Posts by Jirachier

The argument about being eco-friendly just makes no sense.

Not all groups have the same percentage of albums being thrown away, BTS probably has the lowest percentage.

If you want people to buy CDs and not throw them there is a very easy way to go about it

A) Make it so fanmeeting lottery is not based on buying albums, maybe tickets or something else. And I'm not even sure J-Hope is gonna hold fanmeeting for this anyway

B) No random photocards in albums and allow people to buy the album version they want

If you just do these two things, what reason would people possibly still have to buy albums and throw the CDs away ?

HYBE is just doing this to promote their Weverse App while taking a risk with J-Hope's debut.

Out of everything HYBE has been doing Weverse has the most potential, I could even see it become a major platform that's worth several times its current value. but I'm not sure if it will get there looking at how it's been managed up until this point.

We all know the main reason this platform even became relevant was because of BTS, they're also driving most of the growth in its userbase. It has been less so lately with all of the other artists HYBE has added to the platform, especially BP which I would expect will bring in a ton of users.

But at the end of the day, whether it's BTS, BP, TXT, SVT or even Ariana/Justin in the future none of them just sat down and chose to join Weverse because it's the new hot social media platform, they did it because it was either to their direct financial benefit or because their label has some sort of relationship with HYBE. Which is all well in good if you use that to jumpstart the platform but it's not the best thing if that's the primary way in which your platform is bringing new artists in.

They have to make the platform appealing enough for all artists to want to join. Right now it just seems like HYBE picks who joins their platform based on who they have a deal with, they're acting as if they have all the time in the world to slowly roll this out as if Weverse has not been out for over 2 years.

They also need to add a substantial amount of features because right now there is barely any reason for people to spend a lot of time on it, when the main goal of a social media platform is to keep the users on for as long as possible. I've also seen people complain about how difficult it is to use for new users.

Like I said, Weverse could become a massive social media platform where every artist(beyond kpop) has an account and a community on, but if it keeps being mishandled it could sink any day. What are your thoughts ?

streams ? no

digital sales ? no

physical sales ? no

let's look at a chart about name recognition which has nothing to do with how popular you are as a musician but more about whether the public knows you which can be for a number of reasons(variety appearances, other ventures, etc).

You clearly just don't want to admit how big BTS is right now in Japan. It's honestly a position that can't be defend because BTS's numbers are just way too good.

And stop downplaying streams, even if people tend to be on the younger side who use it i doesn't change the fact that they're listening you know, meanwhile plenty of jpop groups are not on it meaning they're not even being listened to.

When are you releasing the next chapter of the IU fanfiction

You're asking this in a kpop forums, a place that's naturally gonna be filled with multistans.

Not the best way to get a sense of how fans of kpop groups as a whole feel about this.

Quote from auspop

Because they are different times, in 2008-2013 the physical sales of idols was different, at that time in Asia the only group that sold more than 500k was Arashi, today only in kpop you have 6 or 7 groups that sell that, also the streaming did not exist in Japan

You just shifted the discussion from Japan to all of Asia and included other kpop groups.

If you're trying to argue kpop groups have an easier time getting high sales GLOBALLY because of the spread of the Hallyu Wave that's an entirely different conversation that has no bearing on the question at hand.

there are no 6 or 7 kpop groups selling 500k in JAPAN, and even if there were you'd still be shifting the question from "who is/was bigger between BTS and TVXQ" to "is it easier now for kpop groups to succeed in Japan", again, not really what we're debating here.

We know for a fact that physical sales have gone down in japan so BTS does not have any advantage in sales compared to TVXQ, yet they're able to outsell.

Quote from 3ne

I interpreted it as an all encompassing question since OP didn't specify. If we're talking just strictly who has a bigger peak, I'm not sure anyone but an industry expert could answer that question, because times have changed dramatically since TVXQ's peak.

Times have changed but the answer is still very clear, if we try to compare BTS to global artists from a decade + it's difficult to do because they might dominate different markets or older artists had an easier time selling physicals while this is the streaming era so BTS has the edge there.

Yet even with the japanese physical market that's weaker now compared to what it was in TVXQ's era BTS outsells them, and just like another user said they have Dynamite and ever since then their songs have become bigger and bigger with Butter shaping up to be another huge song.

If this was a situation where BTS had higher streams but their physical were a bit weaker than TVXQ, you could make the argument that it's hard to say, but right now it's not.

Quote from 3ne

I love BTS and I'm proud of their success, but this is kind of like asking if Bruno Mars has surpassed Michael Jackson.

When people in Japan today think of kpop, they'll think of BTS. When they think of TVXQ, they won't think of kpop, because TVXQ is a jpop act in Japan. Their legacy is literally insane. Nobody is coming close to touching it any time soon, no matter how many albums they sell.

The Michael Jackson vs Bruno Mars comparison just doesn't apply, Michael Jackson was much bigger than Bruno Mars and he outsold him in every way.

Also shifting the discussion into "legacy" will always make things way more subjective and just becomes what your perception of whose role was more important in opening the door for kpop , the eternal "paved the way argument". Maybe I'm wrong but I think the question of OP is more about who's bigger(or who has a bigger peak so far) than about legacy, in which case you can't say BTS will never touch them no matter how many albums they sell because that's literally what this is about, streams/sales/etc.

