Cherish sounds like a cheap imitation of Magnetic / Touch. Don't think it'll do that well, HYBE has beat that trend into the ground. Magnetic was a Cupid-level viral hit, don't think they'll get close. Probably top 10 Melon thanks to HYBE $$$ but struggle to overcome Jennie / Rose / Karina / QWER. Wonhee / Minju / Yunah is the weakest K-line in years, don't know how they're going to sustain without good music.
Posts by Asap-baby
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It means HYBE is changing legal strategy. They realized they can't unilaterally cancel the shareholder agreement (they likely always knew, but maybe got an early warning of how this is going to get ruled). They are now angling keeping the shareholder agreement in tact (which means put options, director position) but removing her from CEO through some technicality of HYBE vs. ADOR Board votes. This is a good legal analysis on how shareholder agreements are designed to protect minority shareholders which is why I highly doubt they will allow unilateral cancellation, as that sets a terrible precedence for all shareholder agreements.
Likely what HYBE is now aiming for is MHJ keeping her shareholder agreement but losing her CEO seat, and negotiating to keep her on as head Producer with certain concessions (not reporting to BeLift guy, not having to deal with fakeAdor CEO, more money, full put options, no non-compete, no unilateral removal).
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MHJ didn’t accept anything. HYBE just gave her 3 more years per their shareholder agreement since she owns 20% of ADOR (which they are pretending can be overwritten, but still giving her 3 years). MHJ is still waiting for the CEO case and doesn’t have a producer role or contract. Nothing is resolved except HYBE getting ready to put her back as CEO if they lose the case.
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This woman is so useless. "I believe Hanni but I'm trying to find evidence to prove it"? How about...you just fight back? Tell Belift off for saying that. Escalate that behavior up to HYBE and BSH. Not just take it lying down and pretend you're 'looking for evidence'. The only thing you've done is ask Belift if it happened, which of course they're going to deny. I've hired more competent 22 year olds without college degrees.
Turns out even the ILLIT girls are in on the lie. Absolute scummy behavior.
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They only bought a week of auto-play boosts for weekly charting PR. You can literally see the drop off happen day 7 and day 14. https://kworb.net/spotify/track/4gxEY3Mh5FZZDAJAKPNrCS.htm
Still strong in JP and the K-pop SEA markets, but their US performance is mostly boosted.
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ILLIT is basically a TikTok one hit wonder with a big Japanese Otaku fanbase that only cares about Moka. Their B-sides are awful and their YT variety struggles to break 100K views. They have no real fanbase outside Moka and Wonhee stans, and Wonhee isn’t even competitive in the IT girl circuit, not cracking top 50 search. This group will live and die by how well Minju does, because Yunah’s fanbase is non-existent. Iroha is just as useless as Yunah since Moka exists and has 90% of the JP fanbase.
Nevertheless, it’s insane to compare a group with one TikTok viral song HYBE paid for (like Katseye and ILLIT) to NewJeans and even Le Serrafim. I wonder how many Tokyo Dome seats they can sell next year with Magnetic and a bunch of low tier B-sides? ILLIT is a worse Le Serrafim - basically what a HYBE GG looks like without Chaewon/Sakura to bail them out.
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People don't understand the JP market. JP market is full of girls/women who are BG stans. Walk around Shibuya and you'll see literally every girl's bag having their bias' photocard hanging from it. Seventeen sold 333K, Nanaiwa Danshi (a JP boy band) sold 357K, and SixTones (another JP boy band) sold 497K. That's the top 3 album sales on Oricon this year. JP album sales are driven by girls who want to get their bias' photo card. There's articles about the increase in 'oshikatsu' in Japan that talk about this.
GG groups generally are not popular among the album buying population. Twice managed to hit 360K once with their JP debut, but really they sold around 70K-130K every release the last 3 years. This is the peak of GG album sales in JP. Le Sserafim's Easy (IMO the hottest GG in Japan right now) sold 135K. IVE at it's peak was selling 130-140K (although it's fallen back to 40K with Switch). The reason Le Sserafim and IVE are popular is because they attract girl GG stans - either because they have IT girls like Sakura, Chaewon and Wonyoung, or JP members they can self-insert like Kazuha and Rei.
NewJeans doesn't have IT girls or any JP members to self-insert. The JP album market is tough to crack - even aespa with Karina and Winter, ILLIT with Moka/Iroha and Babymonster with Ahyeon, Asa and Ruka sold less than NJ. What NJ does have is a strong fanbase that likes their music, with 11 songs in Japan Spotify Top 200 (vs. 3 for Le Sserafim). People who like NJ's music will go to their concert, but not buy their album because they're not a part of oshikatsu culture. They're similar to Blackpink, who also sold poorly in Japan, but constantly charted high. And this is the opposite of Kep1er, who have a small, but extremely dedicated fanbase that buys albums, but can't chart a song in Japan.
