Is Lee Hi - Only the most successful K-pop female solo song? (that is not blackpink)

    Totally shocked when I saw her spotify numbers for Only, it has accumulated 420 Million streams.


    I checked IU, Hwasa, and Somi which are probably more known internationally, but I don’t think any of their songs has crossed that number.

  • AllKill VIP

    Kind of side topic...


    But Lee Hi's Breathe written by Jonghyun is one of the most beautiful and saddest songs I've ever heard.


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

    She is successful.

    But comparisons based only on Spotify will be skewed.


    And BP members are not Soloists, while the group is still active. They are SolUnits, subunit of 1 member, leveraging group fandoms. And as are other such cases.

    Their viability as soloists will be known, only when the group has gone inactive for some years.

    Quote from bbgc

    She is successful.

    But comparisons based only on Spotify will be skewed.


    And BP members are not Soloists, while the group is still active. They are SolUnits, subunit of 1 member, leveraging group fandoms. And as are other such cases.

    Their viability as soloists will be known, only when the group has gone inactive for some years.

    They are soloists. Unless you tell me all their songs are credited to BP and not their own.

    Quote from monalisalove

    They are soloists. Unless you tell me all their songs are credited to BP and not their own

    Kpop makes new categories all the time.

    The dynamics of a group member's success when their group is active is very different from when the group is not active or the person never was part of a group.


    But sure, fans will claim technically it is still solo, to hide the fact that the members might have little success without their groups.


    It is not just in Kpop. even elsewhere, very few of any successful group manage to make it on their own.

    Harry Styles, Beyonce - rest group members went nowhere.

    In Kpop, Taeyeon and G-Dragon.


    Same will happen to BP/BTS, at best one or two, will grow into true soloist, independent of their groups.


    Hence to differentiate, being solo while still in active group, I am calling them SolUnits.

    Let them prove their success after the group is in the past, then sure.


    You don't need to like my label.

    Agree about having a success career after years of the group inactive, but even with the group active they are still soloists.

    Quote from what-if-i

    Totally shocked when I saw her spotify numbers for Only, it has accumulated 420 Million streams.


    I checked IU, Hwasa, and Somi which are probably more known internationally, but I don’t think any of their songs has crossed that number.

    I love her, but no, she isn't the most successful. Pretty much everyone you mentioned has more songs with 100s of millions of streams. Lee Hi only has one. Sorry, two. Breathe has 100M also.


    Their overall stats:


    IU: 3.1B

    Hwasa: 1.8B (with the Dua Lipa collab, Kworb didn't include the main version with 1B streams)

    Lee Hi: 1.2B

    Somi: 800M


    Only SOLO stats:


    IU: 2.1B

    Somi: 798M

    Lee Hi: 783M

    Hwasa: 664M

    Title said “song” not soloist

Participate now!

Don’t have an account yet? Register yourself now and be a part of our community!

Register Yourself Login