I hate to say it, but aespa really fumbled 2025

It was the debut year of Hearts2Hearts, what did you expect?

Agreed. Aespa doesn’t really have strong competitors like Red Velvet or f(x). They actually had a chance to solidify their spot at the top, but sadly they didn’t manage to do that this year. Still, I wouldn’t say they lost, with a song like Rich Man, they at least kept their level. It wasn’t a bad showing.

i don't even think it's in sm's interest to push aespa this year. they needed the last year push i guess to get a better rep and sell sm at a better price to tencent or smth. but now that it's done, they took the risk to literally sabotage aespa or at least limit their growth for the benefice of h2h.

aespa is on their 5th year and their contract will expire in 2 years, sm probably think they need to make their new gg go big before that happens.

why they're so greedy and adament of doing it in the first year of their debut is still wierd, i guess the industry has become more fast paced but i feel like they need to dim aespa over dominaring light a bit to allow their rookie group to shine and have their dominant breakthrough idk.

that's how usually sm operates, they make some scandals of their older ggs who's contracts are expiring and push their rookie ggs more right after.

everytime these aespa scandals happened this year, sm bounced up pretty fast too, like they debunked the maga sh*t with the presence of the blue items in karina's insta posts (curiously both colors were present ), they send back up dancers after the gma debacle etc...

it's like they want to weaken aespa's popularity but NOT TOO MUCH. because they can't take such a risk, what IF h2h flops?

moreover i'm pretty sure these hate trains were primarly instigated by hybe tag pr, and hybe was also on a mission to break aespa's shine cause they got TOO BIG, step on them and redore their ggs images. just typical but very nasty hybe sh*t yk .

i just think this was never gonna be aespa's year anyway.

the girls still did well and depending of how h2h is gonna perform this comback, sm's strategy is gonna have to adapt again.

if they flop, maybe sm will have to treat aespa better? i'm pretty sure with another bop, they will dominate sk/asia again with ease. they will need more push for the western market tho.

i personally hope njz are gonna comback next year, and both group will deliver quality and impact as well !

but with this lagging of in 25, aespa won't have the full advantage of their extremely dominant 24 and nj being gone for so long anymore. so i guess, their underperformance this year also benefits njz in some way . aespa won't take the advance they could have.

but both group's peak 23 and 24 is still on the mind of the gp. so they just need good songs to dominate the market again. NJ as this gens leaders (more global) and aespa the second leaders (more asia).

ANYWAY STAN AEJEANZ, BEST GGs, BEST GURLS .

Do you really hate to say it tho?

Considering that there was the huge disaster named KPop Demon Hunters, they held their ground. Not great, but not as badly as the former owner of Edam entertainment.

Quote from Yama-Chan

i make sense right

and maybe for the first time your realised i did

cause generally you just send me this meme

hehehe

My biggest laugh is them trying to fraudulently gain Spotify streams to land on billboard hot 100

Quote from Yama-Chan

I considered it once I got to the halfway point of your message, but I decided to give you a break this time and I already regret it so

damn it!

maybe i should have stayed quiet! but you were so unclear with your meme .

i stand on business tho

Agreed, they lost and wasn't able to maintain. 2024 might've been a fluke because everything went right for them tbh. I don't think they did a good enough job to maintain because quality of music took a serious decline, and too many controversies.

Quote from JUSTVIBING

My biggest laugh is them trying to fraudulently gain Spotify streams to land on billboard hot 100

ive streams looked even more fraudulent, maybe people should focus on them too uh?

Quote from Tatiana1820

ive streams looked even more fraudulent, maybe people should focus on them too uh?

lol no it didn’t stop lying lmao. Anyway IVE looks like they will surpass Aespa on melon in the next few weeks even though their song is a month older. Thoughts?

Quote from JUSTVIBING

lol no it didn’t stop lying lmao. Anyway IVE looks like they will surpass Aespa on melon in the next few weeks even though their song is a month older. Thoughts?

what do you even mean in your first sentence

'nyway, surpass where? all aespa songs are outperfoming ive lol. and they have 3 songs in the top 15 .

anyway i don't even trust starsh*t, they're shady af, i feel like starsh*t is just another hybe but with a smaller d*ck but hybe still has a smaller d*ck energy smh. so more nasty, evil, you name it ...

