Neon’s massive success definitely marks a shift in the discussion around 5th gen girl groups. A lot of comparisons are being made and a lot of eyes are on how this song/group might shake things up going forward. 4th gen’s grasp seems to be weakening in the minds of people for the first time
Here are my random thoughts on what we’ve seen from 5th gen groups so far and where they currently stand going forward.
I’m going to give a favorable comparison group to where I could see the group’s future end up similar to, if things go right for them.
Also, one of the things I see people complaining about the most is promotion. My god do people seem absolutely delusional in their thoughts and comments on the level of promotion their favorite group gets, and so I’ll be giving a ranking on how well I think a group has been promoted (this is more from a pure investment standpoint than a creative quality assessment as that’s very subjective)
A2o Lite
Not gonna say too much here, it’s been a week since they debuted and they have one song. That one song is very, very good though and the group is very obviously immensely talented in both singing and dancing. By all accounts they look to have a potentially remarkable future ahead of them and we could easily look back at their debut as a changing point in the industry.
Promotion – N/A Comparison – SNSD
Rescene
I followed Rescene closely before and during their rise. Watching their journey in real-time was immensely satisfying and already one of my favorite memories as a KPOP fan. The group got popular through Youtube content but they already had great music and one of the best and most defined musical directions of 5th gen groups long before that.
Without knowing Korean public sentiment you’ll truly have zero clue just how much this group has taken over the country. I fully expect their next comeback to do absolutely insane numbers and so far I’ve been impressed with all the decisions they’ve made in making sure they don’t throw away the boost in popularity they have. Anyone who thinks they’re FOTM was already wrong several months ago and will continue to be proven wrong
Promotion – 5/10
A true nugu to riches story, Rescene’s company was brand new and struggled massively just to get the group on music shows at the start. The group took on every single opportunity that came their way in the hopes of getting their name out there. The greatest success of Muze’s promotion to me is that every single cent of their raised funds went entirely into the group. Nothing was split between multiple groups or predebut trainees or producers, the company’s entire focus in all ways and especially financially was on making Rescene popular.
They could’ve just as easily went bankrupt without ever getting popular, but they really gave it their all and it worked out. They could’ve easily pocketed the money once they finally got popular, but it seems they’re reinvesting it again in a massive way towards making the groups production better and more in line with the big dogs.
Comparison – Newjeans
Really there’s no comparison to Rescene’s company situation (especially to a group under Hybe)…but more of the rapid rise and becoming the nation’s sweethearts that swept Korea seemingly overnight, that people loved for their group sound and personalities rather than their individual talent
Hearts2Hearts
H2H is an insanely polished product and it feels like every single step of theirs has been meticulously thought of and planned years in advance. It feels like they’ve had a new song every single month this year and it’s very clear the company is rapidly expanding their catalogue to get them ready to start touring next year.
They have impressive group choreo and a ton of money and promotion behind them, but the music has simply not been that strong overall with Lemon Tang being a disaster level of song to me. Rude gave them momentum they needed, but I’m not even sure that would’ve happened without Stella jumping in during recording and fixing the part that eventually made the song a hit.
Most of their discog is extremely safe, in a bad way, and I wonder how much of that is the producers potentially being limited by their vocals. Half the members do little more than talk singing in their songs, and the issue isn’t that they don’t have a Taeyeon – it’s that they don’t have a Taeyeon, Seo, Jessica, OR Tiffany. I love the vocal tones of Yuha and Stella, but they simply don’t have a big hitter main vocal to do the heavy lifting for them.
They’re a SM group so they’ll be fine, but a2o’s emergence has brought a lot of scrutiny their way with them being sort of a punching bag for all the unfavorable comparisons of what a2o Lite is vs the factors of modern groups people are disappointed in. They’re the first SM gg without LSM’s influence and that’s viewed as a negative thing by a lot of people.
Comparison – TWICE
Definitely haven’t had anywhere near the musical success TWICE had at this point yet, but they have cutesy concepts and styles and are almost more of a comedy group people love for their personalities and chemistry. If their music catches up and their group chemistry stays as strong they could become VERY popular and they’re already popular
Promotion – 10/10
Yeah, their social media budget is probably larger than most nugu’s entire operating budget. Insane production value on everything they do, ads and promotions everywhere, jampacked schedule with constant apperances. I honestly wonder how much they make for making songs + MVs as ads and social media engagement, their balance sheet as a whole must be fascinating
Illit
The streaming monsters. Illit’s next comeback will tell us a lot about the group’s current performance and future. They’ve recently struggled to sell out their encore concert in Korea in a pretty embarrassing way, and there are very real concerns over the true size of the core fanbase they have in Korea.
Personally, I definitely think Rescene’s rise took away a lot of the casual listenerbase they once pulled from but the answer could also be mixed with a simpler one – when you’re a group that lipsyncs excessively and isn’t known for being great live performers theres going to be less demand to see them live. It doesn’t mean they’re not still massive and in a better spot than almost any other gen5 group, it just means it makes more sense to stream their songs from home than pay top tier ticket prices to see them live.
