The fall of KPop album sales is quite concerning

Quote from WhyKnock

The album sales of Seventeen and aespa in this month will probably show where KPop is heading to.

Although some acts were able to hold on, generally KPop album sales declined by around 30-40%.

SVT sold about 2.9mil and aespa 1.15mil in their first weeks this year. If there are marked decline to these figures that means the decline of KPop is permanent and cannot really be reversed.

Out of all the singers who had concerts in the Olympic or Soccer Stadium, all but two, including Lim Youngwoong, had sales north of 1 million. One of the exceptions was Psy who had more than 1 Billion views.

Yet the Koreans allowed someone who neither sold 1 million albums nor had 1 billion views to have a concert larger than anyone else. Her 2024 concert is the largest concert ever held in Korea during the 2020s, and will remain so since Korea no longer has any stadium capable of housing more than 35,000 now.

I see it as shooting its own feet.

The singer, whose name I won't mention here, had a larger concert than everyone in this year who had more than a million album sales, basically showing the world that all these album sales might not show the real popularity of such acts, to put it mildly.

I think that more than anything , this

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signified the beginning of the end of the album explosion of KPop.

It took quite some time for the reality to sink in, but if someone who never sold more than 400,000 albums in her entire career can have a larger concert than all these acts who sold more than a million copies, what were the fans doing by buying multiple copies of albums?

That was the beginning of a huge trend change. The singer who only had hostility against KPop might be getting her final revenge after all.

The general retreat of KPop from all across the board is turning into a rout, and at this rate on 2025 the highest selling act won't beat 2,000,000.

People like Day6 and Qwer do not clear huge numbers of albums.

What will happen to Kpop ? WIthout the huge sales the fervor cannot continue for too long. It was wrong to tolerate someone who regularly undermined KPop whenever she could, and that is going to hurt a lot.

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Why do people even buy this cardboard in such quantities, is it some kind of fetish? I personally bought a couple of albums, but I never even thought of buying several versions of one album.

Quote from WhyKnock

The album sales of Seventeen and aespa in this month will probably show where KPop is heading to.

Although some acts were able to hold on, generally KPop album sales declined by around 30-40%.

SVT sold about 2.9mil and aespa 1.15mil in their first weeks this year. If there are marked decline to these figures that means the decline of KPop is permanent and cannot really be reversed.

Out of all the singers who had concerts in the Olympic or Soccer Stadium, all but two, including Lim Youngwoong, had sales north of 1 million. One of the exceptions was Psy who had more than 1 Billion views.

Yet the Koreans allowed someone who neither sold 1 million albums nor had 1 billion views to have a concert larger than anyone else. Her 2024 concert is the largest concert ever held in Korea during the 2020s, and will remain so since Korea no longer has any stadium capable of housing more than 35,000 now.

I see it as shooting its own feet.

The singer, whose name I won't mention here, had a larger concert than everyone in this year who had more than a million album sales, basically showing the world that all these album sales might not show the real popularity of such acts, to put it mildly.

I think that more than anything , this

External Content youtu.be

Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.

Display all external content

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.

signified the beginning of the end of the album explosion of KPop.

It took quite some time for the reality to sink in, but if someone who never sold more than 400,000 albums in her entire career can have a larger concert than all these acts who sold more than a million copies, what were the fans doing by buying multiple copies of albums?

That was the beginning of a huge trend change. The singer who only had hostility against KPop might be getting her final revenge after all.

The general retreat of KPop from all across the board is turning into a rout, and at this rate on 2025 the highest selling act won't beat 2,000,000.

People like Day6 and Qwer do not clear huge numbers of albums.

What will happen to Kpop ? WIthout the huge sales the fervor cannot continue for too long. It was wrong to tolerate someone who regularly undermined KPop whenever she could, and that is going to hurt a lot.

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What was a point when the whole industry went the wrong way? I clearly see, that kpop sucks nowadays. Stupid payola and boring nonsense girl crush "female empowerment" groups with cheap electronic music. We often mention unfamous HYBE as the leader of this toxicity, but lets be honest, other entertainments just don't have a money to repeat the same.

Any B-tier half-nugus from 2nd gen sound better than any 4th gen gg from leaders' pool.

Quote from Sugary-Salt

What was a point when the whole industry went the wrong way? I clearly see, that kpop sucks nowadays. Stupid payola and boring nonsense girl crush "female empowerment" groups with cheap electronic music. We often mention unfamous HYBE as the leader of this toxicity, but lets be honest, other entertainments just don't have a money to repeat the same.

Any B-tier half-nugus from 2nd gen sound better than any 4th gen gg from leaders' pool.

There’s nothing more trashy and garbage than 2nd gen music so this is rich. If that shit music was released now it would be trolled harder than any 4th Gen music.

the sea turtles prayers being hear

Quote from ISaidISaid

There’s nothing more trashy and garbage than 2nd gen music so this is rich. If that shit music was released now it would be trolled harder than any 4th Gen music.

I think this discussion deserves a separate thread

Quote from ISaidISaid

There’s nothing more trashy and garbage than 2nd gen music so this is rich. If that shit music was released now it would be trolled harder than any 4th Gen music.

it was 2nd gen that more or less created kpop, it's the pure kpop. What came after build on it and in many cases it has not developet in a good way.

Quote from patrik-k

it was 2nd gen that more or less created kpop, it's the pure kpop. What came after build on it and in many cases it have not developet in a good way.

Doesn’t make it less trashy.

It aged very poorly.

Quote from ISaidISaid

Doesn’t make it less trashy.

It aged very poorly.

I would not say that, yes some songs maybe is not that fun today, but you have a lot of still epic good songs and some, well just still good. I don't thing the todays songs will be much better in a decade or so.

Quote from patrik-k

I would not say that, yes some songs maybe is not that fun today, but you have a lot of still epic good songs and some, well just still good. I don't thing the todays songs will be much better in a decade or so.

Idk who you’re trying to convince it won’t be me.

I'm still blaming Covid for the inflation of album sales few years back

now that lockdowns and restrictions are no longer a thing, the album sales are coming down and people would rather spend that money on concert tickets than buying more albums just to show support

K-pop yearly album sales in South Korea decreased for the first time since 2014. This year album sales totaled 92,669,650 copies, down 19.5% compared to last year.

So Hanteo is a total joke a "mistake" with an >20% sales increase compared to previously reported sales for a lot of albums Not sure Circle Chart is better

I think it's a mix of reasons. Big groups are oversaturated, the pandemic boom meant people wanted to participate in community in some way and often had more free time, people that got into kpop dueing the pandemic moving on to other interests, the economic situation for most people globally is becoming more difficult, the way that people pass between girl groups when the new big thing happens, less fansigns since the pandemic boom so less reason for fans to bulk buy. I do think it's an ever-changing market though.