Quote from Tatiana1820

what do you even mean in your first sentence

'nyway, surpass where? all aespa songs are outperfoming ive lol. and they have 3 songs in the top 15 .

anyway i don't even trust starsh*t, they're shady af, i feel like starsh*t is just another hybe but with a smaller d*ck but hybe still has a smaller d*ck energy smh. so more nasty, evil, you name it ...

I will quote you in 3 weeks

Quote from JUSTVIBING

My biggest laugh is them trying to fraudulently gain Spotify streams to land on billboard hot 100

.. it didn't chart a single on Spotify US so wouldn't that make SM the biggest idiots of all time buying streams in the wrong country

Quote from Yama-Chan

Agreed.

The 2024 songs were honestly at least two tiers better than the 2025 songs, especially Rich Man. And SM's strategy to finally make impact and grow in the West, specifically the U.S., were awkward and clumsily executed.

Honestly, they could have recovered if Rich Man was a better song or had better choreography. There's been many songs that were saved because of the performance and Rich Man had no chance of doing that for them. Just look how Katseye performance for Gnarly saved that song and improved their reputation. The choreography for Richman being bad and did a lot of damage to them. I think many will have in their minds the GMA performance looking like a mess. Also doesn't help some idols were executing the challenge better than them.

I think SM needs to go back to the drawing board because they can still recover. I just think this was the year to solidify their spot, but they didn't leave their mark,. Maybe I'm wrong, but I I don't think they'll make any grounds in the US market. I just don't think SM understands the market to make it happen, and we never know what can happen with renewal. Like we don't know if there's better opportunities for certain members if they go solo.

Anyway, this was their window to solidify themselves as "the" group and they fumbled

They didn't live up to 2024, and let's hope this makes them never release a song like Rich Man again

To be fair, Rich Man is awful and still charted for a while

If the song was good maybe they could surpass Golden

Quote from Yama-Chan

Numbers wise, we don't need to revisit the disaster of their attempts to finally gain traction in the West and appear on the Billboard Hot 100 (paging icyruios ), but domestically their music simply wasn't as well received as the Supernova/Armageddon/Whiplash trio.

Wtf did I do?

Nothing new. It’s already their time to become legacy as far as SM is concerned.

Quote from Yama-Chan

I just knew you, like me, were a member of the captive audience that was seated and waiting to see if Mys could successfully ri--uhhhh orchestrate for aespa to finally debut on the Billboard Hot 100.

I don't know what you are talking about

We should get shocked when SM isn't fumbling

I can smell a certain MY coming in here to cry wolf

is aespa more local or ive more local?

And even with all the screw ups they are charting better than any 4th gen Girl Group, just think about that

The Hearts2Hearts argument only makes sense if SM has some sort of limited resource that they had to divert to H2H, but I can’t figure what that resource might be it’s certainly not money, nor is it song writers as they buy songs from European writers.

The way gens work now, with them all overlapping each other, it should have been obvious they wouldn’t be playing in the same ballpark. Artificially holding Aespa back, gains h2h nothing.

Quote from Bottles

The Hearts2Hearts argument only makes sense if SM has some sort of limited resource that they had to divert to H2H, but I can’t figure what that resource might be it’s certainly not money, nor is it song writers as they buy songs from European writers.

The way gens work now, with them all overlapping each other, it should have been obvious they wouldn’t be playing in the same ballpark. Artificially holding Aespa back, gains h2h nothing.

It’s less about all that and more about their brand. They are only relevant as a brand if their newer groups succeed

(In their minds and this may or may not be true) there is probably not much more to gain financially with Aespa by promoting more. E.g after a point group will always get a certain size of tour and album sales regardless of how much ever they are promoted.

Now by promoting H2H SM will unlock a whole new potential for album sales and touring aka source of revenue

Quote from Yama-Chan

He's 100% going to fuck this thread. He never wants the smoke when it's obvious he can't easily argue aespa's superiority.

I did warn him in 2024 that it's way too soon to start bragging and going after other girl groups and their fandoms.

Imo, MYs shouldn't even be getting so cocky about aespa's dominance when it could only be achieved after the strongest 4th gen ggs were put down.