What do u think about "That group is not popular, they just sell albums"

people form groups to earn money and selling albums means money and no-one will spend money on something they don't like so if they sell albums they r popular

Well, it's true that bulk buying has made sales numbers questionable when it comes to gauge a group's popularity. 20 years ago things were simpler in that regard. However, if a group sells huge quantities, that means they definitely have a significant fanbase. A small, irrelevant fanbase is not gonna raise millions out of nowhere.

Albums are the best indicator of popularity. Inspiring someone to put down 10-30 bucks to buy a physical album in this day and age when music is essentially free is a max flex move, this is literally the epitome of "popularity".

Every artist on Earth would rather have 200k hardcore fans buying 1M albums per comeback vs getting paid literal fractions of a cent from cheapos on Spotify.

I've always said that sales shows that the group has a large fan base. But talking about popularity is a more controversial topic, you can have it in the beginning or later. The problem is that there are now many methods to become popular in an organic or manipulated way. We only have to wait about 5 years to see which group is popular or with a great fandom.

sometimes it's true well depends of the way you are looking at it though it might make a group seem more popular than they actually are (it happens mostly with boy groups)

bulkbuying is a thing

They are popular everywhere and nowhere at the same time

Imo if a group is selling millions of albums, that in itself is a proof of their popularity. Those two things are invariably tied to each other.

Probably because their streaming numbers or ULs don’t match their album sales. I think a balance of both indicates true popularity. Skewing either way isn’t true popularity. Only having casual fans doesn’t mean you’re truly popular nor does only having hard core fans.

People say this just so they can drag groups. Of course having huge sales means you're popular. If you have 1000 fans only, even if they bulk buy and your album has 100 versions, you'll still fail to earn big sales. The bigger the sales = the bigger the fandom = the bigger the popularity. Now more understandable is to say "They're popular worldwide but not in korea" because that's the case for many groups rn

It’s a pretty moronic take on things - just a way to drag a group.

You know full well that if their physical sales were lesser but their digital sales/streaming numbers really high, people would say it was just fandoms zombie streaming.

General public popularity vs fan base popularity.

For Example Sistar had huge General public popularity, but they did not do great at selling albums.

From the same company, WJSN does very well at selling albums, but their songs do not break into the top of the charts.

Look at Sistar and all those #1 (top 5) songs on the chart, but never sold more than 26K albums.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistar_discography

Compare to WJSN selling over 100K Albums, but no song above #49 on the charts (they do have a song that pops on January 1st to the top of the charts).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Girls#Discography

Quote from icyruios

How can a group not be popular if they sell albums? They have to have fans somewhere.

Well, I should've known my favorite fruit seller whom I always buy fruit from him

That's the dumbest thing I've seen lately.

Quote from icyruios

How can a group not be popular if they sell albums? They have to have fans somewhere.

How do you know it's not Elon Musk buying all the albums?