Posts by FoReveries

i guess that's what near-bankruptcy does to you, after that you'll become a lot more cautious, knowing the fear of financial abyss.

Aren't they coasting too much on their current, older successful groups though, instead of developing or reinvesting in their groups to uplift them to the next level? Ah well, as long as the artists themselves are still happy and content, and seeing how their older 3rd gen groups have extended their contract, seems like they do.

Quote from onwards

This is a very old source, from what I hear this leaked years ago, but note this is all based on the initial contract. Kind of explains why SM works their groups to the bone during years 1-6 then neglects them for the final 3-4, and doesn't like to send them on tours outside Korea.

https://www.reddit.com/r/kpop/…/#:~:text=Musicians%20don't%20make%20much,most%20cash%20for%20these%20labels.

Edit - if you have chrome, here is the page it likely came from (note you'll have to add the second n and remove the space) https://pan .nate.com/talk/330911705

Wasn't this proven false or at the least unsubstantiated a long time ago, as fake news? Meaning not real leaks, but just some guesswork compilation by some anonymous internet poster.

It sounds great! it kinda reminds me of Newjeans' musical style with their debut songs: the smooth, ongoing funky beat, the mellow vocals. Not sure if that style has its own name or subgenre, but it has that vibe.

I still think Cube made a mistake with trying to push and make Nayoung happen instead of some other members - she's just not on the level as the center/face of many other groups.

But hopefully they'll do well with their comeback!! so that Cube will invest more resources in better concepts, songs and promotion for them

She's so awesome

I still think fierce and girl crush concepts suit her better (like a glove), but hopefully Lightsum will do better with their new comeback

Quote from sveznalica

With clc, Soyeon at least produced a song for them they interacted on that cube family concert and isac, but with lightsum it is like they are not even from the same company lol

That's actually worrisome, in a way.

I feel so sad for Chowon, she showed such unexpedly huge, unique potential at the PD48 show. She really has the worst of luck, if the PD48 show would have been before I-dle's debut, Chowon could have joined I-dle and be the dark horse ace maknae.

And if she got what she deserved and joined IZ*One, her talents would have gotten the chance to shine to their utmost like it did with so many other, less unique or talented IZ*One members, and she would've had a golden future like happened with other IZ*One members.

Instead, she's doomed to vegetate in a floundering group managed by an incapable company

Quote from patrik-k

Too be fair, I think a lot of other groups success also involves a lot of luck. Sure companies can with recources and decisions give the groups a bigger chance for success, but at the end of the day it's hard to tell which groups members will be popular, who grow and improve under the pressure, will they have good chemistry, what songs will be like or not, etc. Groups often have a very short time span to establish themself, grow a fan base and expand from that. Maybe they just have 2-3 singles to really establish themself as an tier 1 or tier2-3 groups. Sure, you can do like Oh My Girl at and be a bit in the shadow before you get some hits and climb up a bit, but not that common.

I agree. I think that in the end it all depends on how much you catch the attention from how large a part of the general public and overall population.

There's only a couple of times that non-fans will check you out: that's when a new group debuts, that's when a company does massive investments to promote a group or comeback to non-fans/regular people (and this is where Big 4 have the edge due to money reserves and their network of connections), and that's when there's a lot of buzz/viral talk about a group - like when a group has a massive hit or a group or member becomes the talk of the town - to the point that non-fans want to check out that group.

And for South Korea, there's the additional venue of groups and idols doing phenomenal in variety shows and become variety idols, a path that worked really well for groups in 2nd gen times, but that companies seemed to have abandoned more and more in the more recent gen eras.

It's only in those few times where non-fans will check a group out, that they can grow explosively, but if those opportunities are squandered due to a bad song or leaving a lacking impression, then the road will be made a lot harder.

Quote from thelightoftruth

Yes, at least for their generation. I think it's a little more saturated now then it used to be, and Kpop isn't as big in Korea itself, but they are still a Top 3-5 group in Korea right now.

Karina is widely considered as one of the 4th gen visual holy trinity with Wonyoung and Sullyoon, and right now is the 6th most followed female idol on insta, only behind BP and IU.

Winter is in the top 30, and Ningning and Giselle are both in the top 50. This includes all 2nd and 3rd gen idols too. Take them out and Winter would be 4th in 4th gen behind Karina, Wonyoung, and Sakura. Ning2 and Giselle would be 9 and 11.

