Boy groups have disappeared off the digital charts?

[fabulousdoll.livejournal.com]

First song per month at all platforms

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Article: Where have all the boy groups gone?

Source: Korea Ilbo via Naver

# of boy group songs in the top 20 annual charts
2011: B2ST, Big Bang, CNBLUE
2013: EXO
2016: 0

Also lists factors like boy groups focusing more on overseas activities while girl groups like Twice and Girlfriend are dominating the domestic market.

2016 top 10 digital songs on Gaon: Twice, MC the Max, Girlfriend, Davichi, Urban Zakapa, Zico, Gummy, Han Dong Geun, Leejuck, Twice




1. [+3,103, -304] Big Bang and B2ST have a lot of good songs though

2. [+2,605, -259] You think the public will care or listen to a song with immature lyrics like "I'm so damn cool I'm going to make you my woman" ?

3. [+2,166, -138] Sure I'd listen to boy groups if they had good songs... but they're usually more focused on dance music. Need more variety.

4. [+2,093, -311] There has never been a case where a boy group did well digitally other than Big Bang anyway

5. [+441, -43] Big Bang and B2ST get a lot of crap for not dancing in their performances but that actually gives them more freedom than having to stick to idol music. I like that Big Bang's hip hop and B2ST's ballad sides.

6. [+475, -55] On the flip side, girl groups suffer in their live performances whereas boy groups are better at lives and even write and compose their own songs

7. [+316, -11] Too many idols overall..

8. [+311, -23] It's because boy groups aren't like girl groups where you can shoot to fame overnight... but once they do make it, their influence is incomparable to girl groups and their expiration date is a lot longer too

9. [+289, -16] Because men will be attracted to girl groups if they're pretty but show no interest in boy groups at all... whereas women will like both girl and boy groups. Big Bang is the exception because they have a lot of male fans too.

10. [+373, -46] Male idols are usually a lot more talented than female idols. Not only can they rap but write and compose music too. Girl groups can get away with being average in skill as long as they have the face and body to pull in popularity.

11. [+262, -29] But the thing groups like Big Bang, B2ST, and Block B have in common is that they don't just sing whatever song their company gives them, they compose it themselves. It sets them apart from other boy groups.

12. [+138, -4] Men will jump to the next pretty girl group as soon as they see one... most male fans are temporary fans. Women, however, stick to one group... The reason girl group popularity never lasts long is because of male fans. Girl groups with long lasting fandoms is because they have a lot of female fans.

13. [+177, -20] Streaming sites getting rid of multiple streams since October 2015 has a lot to do with it too. Male idols with strong fandoms have gotten weaker on the digital charts since then whereas Big Bang is still going strong.

14. [+225, -39] I don't listen to boy group songs other than Big Bang or B2ST ㅋㅋ They all have the same love songs with the same lyrics

15. [+123, -6] I actually find girl group songs worse than boy group songs though... they're such a commercialized product and all they do is dance to immature lyrics... basically a high school talent show. At least boy groups have names to be proud of like Big Bang, B2ST, Block B, or SHINee.


iChart Top 3 per week






Source: naver, netizenbuzz, KoreanCharts (2)

I wanted to use this post to add a bit of info about the charts for the past year and I thought it would also be a good way to start a discussion about what it means to "do good" for boy groups and girl groups

Comments

[dynamite-state.livejournal.com]

With both 2NE1 and 4minute permanently dead though, there are not a lot of girl groups left in the industry for me so idk how to process this information.

But considering how girl groups dominate domestically, I am very surprised by how little they are featured on award shows and such. Even TWICE, who killed everyone's career in their path, I felt got shafted.

[racquelle2005.livejournal.com]

mte on that last part.

[bloodtaki2.livejournal.com]

Nothing shocking here. It's a known fact that GG's money is from digital charts, and BGs usually sell more physical albums.

Looking only at the top 3 songs is pretty reductive. There are boy groups who are doing decently. GOT7 for example sold a lot of albums but didn't last over one week in the charts, which is basically the standard for most boy groups. But other boy groups have a more balance. Like Shinee's 1 of 1 album sold also very well and they charted for a month. Infinite sold much less than Got7 and Shinee but they were in the Melon streaming charts for over 11 weeks, which is pretty impressive by boy group standards. BTS's BST and Fire are also still charting and so on. And then you have Beast who have average physical sells but decent digital numbers. It really depends on a lot of things, but heh, sure, if we're gonna only look at the top 3 in digital ranking, boy groups are not proeminent at all. But there are a couple boygroups that are the exception to this trend.