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NewJeans will struggle in Global Spotify until the next album and potentially beyond.
Global Spotify K-pop is driven by SEA - Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Myanmar and Vietnam. At Supernova's peak, SEA pulled in 1M streams (42% of global). The problem with NewJeans is they lost the SEA market. How Sweet only pulled in 300K-400K streams from SEA vs. 1.4M~ with Super Shy and OMG. How Sweet failed to chart at all on Spotify Indonesia daily (with a bar of 140K daily, when peak NewJeans in Indonesia was hitting 450-500K daily). We see this on Youtube Indonesia as well, with How Sweet pulling 1M on their debut week vs. 2.5M for Armageddon, 2.9M for Super Shy, 2.6M for Ditto, and 2M for OMG. While not as drastic as Indonesia, it does appear NewJeans has lost views/streams in the other big 4 SEA countries. The launch of ILLIT, BabyMonster and anti-ADOR rhetoric online in English speaking spaces have damaged NewJeans in SEA. I don't think a JP album has any hope of recovering this.
The other big market is the US, but NewJeans have also 'came back to Earth' from the peak of Super Shy in the US. When Super Shy came out, it was a follow-up to OMG which was insanely viral in the US, especially in K-pop and Asian American spaces (multiple weeks on Youtube US at 1.6M weekly, hovering top 40-50) and led the blow up of K-pop in the US with Blackpink, especially in Asian American circles like Head in the Clouds, Dabin/Porter Robinson EDM and major festival circuits like Lolla/Coachella. The hype was insane with a 4M opening week on Youtube, but fell back down to 1.6M weekly after. Despite this, Super Shy was pulling a peak of 1.1M streams on Daily US Spotify (700K after the first week), which was insane since K-pop normally doesn't pull on Daily US Spotify (Supernova didn't chart a 370K bar, Easy charted with a peak of 540K). How Sweet failed to chart the 370K bar as well, but Youtube US shows the initial hype was on par with OMG (1.6M weekly), there just wasn't enough continued play and How Sweet failed to go viral. The NewJeans US fanbase that supported Super Shy is less 'stan' than 'trendy', and the trend this year is catchy lyrical lines (Espresso, Good Luck Babe) and rap drama which How Sweet failed to deliver.
ADOR however did manage to save NewJeans reputation in South Korea, and they still dominate Melon with a #2 and #3 song, despite a weak rollout, bad press and less trendy music. While NewJeans was able to maintain their position in Korea mostly intact, they lost market share in Japan to the JP groups (Easy by Le Serrafim, Magnetic by ILLIT, Sheesh by BabyMonster), were not able to capitalize on a strong campaign last year in the US to another one this year, and have lost quite a few fans in SEA due to drama and increased competition. I expect Supernatural to compete with Easy and Magnetic but it will be tough without JP members. All eyes will be on the new album, where NewJeans should assert their dominance in South Korea and attempt another viral campaign in the US/SEA to gear up for a world tour, but without US/SEA I expect it will be challenging for NewJeans to hit their Global Spotify peaks again.
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South Korea has over a million shaman / fortune tellers. It's very common for people to listen to them - I had a Korean friend who got engaged and changed her name on the advice of her shaman / fortune teller. Bling Empire also had an episode where they had a shaman / fortune teller come on and give advice to the actors. It's a pretty common thing in East Asian culture to see and listen to shaman / fortune tellers for general advice - there's even a character in Mulan who plays the role.
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Coachella originally booked NewJeans with a NewJeans album dropping right before to kick off their world tour starting with Tokyo Dome.
Instead, Bang kicked NewJeans out. Le Serrafim was playing Coachella. Their album was pushed to end of year to make room for ILLIT and TWS. For the good of HYBE, Bang said.
ADOR, a label known to plan at least a year out, had to scramble. They replaced their world tour kick off and created a Bunnies Camp in Tokyo Dome (for 2 days) instead with a very light JP debut after a year of no music. With a late album, no world tour until 2025 - Le Serrafim will go first in 2024.
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Of course the groups have the power to look into their debt. They have to pay it back, so they deserve the right to know if the debt they have is legally theirs per the contract they have.
FF is basically saying their 6B won in debt is not legal. That Attrakt said they ‘spent’ 6B when in reality, it was closer to 3-4B. If Attrakt cannot prove they spent 6B, and a portion of that is old Star Crew debt or debt that shouldn’t legally be FF’s, then the contract is null. This is embezzlement of funds.
It’s like saying you will pay me back for training you. I claim I spent a million training you, because I gave myself 900K and spent 100K on classes. FF would be arguing I only spent 100K and stole 900K.