I wasn't aware that Karina was doing that good, I'm happy for her, I think she's great and charming as a person with a natural, innate elegance, she deserves it!

I initially expected Winter to do as well or even better, but Karina isn't that big of a surprise. She has that aura.

Quote from foreveraespaaa

I won’t reply to your other sentences as others have answered! The new gg debut is soon we hope or at least they should be introduced from this month and if not then it means it’s been delayed again to 2025 ( as it was already delayed since their original debut was meant for last quarter of 2023)

I’m also curious to see how it’ll go! This is the first SM gg without a handful of standard people not involved like Lee So Man etc and with all the changes it’ll be interesting to see any differences in their initial introduction and predecessors compared to past groups.

Also coming from big 3/4 isn’t enough to guaranty success, not even being insanely talented is enough anymore. I’m curious how they’ll make their mark and if they can continue what their predecessors could achieve despite the odds

True, it'll be interesting to see what they come up with, it's a different SM than it was in previous gens with different people at the helm.

Maybe RIIZE is a good example of how the new SM do things? I haven't really followed RIIZE, but from what I see the group doesn't have the experimental touches that basically every other previous SM group seemed to have, nothing peculiar/extraordinary/non-standard. So maybe that's how it'll be for their new girl group too?

... I could be wrong here about RIIZE, so people feel free to correct me.

Quote from wsoet

If you're referring to music show wins, that is not the case.

Eh no, I was referring to the amount of #1 hits, my mistake, I should've phrased it better.

Quote from sonemariam

This reminds me of Jessica and the rest of Snsd.

Good point. Yet the remaining SNSD members still have regular meetings, pairing ups and gatherings together, which shows they're still good friends after all these years.

Also, you can be good friends up till a point and still have a - sadly unrecoverable - falling out between friends, if the disagreement was too big or principled to step over it. It wouldn't be a world first or rarity at all, close friends that have a fight/conflict/falling out they couldn't recover from, in fact it happens all the time.

Quote from Eldeweiss

There's a name too for following a group just to throw passive aggressive comments at them from time to time : antifan.

I am dumbfunded that people still think that he is a fan of Red Velvet after all these years.

I think most people know OP is not a real fan of Red Velvet and has a love/hate relationship towards Irene.

Let's be real and objective: we'll never know 100% for sure how much members really love - or hate - each other in an idol group.

We often don't even know it about other people we aren't close with in our own classes, so let alone about some remote people we only see snippets of from their public appearances.

I think that it's the same as it is at your work, sorority house or sports club if you're in a team: some people you love, some you like and some you (learn to) tolerate.

And just like with team sports, having a common goal and working together to win the game and become champion, will create and strengthen bonds even if it's out of necessity. The 'band of brothers/sisters' effect, where experiencing and sharing the same sufferings together, survive and thrive can strengthen a group as well as their bonds and understanding of eachother.

Are the Aespa members like Karina and Winter really on the same level of top visual/IT girl-ness that SM artists like Yoona, Sulli and Irene were? Just wondering, I haven't really kept that close track of the newer groups and their popularity in SK.

I wasn't aware that SM were that close to releasing a new group, kinda curious what they come up with after all the management drama and top people leaving.

Quote from patrik-k

I would guess a new multimember girl group from SME will be a top group, but if they can reach the same status as Girl's Generation and Twice is more difficult to say. I would say no, because it's not easy to achieve. But I think they would overshadow a group like Aespa.

But I'm a bit suprised about how on defensive SME have been last couple of years, I thought they would have launched there "new Girls' Generation" group a couple of years ago. ButI guess they have been waiting for Twice do fall down and Girls' Generation to fade out even more.

I'd be surprised if the current SM Entertainment would be able to form a new group that's able to achieve S-tier status but hey, who knows.

Reason would indeed suggest that forming an SNSD-style group - but then adjusted to modern times - would be a slam dunk and obvious choice.

But seeing the many times of SME's fumbling over the years and their erratic, randomly successful attempts at trying to connect with the 'zeitgeist pulse' and modern public's tastes - I'm starting to realise more and more that SME simply lucked out with their groups Super Junior and SNSD, due to those groups' team chemistry and diverse mix of talents of both the SJ and SNSD members and the teams behind them.

SNSD and Super Junior were simply two of the more successful results of SME's many experimenting attempts.