Quote from MassiveKpopFan

-I could try that first point for sure.

-Songs from before 2015, I have no clue how many streams they gained because they didn't have a streaming chart. How would approximating for them look?

Songs from before 2015 do have streaming numbers available, the only one that's not available is year 2010(not sure what to do about that one lol)

I think so, yes they've existed in different eras but that would only be a problem if BTS dominated streaming while TVXQ had sales which is not the case right now.

More importantly, you can just compare the two artists to the artists in their own eras, BTS is currently competing for the n1 best selling album in japan, they have a good chance of being n1 in revenue on Oricon on the YE. correct me if I'm wrong but TVXQ was never doing that.

Quote from MassiveKpopFan

-How would I go about that? Let's take BWL for an example. 116 weeks in the top 100 places in the top 10 songs with highest longevity, I think #8 or #9 overall. Would I inverse its 8th position to give it 93 points?

-For this to happen, streaming is easier to find, but for songs released before 2018, I would have to go through each weekly download chart because Gaon didn't have certifications back then. And several of these songs that have 2.5M were added in the Observation Notes YEARS after they stopped charting.

How would I approximate that for songs released in more recent years and compare that to songs from 2011-2015?

- For inverse poins yes, n1 = 100 points, n 2 = 99 and so on

- If you want to get the download of every single son that charted pre2017 then yeah, you could also limit it to the ones who made it to the YE chart. depends on how thorough you want this list to be.

- I'm not sure what you're asking regarding approximation for recent songs vs older songs. are you asking how to approximate their streams/downloads ? You'd have to look at their digital points and use songs released around the same period and got certifications to estimate their numbers, if digital points are gained in 2018 it's usually enough that a song hits 750M DPs for 100M streams, or 1.1B DPs for 2.5B DLs and, so if a song gains 900M DPs in 2018 that's around 120M streams and 2.04M DLs, of course if a song is gaining DP over the course of multiple years you'd have to use a different multiplier for each portion of its DPs that it gained in a specific year(Like Spring Day).

As for how to compare them to older songs, you're gonna have to go through the streams/downloads of songs from 2010 to 2020(or just check the YE charts), and find what multiplier you should use for songs in each year/era for downloads and streams, tinker with it until it feels right.

I'm gonna give a very simplified example: If songs from 2020 on average have 10 times more streams than songs from 2011 then you could make it so streams from 2011 are worth ten times the amount of points.

Frankly, making something like this is not easy, you'd have to experiment with the formula and change things around until it feels right.

Quote from MassiveKpopFan

- I see this point: downloads dominated until 2019 (sorry, 2013), then fell off entirely. So you're suggesting I find every song's weeks in the top 100?

- How would I approximate the stream and download markers without actual figures to use besides the ones given by Gaon themselves? I do get that a song with 2.5M downloads is getting the same as a song with 4.9M+ downloads, which doesn't seem fairly weighted.

The reason I used the certification method is because that should be the baseline for a successful song, whether a song has multiple or just one certification, it's showing that it's being consumed by the public.

Your point about 2017-18 songs being favored does line up with this infographic from Gaon given in March 2019. Out of the top 13 at the time:

1 was from 2012

1 was from 2014

1 was from 2016

8 were from 2017(!) - this was the year with the biggest hits as confirmed by Gaon themselves

2 were from 2018

Display Spoiler

best performing songs on gaon.png

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- There are many ways to go about including longevity, I honestly don't know what's the best way to do so right now, you'd have to keep trying multiple different iterations of your formula until it feels right. maybe weeks in the top100 is correct, maybe use an inverse point system.

- In order to approximate downloads and streams you can use when songs get download/streaming certifications and compare them to their digital points and other songs released in the same era to try and get a sense of how many points they have.

Another thing that would be very helpful but it's very hard to find are the dl numbers GAON reveals for SOTY winners at their award shows. Last year they revealed the numbers of downloads for the first few weeks but in previous years they apparently gave Year End numbers, unfortunately the numbers are shown on screen but the videos of it were taken down, maybe people on the korean side of the internet still have them, or some people in the korean chart community.

Someone was kind enough to give me some of the numbers they had but there are others missing.

Songs from 2018:

by looking at where other songs fit in between SOTY winners on the year end you'll know how many downloads they have

I can see how much effort you've put into this, it couldn't have been easy.

But I have to say, I feel like the formula isn't comprehensive enough to fully represent the biggest songs in South Korea, I'm gonna try to address a few things.

- You said you didn't include weeks in the top100 of Gaon because that would favor newer songs, but I believe that's a reason to find the correct weight to be given to that criteria as opposed to removing it entirely, following that logic you should remove download certifications because they heavily favor older songs, or you should remove streaming certifications since the favor newer songs. Doing this also puts songs that have great longevity at a disadvantage even against songs released in the same years as them who might've had been a viral hit that quickly fell off.

- If your formula is gonna include downloads and streaming, they need to be contextualized, songs should not be given a specific number of points for X number of downloads/streams without taking into consideration the timeframe in which they got those numbers.

