Has individual popularity ever benefited a group?

I think Astro would be a lot less popular without Eunwoo. Most K-pop stans know who Eunwoo is even if they don't stan Astro or listen to their music.

Not saying that Astro are a bad group or that they don't make good music. They are all talented individuals. I am just pointing out the fact that Eunwoo's popularity has helped the group become what it is today.

seolhyun definitely helped aoa

Their catchy songs solidify themselves fanbase

Eunwoo 's popularity definitely helped Astro to grow.

Maybe Hwasa for Mamamoo?

No. I'm a firm believer that the majority of the members in the group have to be charismatic and have potential to grow in popularity, otherwise the group is doomed

Yes it helps look at snsd and fx, red velvet, bp etc

Isn’t that Astro

Quote from possiblymaybe

No. I'm a firm believer that the majority of the members in the group have to be charismatic and have potential to grow in popularity, otherwise the group is doomed

Not the case with 4Minute

Yes, of course it helps, that's why companies go for individual promos for group members as well - to catch attention of fans/gp any way possible cause it will be beneficial for a whole group as well.

The other thing is that female artists tend to want full attention on themselves solely, so mostly they'd dump their group once it's possible as soon as they smell the stardome and popularity, while male artists can easily go for years and years together even if one of the group is much more popular than others and have solo projects. I ain't talking about kpop only here, btw, I see this tendency in the west and in groups of my country too. Although of course it depends on character of an artist, not all males and females are like this.

Astro went from selling 100k albums on Gaon to selling almost 400k in a matter of months because of Eunwoo's popularity from True Beauty.

Rowoon and Chani also helped SF9 a lot. Maybe not on the same scale but they did their part.

Seolhyun's popularity helped AOA and Suzy's popularity didn't helped but didn't impacted badly the group either, they were still doing good digitally before and after she got big and the members including Suzy never had a big fanbase (Suzy's solo album sold about 10k which is less than the group)

It worked for ASTRO thankfully

Quote from kirla

The other thing is that female artists tend to want full attention on themselves solely, so mostly they'd dump their group once it's possible as soon as they smell the stardome and popularity, while male artists can easily go for years and years together even if one of the group is much more popular than others and have solo projects. I ain't talking about kpop only here, btw, I see this tendency in the west and in groups of my country too. Although of course it depends on character of an artist, not all males and females are like this.

Oddly enough, I get the feeling that there really is a difference between K-pop groups and groups in the West: I think it's not for nothing that there are hardly any idol/pop groups in the West anymore and mostly solo artists, compared with how in K-pop and J-pop groups are more abundant and last longer.

What you see happen with groups in the West is that as soon as 1 person enjoys more attention and popularity from the audience than the others in the group, that not that long afterwards that person goes solo. That applies not just to the girl groups, but also to the boy groups (One Direction, N'Sync, Take That, etc etc)

Quote from Korainism

Not the case with 4Minute

For 4minute case, i dont think the other members really stand out that much. I really love Jiyoon, but feel that the other 3 are just THERE. On stage, Hyuna and Jiyoon overshadowed the rest but Jiyoon is not the 'visual' type so Koreans barely hype about her

On another note, the misogyny in these comments yikes.

People are forgetting that Eunji and Naeun's individual popularity hugely helped Apink too.