And I think Cheer Up is moreso the Tell Me equivalent.
I think people really underestimate how dominant DDDD was in Korea. It is the first and only girl group song to achieve over 1m daily listeners on Melon, and was peaking at almost 900k uls one month after release. To date, it records the highest weekly digital points of all time, with its 3rd week being #4. It is the fastest song by a Kpop group to sell 2.5m downloads and surpass 100m streams in Korea. And it was the first song by a girl group since Girls Generation to top Gallup (Cheer Up was #2 in 2016). Not to mention, Forever Young was #2 on every chart, blocked only by DDDD and it is the most successful Kpop bside of all time. Probably the single most dominant comeback era we have ever seen by a girl group and I won’t even talk about the international achievements.
The bigger reason for my reasoning for calling it the Gee equivalent is what happened after it.
Gee is remembered as a legendary song because it became a blueprint. It didn’t invent cute concepts, but it perfected and popularized them to the point where they became the standard companies chased throughout 2nd and early 3rd gen. I think DDDD did the same for the latter half of 3rd gen and the generations onward.
After DDDD, the Kpop industry increasingly shifted toward luxury branding, high-fashion visuals, blockbuster music videos, performance-driven concepts, stronger individual member branding, and global-first marketing. It also cemented the hip-hop/trap-influenced, girl crush formula as one of the defining sounds of late 3rd gen. For a solid 3-4 years after DDDD, you could feel the ripples of the era everywhere from girl groups and boy groups alike and the impact of Blackpink and their marketing persists today.
The cultural shift in Kpop that Gee caused is equivalent only by DDDD in the 3rd gen. And if we really wanna argue, HYLT can be another contender.
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