How do we measure which are the biggest idol songs of 3rd gen?

Keep in my mind that this is all my opinion, and no, I'm not using the term some of you are thinking of.

Minimum of 2.4M Genie ULs

Minimum of 5M Melon ULs

Minimum of 2.5M downloads

Minimum of 100M streams

Appeared on year-end Gallup survey at least once

Charted for at least a year (52 weeks) in the top 100 of Gaon

With that in mind, here are the 10 songs that hit at least 5 out 6 criteria:

BTS - Spring Day (6/6)

BTS - Boy with Luv (6/6)

TWICE - Cheer Up (6/6)

BTS - DNA (6/6)

BTS - IDOL (6/6)

Red Velvet - Red Flavor (6/6)

iKon - Love Scenario (5/6, no Gallup)

TWICE - Dance the Night Away (5/6, no Gallup)

BLACKPINK - AIIYL (5/6, no Gallup)

BLACKPINK - Ddu-Du Ddu-Du (5/6, < 1 year on Gaon)

Quote from atropos

D4 was #1 in 2018 gallup

I changed it before you could see the edit, it's < 1 year on Gallup.

Quote from JiminieKookie

FACE by NU'EST was the most viewed debut-MV before Wanna One released Energetic

Cool for them, but it's not on topic with this thread.

Quote from icyruios

ROLLIN THIS IS YOUR TIME TO SHINE AFTER THIS YEAR YOU WILL CEMENT YOURSELF AS A NATIONAL HIT BRAVE GIRLS LET'S GO

It could top Gaon until another strong competitor comes out, which may not be until Butter releases.

Quote from spark

Really, there aren't more? I would think maybe songs like BTOB Missing You, Twice TT, Mamamoo Starry Night, etc. would've qualified too

No, there aren't. I have a large database of this stuff at my disposal for my own personal projects I do.

Missing You has 2.2M Genie ULs.

TT charted for 44 weeks and has 2.1M Genie ULs.

Starry Night charted for 35 weeks and has 2.3M Genie ULs.

Quote from JiminieKookie

You clearly said songs with more as 100 million views

No, I didn't.

I said 100 million streams, which means they're from Gaon. And the songs I listed hit 5 out of 6 criteria.

Quote from itiswhatitisss

Dynamite will check off most of these boxes by the end of the year methinks.

The only thing it might not have is the 2.5M downloads, but once it gets to a year, it's cemented in place.

Quote from worldlove27

I think the only thing that will be tough for some in the future to tick off the box is the 2.5M downloads as that is getting harder and harder to hit due to downloads decreasing in Korea overall (like even BWL and IU songs are taking 2+ years to get it)

Yeah, that's why I'm worried about songs like HYLT, Dyna, Dolphin, etc. It's gonna take even the mega-hits at least 1.5 years to hit it, if not more.

Quote from wsoet

I'm curious, why did you go with 2.4 million instead of a "round number" like 2.5 million?

I couldn't figure out how many users Genie has (unless someone has that info), but I know it's far less than Melon. I went with a little under half of 5M to align with my own personal estimate of Genie's userbase.

Also, IDOL is frighteningly close to 2.5M ULs on Genie and I didn't want to exclude it, especially since it's appeared on Gallup in 2018 & 2019 (the only other songs up there that has also done that is BWL).

Quote from spark

Oh wow thanks! Lol you sure do your research :P, anyway just asking because I felt like 3rd gen had a lot of huge hits but maybe that was just my skewed perception

Oh there are definitely multiple massive hits (PWF, Fake Love, Dolphin, HIP, Psycho, Bboom Bboom, etc.), people underestimate just how powerful 3rd gen idol groups were digitally. But these top 10 are the biggest, at least from a statistical point of view.

Stuff like virality and impact cannot be measured numerically. Take TT for instance. The song didn't meet 5 criteria, yet when that song comes on, K-pop fans will know that "TT" pose in a snap.

Quote from azhra-0110

You meant DNA? cause idol is around 40k short of 2.5M. Just say you choose 2.4M to include all bts songs lol

If I wanted to include Dynamite and Fake Love, I would have lowered it to 2.2 million...

Quote from supertiffany

HYLT entering soon

It has to hit 2.4M Genie ULs to be included, it's at 1.999 million as of now. That's gonna be the benchmark for it, provided it hits 52 weeks on Gaon (which I'm hoping it will).

Quote from supertiffany

when DTNA was released was it no competition? cant seem to remember the song, it might be that big of a hit in sokor. lol.

Legit, it was big. Almost 1.1 billion digital points and 61 weeks on Gaon, I think all consecutively too.

Quote from azhra-0110

Well it's your thread you would be free to do so! 2.4M just seems like a weird cut

I'm not lowering the threshold lower than it is, 2.4M is still super high.

And because my threshold is 2.4, both IDOL and DNA fit all 6 criteria.

Quote from wsoet

According to iChart, here's the market share breakdown:

Melon (approximately 40% market share)

Genie (about 24% market share)

Flow (approximately 18% market share)

Vibe (approximately 5-10% market share)

Bugs (less than about 5% market share)

Soribada (less than 1% market share)

So given those figures, it seems like the proper number of Genie's ULs should be (24%/40%) * 5 million = 3 million.

Display More

"Thank you for this!" (in U-Know's voice lol)

If it's 3M, the only songs up there would be Spring Day and BWL.....

Quote from azhra-0110

Well am not saying you should lower it, actually 2.5 made way more sense. But as I said it's your thread

If I'm being proportionally accurate according to iChart as wsoet mentioned, there would be 2 songs up there, not 10.

Quote from supertiffany

well it's the most forgettable, even TT seems bigger

If we use @ill-pray-4-u's Hit Index, they're actually equal.

Quote from atropos

TT is bigger as a song but dtna has better chart performance. TT is more iconic .

This.