Seeing the overall lineup of SME's groups, I think it's likelier that SM's new group will be something weird and/or unexpected again.

After all, they do love their experiments.

I saw some shorts pop up from their recent performances.

Her dancing and moves are still so mesmerizing, and her figure is just perfect and jealousy inspiring!

If there's no new activity then there won't be much to talk about, especially since there are fewer fans of older groups on the forum

But 2NE1 will have a comeback, so that's bound to generate a lot of extra discussion

Also, you'll still see the top groups from previous gens being talked about from time to time, like SNSD, Big Bang, EXO etc.

Quote from Jasque-O-Part2

People only care about charts here

If SNSD records weren't all surpassed people would still talk about them

Or if there was some drama involving them

Wha?

Not all of SNSD records are surpassed:

- SNSD still have the highest selling Japanese album for a K-pop girl group (over 1 million sales for an album)

- SNSD still have the most #1 wins

- SNSD still are the most popular K-pop girl group across the generations, as seen in Gallup

- SNSD still are the only girl group that beat boy groups to an album daesang

- SNSD still are the girl group with the most CF's/endorsements - actually, not entirely sure about this one, but it used to be the case for many, many years

Additionally, SNSD and SNSD members still pop up regularly in monthly brand/popularity rankings, as the main 2nd gen representative even after 15+ years, often surpassing many 3rd and 4th gen groups and members in those ranks.

I recall that there were several videos where Soyeon and other Idle members were encouraging and praising Chowon before/during PD48, but after Lightsum's debut I can't think of any Lightsum-Idle interactions or collaborations.

Tbh, I had a high opinion and admiration for Cube for their ability to debut such impressive groups and artists from 2nd generation till 4th gen - but that respect and admiration has completely vaporised with all their bad management decisions of the past years.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's no contact at all between the Cube groups and that it isn't encouraged or stimulated in any way by the overall atmosphere and company culture at Cube.

Quote from bbgc

In this case, I used Gallup Survey.

Because popularity & impact is not just about who sold the most, for example, despite all of BTS success, the most impactful song from Kpop globally is still Gangnam Style, though Dynamite would have had far greater charting.

I was curious about if you had, aside from Gallup, other indicators for popularity and impact in mind that were measurable.

For me, if I have to think about metrics that are to bigger or lesser degree indicators of popularity - and that can be objectively measured - then I'd say Gallup, k-charts (eg. Gaon) and number of CF's, for Korean popularity. For international popularity, streams and global interest come to mind. There may be more though that are good, measurable indicators.

As for EXO, I get the impression reading up on this thread and some others, that a lot of people underestimate EXO's popularity and success. It made me think of the times when antis, bandwagoners and people who didn't care about doing that measly bit more research and factcheck, were fully convinced that SNSD and Super Junior were untalented, horrible singers - only to be proven fools by actual vocal analyses that showed that their assumptions were based on emotional dislike, gut feelings and lazy bandwagoning.

Some people also seem to want to acknowledge only k-charts as the one and only valid metric and ignore and dismiss everything else - which is off and weird.

Speaking of EXO, they weren't a top group for years for nothing, and not just in 1 or 2 metrics. But seeing these stats:

album sales

most viewed MV's

global interest in the groups

Gallup popularity ranking

You can clearly see how, except for BB's peak year 2015, EXO did better in popularity in South Korea than Big Bang for all other years, same for album sales and international interest where EXO surpassed BB for many years.

I have nothing with EXO, I can't even put names to faces for half of its members. But just like I have no problem acknowledging Big Bang's impressive digitals and performance prowess on stage, I also have no problem acknowledging other achievements like album sales, popularity in SK, global interest and (youtube) streams, where both EXO and SNSD did better than Big Bang for many years, even into 3rd gen era.

Quote from YamaChwan

His AKP trolling career ended with one of the worst bait threads imaginable.

There are 3 MooMoos active on this forum at most, and only 1 of us would even waste time responding to any shade.

Btw, won't you miss that Rand person?

Rand was after all sort of your nemesis, the Cersei to your Daenerys, the Moriarty to your Sherlock, the Joker to your Batman

Not as much as I used to.

I'm missing some of the things that got me into K-pop in the first place, and that made K-pop fun, entertaining and exciting in those days.

Good vocals and vocalists should always be praised and acknowledged, because it happens too little

Would be interesting to see some more of their vocal performances, usually new groups don't have many of those.