[byeolbyeol.livejournal.com]

ia you on how only looking at the top three songs is reductive. with most boy groups (bar a few obvious ones like big bang) i feel like how well they do digitally relies on luck, for the most part. example: shinee's view was one of the best selling boy group singles digitally last year but, this year, their singles only did about average for a boy group (which is fine for them because shinee's, as a whole, been pretty consistent digitally throughout their career). infinite's bad did okay last year, but the eye did better. cnblue's singles are always back and forth digitally: some do great, others only make it on the charts a few days. beast's ballads do better than their upbeat singles, so on and so forth.

[byeolbyeol.livejournal.com]

i always figured that people knew how it worked, re: boy groups vs. girl groups on the charts but i feel like i see a new post similar to this every few weeks anyway. it kinda gives me a headache because ... i s2g, all i ever see anymore is: "charting this, charting that" and i swear it wasn't this bad a few years ago.

there's a lot more to success than how well a group does on the digital charts - and this doesn't just go for boy groups, but a lot of girl groups as well. for every twice / wg / soshi / sistar there's a laboum / dal shabet / nine muses / rainbow who're all known (or decently known) groups but can barely manage to stick on the charts for more than a few days (if even that). for some groups this is... not good, but for some others they have something to fall back on whether it be endorsements or album sales (ie: groups like seventeen or got7 who only last a few days on the charts but sell close to 200k physically).

[fabulousdoll.livejournal.com]

It seems people still don't get it. Every few days I see a new comment of how some boy group is done because their song didn't charted well, while they are still selling albums and ticket concerts without a problem.

[pseudo-shigure.livejournal.com]

2. [+2,605, -259] You think the public will care or listen to a song with immature lyrics like "I'm so damn cool I'm going to make you my woman" ?

HA. HA. HA. Because "i'm like TT, just like TT" is so profound.

Also lists factors like boy groups focusing more on overseas activities while girl groups like Twice and Girlfriend are dominating the domestic market
makes me wonder if gg get as much dough as male groups. i mean, korean domestic market is small and cmiiw, but digital don't pay as well as physical? i know they also gets cf deals but is that as good as money from touring?

[fabulousdoll.livejournal.com]

Kpop groups make the most money from tours and concerts. Boy groups get better results in that aspect (unless you are on SNSD level), so pretty sure they make more money.

[frankoceans.livejournal.com]

exo are there tho

[krunkri.livejournal.com]

10. [+373, -46] Male idols are usually a lot more talented than female idols. Not only can they rap but write and compose music too. Girl groups can get away with being average in skill as long as they have the face and body to pull in popularity.

.....nah

[dynamite-state.livejournal.com]

that comment seems so...archaic

[maknaeroli.livejournal.com]

this is unsurprising bc girl groups chart digitally better but it's still cool to see! also why are the year-end awards continuing to show less girl groups I was bored and bonked out while watching each lol

some of those netizen comments are weird :/ like "men are fickle and women stick to one group" uhhhh

and "boy groups write and compose their own songs" yeeun would like to have a word with you

[queenhinata.livejournal.com]

some of those netizen comments are weird :/ like "men are fickle and women stick to one group" uhhhh

it's true tho lmao at least for kfandom that is. male fans will move on to the next IT girl/group easily. hence how quick girl groups can rise and fall, and boy groups may peak but they'll still have fans.

[carra-mia.livejournal.com]

10. [+373, -46] Male idols are usually a lot more talented than female idols. Not only can they rap but write and compose music too. Girl groups can get away with being average in skill as long as they have the face and body to pull in popularity.

Ggs create less own content not bc they are less talented but bc this is not what they are rewarded for.

All the visual stuff aside their succes comes with catchy hooks and memorable (sometimes wtf) one liners and mass appeal. So to have those things company will always prefer to go for a known and succesful prodeucer with hits under his/her belt bc it's less risky and ggs can't risk - you are not on the charts = you half dead. While boys cater more to their fandoms that feed them.And fandoms usually praise everything what comes from members hands, they even like it more than regular stuff.

Plus most of of bgs producers come mostly from groups with some hip hop roots/concept etc. so it kinda naturally evolves from writing your own lyrics to composing/producing while there are not a lot of ggs with that, even initial, background/concept.

[impatiences.livejournal.com]

yesssssss get rid of all the men.

[senshicalico.livejournal.com]

mte I thought i was gonna have to make this comment tbh!

