KakaoM's surrener to Spotify might become the most significant development in KPop in 2021

Post

RE: Artists with the most Perfect All-Kill songs in history

We need to nerf The Senior Singer

icyruios

May 23rd 2021

Artists with most all kills (in Melon - all kill is a concept only existing in there)

1. IU - 20d most

2. Big Bang - 5

3. BTS, Twice - 4 each

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On surface, IU's all kill record at Melon, plus virtually all of her records in that digital seller, seem to be unassailable by anyone including BTS.

However, it is now all reset. of Me

When KakaoM surrendered to Spotify, the latter's records became supreme, and Melon just reverted to a regional chart relevant only in Korea. I-fans began to see Spotify as the true harbinger of popularity as far as digital is concerned.

So , while IU, who had gained some foreign following, did reasonably well in Spotify she no longer dominates the digitals as she can't compete against BTS and Blackpink and some others in Spotify.

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No one thought the iron grip of Melon in Korea, good or bad (mostly bad), would break.

Melon had a market share of more than 50% and a lot of people, while not liking it, still stayed there because it was the biggest seller.

However, Spotify showed up. Spotify Korea was not that good, but a lot of people just went to the main spotify site, which no one could stop since virtually all Koreans can use proxy servers to connect from non-Korean IPs.

When Spotify removed all singers whose songs were distributed from KakaoM (which owns Melon), the companies complained .

The straw was the defection of PNation, Psy's company. It used to distribute its digitals through KakaoM, but because KakaoM was removed from spotify, PNation moved to another company , starting an exodus from KakaoM. If it went like this only IU would remain in KakaoM because it owns 40% of her company.

That led to an unconditional surrender of KakaoM to Spotify, which has made the Melon chart irrelevant almost overnight.

In my opinion, the breaking of Melon's power and the surrender of KakaoM to Spotify is the most influential news of KPop in 2021. That simply made all the digital monsters irrelevant, and basically ended the only-for-Korea balladists' chances.

The breaking of Melon's power will continue to have reverberations in Korean Pop for years; all the songs likely to be popular only to the K-O-R-E-A-N-S will simply be ignored by the i fans since they will refer to spotify and not refer to Mellon anymore. Kudos for SPotify for breaking the power of Melon/KakaoM.

Quote from MrAkimo123

Basically, for the streaming thing, Spotify is the main player here. Melon would just be like usual, an indication of what popular among Korean. Just the power that changes. This already been foreseen since Spotify being brought to Korea.

Just one thing I'm curious, if all award show refers to Spotify as the mainstreaming thing, then I guess the only artist with big fandom will win an award and we will only see few group/idol that will win multiple awards in the show.

As for now Melon (and a mix of Korean digital services, which mostly follow Melon) is used for awards but it is inevitable that spotify will be used, which will lead to all only-for-Korea singers becoming irrelevant and small fishes need not apply.

Quote from Zenning

I for one don't mind the decreased influence of Melon, I never quite understood why K-pop fans kept putting so much focus on only Melon and not on Instiz iChart for example, that had all the major streaming platforms included.

But from what I understood, even before Spotify Korea, Melon's market share was already diminished significantly, where Melon sat on like 35% and Genie on 25% or such?

In today's digital world, something which has the name value lasts forever, like Microsoft Windows, even though it is not the greatest OS in the world. Standardization.

So although Melon's shares seemingly decreased it still remained as the site to go by most K-O-R-E-A-N-S whose chart was supreme in the public eye.

Instiz IChart includes all the minor charts but they ultimately followed suit to Melon so that had no meaning. Instiz was only relevant for giving a song the 'all kill' feature (a song is #1 in all major and some minor digital sites), which is usually impossible in other countries but possible in Korea because , again, all the minor sites eventually followed Melon's example

Quote from MrAkimo123

That's why I think in the future, a non-idol singer like IU which always dominate all Korean platform will have a hard time winning an award if the award show will be based 100% on Spotify.

I agree with you on this. Any artist that usually dominates Melon can easily achieve that AK/PAK thing.

Music Show Awards are only given in Korea, and the bigger singers mostly refrain from showing up so it has become a showcase for newer acts, lesser known acts and even some trottists.

Most likely, since everyone will know the winner beforehand, the music shows will go the way of dinosaurs. The shows do not pay too well, the camera work is a joke and singers have to spend a lot of time and companies spend money (which goes against profits the acts make) to create stages. I think they should go; it is so 1970s.

Quote from Person01

That is true for the dumb artist that sign shit deals with their labels, because the smart ones get plenty of money from streaming.

An indie Korean artist cannot survive with the money they get from melon or genie, but they can definitely survive with spotify and apple music.

That is what competition does. However too many K-O-R-E-A-N-S are still stuck with Melon

Quote from bartkun

still groups care more about charting well on Melon

than about Spotify :)

actually groups without international renown do care about Melon. Acts with more international renown emphasize spotify since that's where the real game is played.