Girlgroups who sell less than around 100k on gaon are nugus in present physical sales market?

For me, it depends on a variety of factors, not just album sales (though album sales areimportant too and I am in no way trying to deny or dismiss that). How big is their company? Do they have a lot of money or are they poor? How often do they release music? What genre of music do they typically release? If you asked a random K-Pop fan if they knew of them, what is the likelihood that they would? How many YouTube view and Spotify streams do they have? Did they have a "breakout song" or are all of their songs underrated? Did any of the members ever trend or become viral? How big is their music video budget? I'm sure there are a ton of other factors I am missing and/or some of the factors I listed, you might not think are all that relevant and that is fine. This is my opinion. I don't have any hard or concrete facts I use to determine if the group is considered underrated or not, I just consider all of the factors together and see which side I lean more towards. Have a great day/night!

it depends if their popularity is for a big part in korea

In that case I wouldn't call them nugu, even if they sell less than 50k

But if they're not known in korea and sell less than 50k, that's probably nugu

Quote from atropos

I get what you are saying. I wouldn't call Everglow nugu even tho they can't reach 100k on gaon but that's because of international streams. But in most cases bad album sales and bad song streams go hand in hand

Ah, I see. That is a good point.

I think less than 20-30k is nugu

I think the standard should be around 80k. That's what GFriend was selling consistently and nobody would call them nugu, even as their digital performances never reached their earlier peaks.

Quote from atropos

I get what you are saying. I wouldn't call Everglow nugu even tho they can't reach 100k on gaon but that's because of international streams. But in most cases bad album sales and bad song streams go hand in hand

wow I didn't know everglow had less than that. I wouldn't call them nugu. I take back what I said. I would say less than 50k is nugu

I say less than 15K

I know some of my faves have albums with like 5,000 copies sold.

less than 50K is nugu for me

less than 20K plus bad/ok charting=true nugu, nugu of the nugus

20K-80K plus bad/ok charting=mid/high tier nugu

40K-90K plus a semi hit/hit/or pretty decent charting=mid tier

i made this up along the way i dont have a clue what im talking about

The year is 2022. Apink is now considered a nugu group. Maybe they can get their big break in 2030 ?

Quote from lialve

wow I didn't know everglow had less than that. I wouldn't call them nugu. I take back what I said. I would say less than 50k is nugu

Just one everglow album surpassed 50k. In the other topic I almost said that less than 70k was nugu, but now that I think about it, that's a lot of other factors... Everglow situation is kinda weird, their name is known by kpop fans, but their sales/charts doesn't reflect it.

Unless you are some kind of Brave Girls or Momoland with some random hit song, the line where I could understand considering a girlgroup nugu is less than 50k.

Eh I kinda agree with the above comment, 50k seems like a reasonable number. That said I don't even give album sales that much relevance when discussing "nugudom"

Nah, brave girls are selling that amount and they aren't nugu. Now below 50k is very bad if it's a semi-relevant gg, like everglow or momoland.

highly disagree

I would prefer using the original term for nugu as in unknown as oppose to the "modern" term which many people associate nugu with not as successful

Non-boy group physical sales are way lower than you think. Girl groups and soloists (and western artists) are heavily skewed towards streams/digitals.

Quote from atropos

Are you even barely known if you can't sell this much?

and that's the critical point I'm making that not selling does not equal unknown

for example there were plenty of groups mentioned above that don't hit 100K but are known...

take brave girls if i recall their last album sold 30K???

Quote from atropos

Are you even barely known if you can't sell this much?

You have to consider WHY people buy physicals when they could just stream for free. Those reasons differ from artist to artist, even if they are very well known. Physicals are just one measure.

Quote from atropos

Let me change the title to present. I think our standards should be a bit higher for ggs in 4th gen given how massive album sales are

I still would disagree not because of the reasoning behind what you are saying but rather the meaning of the word nugu...

if you said "I think 4th GG who don't sell 100K in today's kpop environment are that succeessful" and I might agree with that...but since you used the particular word nugu then (to me) it doesn't fit the narritive...does it make sense?

because to me there is a distinction between not successful or not as successful and nugu

i.e. all nugu groups are unsuccessful or not as successful but not all unsuccessful or not as successful are nugu

does that make sense?

Quote from atropos

Okay I get what you are saying. To me nugu and unsuccessful are mostly one and the same.

it's all good my friend we just differ in our opinions then

should be looking at total album sales I think, counting their whole career sales.

I think if total album sales is around or over 100K then that girl group should no longer be considered a nugu girl group.

say if the girl group debut with only 5k but then they do comebacks with 20k, 30k, 50k, then they no longer nugu.

but that said, should be looking at digital performance also I think

I disagree.

Every singer has different selling power. Everyone excells in different areas

Quote from atropos

Nmixx debut sales showing that without 100k its nugu level atm

But kep1er sold 300k+ and flopped on Korean charts. Lets not have one dimensional way of thinking.

Quote from atropos

So is nmixx. Nmixx flopping like never before a big3 gg has done till now lol on kcharts. But Kep1er could enter the kcharts. Also let's not forget they are already doing well in japan, Spotify, youtube. Small and mid company groups wish they could reach such levels. The ones that cannot sell even a 100k can only dream of such success

Actually big 3 gg can and did flop on charts especially in SM. This is not something unheard of... well unheard of to people who didn't want to listen.

Anyways you have big names selling little records and charring well. It's bigger suprise when someone has both. 2NE1 sold less than SNSD yet no one is denying that both groups were successful.

Quote from atropos

I think these days ggs that can chart at least can sell 100k per comeback

hmm maybe, I don't keep up with charts and numbers frequently.

but we do have girl groups that sells over 100k per comeback but aren't doing very well digitally. I think LOONA and Dreamcatcher both sold over 100k per album once. I don't consider them as nugu.

What do you think of groups like LOONA and Dreamcatcher? Do you consider them as not nugu anymore?