[queenhinata.livejournal.com]

SNSD is the real winner -- make money from digitals, physicals, cfs, AND touring

[hpn88.livejournal.com]

I'm interested to see what happens when twice starts touring cause JYPE aint stupid. they know where the $ is

[cxxl.livejournal.com]

While I feel like there is definitely an interesting discussion to be had taking the top three songs and not looking at the entirety of the chart is...meh. Plus it's commonly accepted that girl groups dominating public masses.Girl groups are designed to sell to people. I feel like most girl group songs are meant to sell as one shot moments, and that's why there is a lack of diversity. The amount of cute groups that came out since late 2014 with the same images and sounds. And this isn't saying boy groups don't have the same issue with diversity. But I feel like it's more interesting with girl groups because the intent to sell is more evident.
Edit: I feel like I worded this weirdly. Girl groups seem more intent to sell than boygroups who do sell but not always to the same demos as girl groups or even at the same spread. Also this doesn't just mean song wise but also in terms of adversitments and endorsements.
Also girl groups not having creative input is due to Companies (and by extension the fans) not viewing them as anything else than a product and not seeing that same value in them being a part of the creative process. K pop overall doesn't value creative women the same way they do men; some of the biggest producers we talk about are men, the idols fans wank over for their creative input are mostly men (and at the volume that they get it too is noticeably larger).
Edit: there are ladies who are involved musically (all of WG, but especially Yeeun), Le from EXID, Jimin from AoA with her parts and Hyorin to a small extent. And a lot of female rappers in general.
Also about touring: we rarely see female acts tour at the same length as male acts do in k pop. But they are big on festival circuits in comparison.

[lazmy.livejournal.com]

it's bc boy groups suck lmao their companies all want them to be hip hop swag and the public wants no parts of that foolery

[dynamite-state.livejournal.com]

I don't know if that's true for the public but it's true for me at least. Looking @ Got7's transformation rn.

[shinychopstick.livejournal.com]

I kind of agree with the 'male fan fickleness' sentiments. The comments left on APink's comeback articles were filled with "this uncle is leaving you for GFriend/Twice" comments which were disgusting, as if the members were getting too old for them. Girl groups who were dominating even within the last two years (Sistar, EXID, AOA, APink) are not performing as well as new groups on the charts (where they're expected to dominate) and it's not just cause their songs aren't as good, when lots of people perceive their initial hype as "bubbles ready to pop". Meanwhile boy groups have their large fanclubs to at least fall back on for stable sales (and I do think female fans are loyal af seeing the longevity of fanclub power for groups like Shinhwa, TVXQ/JYJ, B2ST)

[msgrottesca.livejournal.com]

I honestly see it as such a huge mistake in how girl groups are marketed. Instead of focusing on growing a real dedicate and loyal fanbase the way boy groups do, they just do flash-in-the-pan sexy or schoolgirl concepts that attract a very specific type of male "fan" who feels no real sense of devotion to the group.

[zydratee.livejournal.com]

good

[elisaorange.livejournal.com]

Anyway....

Toy did the best out of the bunch so I'm okay.

[jaequeeragenda.livejournal.com]

good lol, girl group avengers assemble!

[epls6.livejournal.com]

Well, since I follow Block B and leaving aside all the "swag yolo" comments. They don't match what most boys groups do cause honestly, they barelly promote out of korea or japan. Their fandom is always begging for shows in other countries but they do very few, so their money isn't coming from touring. Their fandom is really small, probally less than 30.000 fans around the world wich is why their physical sales is 50k cause many non fans bought the cd cause really enjoyed Toy.

The reason they do well digitally in korea is honestly cause many people over 20 specially love their songs and stream/download but they are not their fans. They have lots of fan boys too, including one really cute that went to all Bastarz fansigns and were all happy with PO giving him atention.

I know a lot of groups invest outside of korea to make money, but I feel Block B, B1A4 and BTOB are not like that and since block b is the only one that ranked well digitally is cause they have lots of no fandom people interested on them cause of their music.

Can't really talk about groups I don't follow, but most boy groups fandom work a lot to put their faves in the charts, I heard they even alternate times to stream songs with different timezones, so that honestly help a lot when fandom is huge, but doesn't necessary mean most koreans know them, but since they chart well, they get interested to know who are those, is good for them. I don't love many girl groups cause too cute songs are not my cup of tea, but when gg put out good songs they tend to chart really well without needing lots of extra support from fandom, but I do think is hard for gg from non big 3 companies to attrack atention from general public. Like WJSN is one group I really like and people paying atention to them now cause of Cheng Xiao sudden fame, even tho it helps is a risky popularity, I wish they were doing well cause of their songs. From all those gg charting well, wonder girls, bolbbalgan and Davichi do well cause people acknowledge their talent and enjoy their songs, is the kind of popularity honestly that deserve a lot of praise, doesn't rely on fandom or just being pretty, people know they are good and want their music. Other gg will end falling on the trading fans situation, they have tons when they are interesting still the next hit girl appear and they move to others. =/ And I do agree many girls do the same with boys groups, they move to new fandoms cause they are cute and fresh, even if their music isn't exactly the style they enjoy.

I don't think charts are very important overall but is a good way to measure their popularity either with fandom or general public, and is normal for us to want our favorites to do well, just unfortunally we can't control the results T_T

[fabulousdoll.livejournal.com]

but most boy groups fandom work a lot to put their faves in the charts, I heard they even alternate times to stream songs with different timezones
is easy to tell that boy groups that usally would not do as well as girl groups on digital charts have dedicated fandoms working to give them more "points" digitally. When Korea is sleeping then boy groups start to rise on the digital charts. I have seen it happen with Seventeen, VIXX, GOT7, etc.