Downloads were impacted by price changes, followed by a trend where people moved over to streaming, on top of that you have key digital platforms no longer making it possible to use.

Streaming grew with time as people moved away from downloads, but even the metric that should be getting the most growth is actually weaker than it should be relative to a few years ago because YT Music's market share kept growing without it being added to Gaon, meaning songs from the past 2 years are getting a bigger chunk of their streams completely ignored and it will get worse with time.

I would say using raw/approximate streaming/download numbers is better than using certification, especially when the gap between each certification is so large.

For example, you can have a song that has the 100M streams and 2.5M DL certifications, compare that to another song that ha 150M streams and 2M DLs, using this formula the first song gets so many more points.

Also 2017/2018 is when downloads and streams were incredibly strong so songs from that era get a huge benefit from this certification based system.

Voting is not the best way to figure out fandom size, just look at how many votes BTS either loses or barely wins on global platforms, when their fandom is much bigger than anyone else.

The only thing that can be said about their fandom is that it's huge in Korea, but definitely not bigger/as big as K-ARMYs, as to how close they are in size you'd have to wait for touring to resume then you'll get a better sense.

You linked to a 7 hour long video to without giving a timestamp to look for.

Hybe has been making stupid decisions for the past couple years, they keep experimenting with BTS comeback schedules and changing things around, they don't seem to understand that when a fandom is this massive you need things to be very clear and for it to follow the same pattern every single time so everyone is on the same page.

The fact the "single album" has 2 version will hurt its sales, but what's really gonna make it way worse is the fact that most fans don't know this is a comeback, the rollout could not have been worse, they think if they just drop concept photos people are gonna think it's gonna be a comeback, that only works if this was an actual album/EP where people, but when you only have one extra song(one that has yet to be even announced so a lot of people just think this is gonna have Butter in it, a song that's already been out for weeks so it's not gonna get people excited to buy the single album)

As for people why ARMYs can't support every single BTS release equally, that's just not realistic. BTS releases way too many songs a year and people will go above and beyond for their "main" releases, for them to do so for every song they'd have to go bankrupt and have no free time.

More importantly, hardcore ARMYs have are surrounded by other hardcore ARMYs and are up to date on everything regarding BTS, they're in a bubble that makes them think every BTS fan is in a similar situation, but they're not. Many fans are not on social media, and the ones that do use it might be using a platform where BTS information doesn't flow as quickly, and even the ones who might be on Twitter which can be considered the n1 place where fans gather, a lot of fans just don't follow every little thing about BTS.

So you can't really expect people who don't even know there is a new song coming out to buy an album that in their mind only has on song which they've already heard or get ready to stream a song they don't know even exists.

Worst rollout ever.

Quote from auspop

I think that in the next rankings they will rise positions

About music, we can only compare snow man and bts for physical sales, because snow man is not available on any streaming platform, or on any download page, making other types of comparisons are only hypotheses

Even if we limit it to only physicals, given that you agree THE BEST will sell 1M then in the worst case scenario BTS is on the same level as Snow Man which again, proves my point.

As for digitals, SnowMan not putting their music on digital platform in and of itself proves BTS's strength given that even though so many people are listening to their songs on streaming platforms they were still able to get an album to sell 1M.

Quote from auspop

maybe XD.

In the jpop fandom we believe that the Japanese industry is already a niche industry, and idols (heh, kpop, etc.) are condemned to be, there is no longer any act that is dominant at the national level, and it is so for absolutely everyone the artists.

If snow man or bts sell a million, people are not interested haha, think that people did not care much about the sales of yonezu kenshi last year, ok it was on tv for a few minutes, but it was just that

lol but again my argument was never that BTS will be more well known than any jpop act in Japan, of course Arashi and others jpop groups will have a huge edge with the older generation for the reasons you've outlined.

To reiterate my point, I said BTS does not lose to other jpop groups in popularity as far as music(and ONLY music) is concerned, if THE BEST is selling 1M showing their physical sales and they have Butter and Dynamite as massive digital hits, in this one very specific area I think they're at the top tier.

Quote from auspop

yes, probably snow man will appear at the opening / closing ceremony of the olympic games, that will help his promotion, and Johnny's idols always sell more albums than singles.

Still, I think the two albums will sell over a million

We'll see how Snow Man's sells at the end of the year.

But seeing the sales of THE BEST, wouldn't you agree that at this point the poll from last time doesn't do them justice because it's too broad ? Even if Snow Man sells 1,1M for example and THE BEST sells 1M. the point would still stand.

Quote from auspop

Quote from auspop

Snow Man probably will have the best selling album of the year, Johnny's are playing with the hype of fans. Fans have been waiting for the album for months, and it will probably be out in october.

And the Kinpuri album will be out in mid-July, the sales will depend on what they do during the Olympics, if they promote there it will probably sell more than 750k, if they don't, it will sell between 650-700k.

I remember us having a discussion about this a little while ago lol

Do you really Snow Man can outsell THE BEST when it's gonna surpass 900k soon and has the potential to hit 1M by the end of the year ?