're missing is a mega hit title track

Oh this list would look a lot different if it were based on song quality. This is purely popularity/success/statistics based.

Quote from killthisfenty

Accurate but NMIXX isn’t B tier. I‘m sorry they’re b

I put them into B based on the strength of Love Me Like This and their album sales. I assume you meant they're C Tier.

I was on the fence with that. It wouldn't be hard to convince me to place them there.

I'll leave them at B for now

Quote from monamia

At least QWER was even acknowledged. They seem to have a bright future.

Of course. I've only heard two of their songs but I like them both, and I hope they continue to do well. Koreans seem to love them based on all the comments I can't read on their YT uploads

Quote from Dreamer95

I don't award bonus points for bot activities

Quote from wsoet

Billlie, Everglow, Lightsum, Loona, Secret Number, TripleS, and Weeekly could be considered some notable omissions.

You're not wrong.

I'm not doing any more writeups but I may update the tier later to include them.

None of those groups would be above D Tier though with the possible exception of Loona...maybe

Quote from jinaland

I wish I had the free time u have

It's called PTO. I work hard and play even harder. I have enough money in the bank that I could probably not work for a decade and be okay. Free time is a luxury of the financially stable

Plus this only took a hour to do. I write and edit for a living. This is easy for me.

Quote from Semirhage

I broadly agree with your tier list. Especially the top tiers, I’m not super familiar with some of the less popular groups. And as you say, things can change, but this is pretty representative of the current state of play.

Thank you. I thought I was as fair and objective as possible on the top groups. The less popular ones are indeed super hard, and it would take me hours to go through every piece of data for every girl group. I did the best I could with the time I was willing to invest.

Most of this is based on my general knowledge.

Quote from Dreamer95

Then why is New Jeans S tier?

Find me hard evidence of Payola and I'll drop them into D Tier with Babymonster

Quote from OnceMidzy4ever

Based in talent? But in that way OP would have to take out Newjeans of the top. And that is not going to happen.

If it was based on talent, and I opened it up to multiple generations, my favorite group would still be top tier

Quote from OnceMidzy4ever

Agree with you. Newjeans wouldn't be on top

They sure as hell wouldn't. But we know my Radish Queens would

Maybe I'll do another one of these based strictly on vocals or dance or something 🤔

Quote from selfmate

interesting

Thank you for your input

Quote from Dreamer95

Also Gidle after this comeback is definitely A+ tier.

So you want them ahead of IVE?

Quote from ThePhantomThief

Kiss of Life too low and no XG

You served a bowl of poop

Well where would you put Kiss of Life

And I'd probably put XG at C Tier? They're such a unique group that it's hard to directly compare them to traditional kpop girl groups

Quote from ThePhantomThief

charts and numbers?

Yes

Quote from ThePhantomThief

The Former is B, the latter is C. They should be at least on QWER tier

XG wasn't on the list of girl groups. I just checked to confirm that. I would've put them in C tier if I had the option

Quote from QueenMaknae27

IVE should be in the S-tier you flop

Not when they're ghosts on the Billboard and behind NewJeans on Circle Digital by over 1.3 billion points