Instead of creating a new thread, I thought it better to simply reuse an existing one: here's some more Red Velvet shorts and such

Here some fun shorts of Irene with Sion and Yujin

... seriously, Irene has been such a divine fairy princess this comeback

Seulgi and Chaeyeon again!

and some more Seulgi

And here's Wendy, trying to get tickets for a concert (Red Velvet), just like any regular fan - with the predictable results So hilarious and recognisable, we feel you, Wendy

Here a link about Seulgi's awe inspiring fashion sense lately:

WHY IS SEULGI SUCH A GOOD DRESSER LATELY?? THIS IS SO MY STYLE

And to close it up, some performance videos of a recent event they attended:

ReveluvTaglist

Quote from onwards

Think you got some numbers wrong but I get what you mean but its not that simple. GG and Kara had 1 hugely selling album but many average to low selling in between. Twice hasn't had as big of a peak but have been selling pretty consistently hence them being ahead. The worldwide increase hasn't really impacted Japan because until recently, it was hard to buy Japanese albums outside of Japan due to licencing and it wasn't till recently Twice could even perform their Japanese discog outside of Japan. I-fans also ignore Japanese release and don't have the tradition or fandom routes to buying them.

Kara has 36 (about to be 37) Japanese releases, the highest sales being 275k first week and 746k all time whilst the lowest was a couple hundred. Only 10 of the 37 sold over 100k all time, 18 failed to get beyond 50k all time and 12 didn't get beyond 10k. Thier all time sales are 3.1 million so they averaged 86k per release.

GG has 18 Japanese releases, highest sales being 231k first week and 872k all time and lowest being 5k all time. Of the 18, 8 didn't get past 100k, 4 didn't get past 50k and 1 didn't get past 10k but their at 2.6mill all time. They average 144k per release.

Twice has 18 down (not including Dive), their highest being 262k first week and 363k all time and their lowest is 81k all time for a total of 3.9mill so average 216k per release.

I think there are two main factors Twice never beat the single album sales of GG.

1 - Promotion is also very important in Japan. Twice's sales decreased during the pandemic from 200k minimum to 80-150k because pre-pandemic they had loads of J-fan exclusive content and promotions including handshake events. I don't think Twice has ever gone as ham with Japanese promotions as Kara and GG did back in the day, they simply didn't have the time. Kara and GG had 2 CB's per year which would be heavily promoted then they'd do 2-3 Japanese releases in between and fully promote those on Japanese TV. Twice did 4 CB's the year they debuted in Japan but have been dropping 2-3 Japanese releases per year. They only dropped down to 2 CB's because of their world tour, and have now dropped down to 1 due to the scale of this world tour.

2 - China, the Tyuzu scandal really hurt them so their fanbase there has always been small and whilst its hard for western fans to get Japanese albums, Chinese fans are well known for flying over to Japan for a concert and buying Japanese albums.

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Thanks for the elaborate explanation, those were some informative points.

If I compare, I think that KARA and especially SNSD had higher peaks in Japan like you also said. SNSD had maybe 1-2 years at peak in Japan, but in that year they dominated intensely in Japan, not just in sales but in overall popularity in Japan - unfortunately only as a hype or the 'hot thing of the year', and after the Japanese public moved on towards the next hype, Japanese interest in SNSD suffered immensely too. In contrast, KARA had a healthier peak that lasted more years. However, even outside their peak, their album sales were good considering those times, reaching 100-300k sales per album.

I haven't really been keeping track of Japanese sales, so that's why maybe my surprise seeing that the top K-pop groups incl TWICE have merely sales per album in the 100-200k range at best. I had expected far higher in this age of global K-pop album sales increase - or at least sameish figures as in former gens.

I mean, even when KARA hit 700k sales per album and SNSD 1 million sales per album, that was still not comparable with the top Japanese groups who scored easily 1-2M sales per album in those same years, somehow.

I think that Big Bang were the main cause for lifting up YGE into the top tier of K-pop companies and also the ones who made YGE known to the international crowd.

What Blackpink did, was help YGE be known even more internationally - but not in the way how Big Bang uplifted the YGE brand and image.

For example, in 2nd gen times Blackjacks, VIPs and others weren't just fan of 1 or more YG groups, they were often also agressively active YG stans.

Compare that with now, where most Blinks are first and foremost Blackpink fans, who either don't know or care about the company YGE.