EXO and BTS are hard to tell how much of the results is because the fandom is gigantic and how much is the general public streaming the songs. It's like a middle term. But they still for sure go up when Korea is sleeping thanks to the fandom.

Meanwhile groups like Block B or Big Bang do well digitally because the public likes them, independently of the size of the fandom.

[aeries-amethyst.livejournal.com]

12. [+138, -4] Men will jump to the next pretty girl group as soon as they see one... most male fans are temporary fans. Women, however, stick to one group... The reason girl group popularity never lasts long is because of male fans. Girl groups with long lasting fandoms is because they have a lot of female fans.

This comment in particular made me pause a bit because it's actually kind of true. Take SoShi for example, if you just look at the audience from their tour performances, they have a hell of a lot of fan girls. IIRC, SoShi has one of the largest number of fan girls, it's like almost 50/50 for their fan boys and girls. You know you popular when you've got a whole lotta fan girls lol XD

[msgrottesca.livejournal.com]

I honestly think it's what kills girl groups, especially certain /kinds/ of girl groups. Men are trash so focusing on pandering to male fans instead of building a devoted female fanbase is stupid and short-sighted thinking on the part of companies. When APink blew up, you could listen to their live performances and hear almost exclusively male screams. Now that they're getting "old" (aka now that they don't look like underage teenagers anymore), those male fans are dumping them in favor of groups like GFRIEND.

[sra-interesante.livejournal.com]

if you look back this kind of charts from previous years its not diference, its not a big surprise that general audience love girlgroups
and meanwhile some of the few boybands are the same .... some of the girlgroups on top arent even active or relevant

looks like some boybands last more than they should while girlgroups always seem to disband too soon ..... that comment "Men will jump to the next pretty girl group as soon as they see one... most male fans are temporary fans. Women, however, stick to one group... The reason girl group popularity never lasts long is because of male fans makes things even more obvious

[honey-baymax.livejournal.com]

This is so messy tbh. Both girl groups and boy groups have their disadvantage.

GGs suffer from fanboys bouncing quickly to the next trendy girl group. While having public recognition is great and it allows them to do well on the digital charts, we see that it's never a guarantee that they will continue being successful regarding that aspect. Groups like AOA and even Apink are proof of that. They need fandom power to maintain stability, like SNSD.

While boy groups have the fandom power, they most certainly lack public recognition. Which means that unless they have a hit song like EXO, or are a trendy group like BTS, or are either Big Bang or Block B or from YG in general, then their digital will be bad. But if they have to a good sizable fandom that is willing to buy albums and go to their concerts then they will excel in that aspect, which I think is more important in the long run than doing good digitally. That's why girl groups tend to disband more often than boy groups.

Also I'm laughing at this comment "You think the public will care or listen to a song with immature lyrics like "I'm so damn cool I'm going to make you my woman". Such lack of awareness lmao.

[tsuyoi-hikari.livejournal.com]

Just wanna say that Lim Chang Jung conquering the whole September is deserving since 'The Love I Committed' is arguably one of the best releases songs from last year. :)

[pseudo-shigure.livejournal.com]

He always tops the chart with his release tho

[jrt131n.livejournal.com]

If I know Kpop was gonna be political I would have just stayed listening to American music.....

[cinnabun11.livejournal.com]

lmao you must be new to kpop then

[calzonazos.livejournal.com]

Why are boyband stans so fucking fragile?
Let girlbands and their fans have something nice for once ffs. Also I can't believe netizen no.6 seriously wrote boys are better live (in a world where "shawty imma party till the sundown" happened), or that composing and writing music is exclusive only to male idols O: I guess EXID's LE doesn't exist.

[10135.livejournal.com]

Honestly I can see so much wrong with all of this. It's not just one thing, it's many. The idea that women are less because they don't write their own songs is bullshit. Especially when tons of boy groups don't promote with their own song. Then people don't even see what's coming out of their mouth and show respect to the boy groups that do and don't even see WHY a lot of girl groups don't, and there are plenty of reasons why! WG is popular and yet Yenny didn't do so great during her promotions despite composing and making her own music. Not to mention music types matter, the groups reputation they are from, the company... There are so many little details and it certainly isn't black or white... Anyway I'm glad girl groups are dominating the charts. They work so hard. I'm not saying boy groups can't but... they can roll out of bed and get recognition and girls can't make one pop hit without people coming for them *ahem, see the TT comments*... I'm actually curious when this happened last time. Or if this is the first time it's happened? I don't know but I'd like to know.

[mjspice.livejournal.com]

This seems rather hilarious yet suspicious to me.