AKMU's physical vs digital sales are really shocking

They're selling like American singers. That's what the lack of a K-pop fandom does.

thats how more digitals powerhouses in the same genre as the mdo, heize is the same

Asking respectfully, do they have a fandom or do they completely depend on GP?

Nothing shocking. Only iu and soloists from kpop groups sell a lot. All soloists otherwise have such sales. Their fans r different.

Quote from icyruios

They are like Sistar but a duo

I’ve heard about sistar’s physical sales a lot but was it that bad?

A lot of digital monsters cannot sell albums. Your regular Korean people will listen to your song but aren’t going to go out of their way to buy albums, you need a fandom for that. Something most general public oriented groups/soloists lack.

There's zero incentive nowadays to buy albums when songs are widely available digitally. Only fans go out of their way to buy albums. And old people that don't know how to listen on a smartphone.

Aren't physicals mainly an idol fandom thing? There's a few exceptions but for non-idol music artists, there's not going to be mass buying or even people buying physical albums at all. They don't have a lot of use these days except for collecting or supporting the singer in question financially which would require the kind of connection idols create for the majority of people to care enough

Well I mean with all the streaming services it makes sense, I mean have you ever seen a teenager in this day and age take out a CD and play it on a radio? Now everything is about playing music on your phone.

not surprising, outside of idols most singers have no fandom and in current time you dont need CDs, Heize sold 2k for her EP but topped the charts

Frankly Albums are basically collectibles now, Eventually there maybe no market for the players and these will gather dust like cassette players, vinyl discs etc.

There is little point for GP to buy them. even the fans who buy them, mostly would be listening to streaming.

Basically they are hold outs.

Artists/labels should be looking at better ways to monetize digitals, rather than depending on albums.

One option is the NFT - Non fungible tokens, an unique blockchain. So that would be like owning a singed-personalized album from the artist.

Artist can release a limited edition of maybe 50-500 NFTs, and sell them in an auction. with a snippet addressing that particular buyer with a custom message and some additional content not available to the public.

Rest can do digital streaming.

Depending on physical albums for revenue is a bad idea, even today. It is more an empty prestige caused by outdated laws in many countries (like Japan), than any organic adoption of existing tech.

Quote from TheBotter

They have almost 0 fandom. They can't even really tour to be honest. They still have to play basically halls and very small venues after nearly 10 years in the industry. Same for people like Heize or Bol4.

There's just no demand for them without a fanbase in Korea and they don't have one. You know an album sale these days represents a fans investment in the group or idol. They don't really need the album, but they buy it anyway to support their faves. That's what these digimons lack, no one really cares about them enough to invest in albums, merch, concert tickets, etc.

Only fandoms would buy an actual album - I don’t even have a CD player!

Plenty of ways to support with concert tickets, merch etc but then you really need to step up your social media/marketing game I guess.

Yeah you need a fandom for physical... It also helps when groups have multiple members, some people buy multiple copies just to get all the collectible cards.

I buy albums just to support my faves and literally just for that. All my albums are unopened.

Quote from fdblink

Yeah you need a fandom for physical... It also helps when groups have multiple members, some people buy multiple copies just to get all the collectible cards.

I buy albums just to support my faves and literally just for that. All my albums are unopened.

But why put out albums then? They could just sell a package of neat stuff that you can actually use? Do you loose out at the international charts/award shows?