Just to clarify: I know that charts don’t really matter, I’m simply pointing out a trend I’ve noticed. I know that album sales are also a measure of success but they tend to increase regardless of a group’s success.
Streams-wise, it seems like a number of 4th gen groups have already peaked which is unsurprising considering that many of them have been active for 4+ years at this point and had explosive debut eras. But strangely enough, 5th gen groups haven’t really filled the gap. It seems to be a more general trend of weak international performance, rather than 4th gen groups losing relevancy.
Not a single 5th gen girl group has debuted with more than 450k streams on their most recent release apart from BabyMonster. For reference, Stereotype by STAYC outstreamed ILLIT, MEOVV and Hearts2Hearts when comparing first day streams of their latest comebacks. I don’t keep up with 5th gen boy groups but they seem to be in the same boat with 100k-500k per release, not a big gap surprisingly and RIIZE is doing better than their female peers apart from BaeMon.
Groups that used to chart on Spotify global semi-consistently or at least had good performance now often debut with less than 800k streams or in several recent cases, less than 500k. IVE is the craziest to me. ELEVEN, LOVE DIVE, AFTER LIKE and I AM was an insane title track run both sonically and success-wise. Kitsch and Baddie performed quite well but Attitude wasn’t nearly as strong. I also can’t believe that Know About Me by NMIXX didn’t become much more popular internationally considering that some of their more experimental releases did better.
It’s worse considering how much K-Pop companies appeal to the West now. Friday releases, multiple versions for Billboard, American festivals, SNL performances, fluent English-speaking members yet the decline continues.
I can’t tell if this is necessarily reflective of K-Pop becoming less popular globally. From what I’ve seen, a group releases one song that doesn’t quite resonate with the international audience and they don’t recover. On the other hand, there may be less genuine interest now. I did see a claim that K-Pop reached peak global interest in 2023 but I can’t find a source or article that goes with it.
I also don’t know much about how K-Pop groups are selling in their global tours so feel free to add any statistics on that. AFAIK, no group is selling that poorly. I also suspect that this might be coming from a decline in popularity in Southeast Asia? The region is typically K-Pop’s biggest stronghold so maybe the decline stems from there but I’m not sure.
BTS, BP, Aespa, SKZ and LSFM seem to be the last ones standing.
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