I really liked Illit’s concept and a lot of their early songs, but I have to admit I lost a lot of my interest in the group with their latest ep. I legitimately thought It’s Me was one of the worst songs I’d ever heard on my first listen and it’s massive success obviously leads to worry they’ll lean more in that direction. I hope this next ep is less of what I’ll call – Hybe tiktok slop
Comparison – Kara
Illit’s greatest strength right now feels like their overwhelming success in Japan. Even if interest in Korea were to wane, they have such a strong Japanese base that they’d still be safe
Promotion – 10/10
Hybe group, what else is there to say
Babymonster
Unquestionably the most successful group by far by ticket sales. Unquestionably one of the most talented groups. Unquestionably loved by China, Japan, and SEA. Unquestionably not popular with Koreans.
The question is, how much does it matter that they’re not popular in Korea? Chinese fans will buy out all their tickets for concerts in Korea, and not charting hasn’t hurt them one bit yet.
I appreciate that they sing live and perform well, but this is the only group I basically refuse to listen to at all because I hate their music that badly so it’s hard for me to rate them in that way. I admit they’re the group on this list I know the least about
Comparison – Blackpink
Besides the YG connection and SEA popularity, their concert sales are too massive to compare them downward, and they’re already up there with the top 4th gen groups
Promotion – 10/10
Unquestionably a ton went into this group, even in their pre-debut materials. Their concerts have very high production value, constant comebacks, every song on a album gets a MV. Their ad buys on youtube vids probably exceed some nugu’s entire budget. No expense is spared for this group
Kiss of Life
To date I think Kiss of Life has the best discog of 5th gen groups. Lots of songs, a few hits, some truly great b-sides and a clear musical direction.
The problem is that once Lee Haein left it did feel like things took a step back creatively. Will they ever be popular in the West again? Who knows. They apologized and it’s up to people to forgive them or not. They still have popularity in Asia though and spent a lot of time on their Japan debut and stabilizing their fandom. Their last two singles both got music show wins and I liked Sweat quite a bit.
I notice a real increased humility and noticeable chemistry between members in their content these days, and it feels like they have a pretty mature view towards appreciating what they have and getting better. Their star isn’t shining as bright as it once was, but I don’t think their story is over.
Comparison – N/A
Promotion – 4/10
Somewhat similar to Rescene, if you’re gonna come from a small company it’s best to be the sole or main group from that company so all focus goes to your success. With Lee Haein as creative director and Shin Heewon making music videos, this group had such strong creatives behind it and you can really tell in their work. It felt like they had instant subs on everything long before it was the norm. I think S2 has done about as well as you could expect a company of it’s size to do in their promotional work and they spent heavily for their size
Meovv
Meovv is a weird one. In so many ways. Their choreo is very offputting to Koreans, their personalities clash hard with their looks, their music is all over the place. How did the “group of models” become the group of goofy goobers with quirky choreo?
The music is the biggest sin to me. I think Hands Up is the only truly good song they have in 2 years, although I do like b-sides In My Hands and Indestructible as well. Their music at this point because of consecutive releases of DDI RO RI and Go Hard is starting to be considered as meme music and that’s not a good label to have and one that’s hard to shake.
I have no idea how to predict Meovv’s future. The standard practice for groups their age is to start touring and it seems like they’ve been gearing up for that this year – half of their discog is from the last 3 months. I kinda have a hard time seeing them actually tour though. Would they view performing at the small venues their current fanbase would dictate as below them?
They have great studio voices because the difference in their tones works well but they’ve hid their live singing for the most part outside of a couple radio apperances – in which Anna clearly had massive performance anxiety. Their choreo also makes some of their songs impossible to do live just at a baseline. All of which to say – I struggle to imagine Meovv touring soon, but how would they make money otherwise?
The most natural path in my head for Meovv would be focusing on the US with several fluent english speakers that makes them great at interviews and variety and crowd work. It’s a bad time for Kpop in the US though and I have no idea if TBL has any interest or experience in major US expansion yet
Lastly, a small worry but I fear Anna’s popularity might eventually eclipse the others in such a lopsided way it becomes distracting. She’s clearly considered by Koreans to be the visual of the generation and I only see her popularity rising, especially with constant variety appearances like Workdol and Sana’s fridge. The girls have great chemistry , it’s always outside people who make issues of stuff like this.
Comparison – LSF
Quirky girls with music that’s all over the place and a American born fluent English speaker
Promotion – 9/10
TBL spends money like a tech startup. Their investment is truly insane and I can’t imagine any of their groups have turned a profit yet. The only point off is that meovv spent a long time between comebacks at one point, but other than that the group is everywhere, even in KPDH. They have 15 songs and 10 of them have a music video. The entire media rollout of Bite Now was insane, with a 5 minute album trailer, mood films, photoshoots, trailers, previews, etc coming out every day. They had a quick turnaround with this comeback and are absolutely everywhere variety-wise right now.
Izna
My personal favorite group of 5th gen, I did a writeup on their recent concert in Seoul awhile back. I try to be very objective about my favorite groups so I can be realistic and not be let down too harshly and Izna has a lot of flaws in how it was handled from debut to now
The most impactful negatives facing Izna are that their debut song was not good and made a lot of people immediately lose interest, they lost a very popular member right away, they’re like Meovv in not having a clear defined musical direction, and their company is both small/midlevel AND bad at promoting. Smaller issues but still very impactful are that they had a massive momentum killing gap between comebacks and they mischose title tracks multiple times (a death sentence to a CB when you don’t pivot/have additional MVs like KiiiKiii and Meovv did with I DO ME and Hit Em).
The good side of things is that they’ve already made their Japanese debut to moderate success, and they’re the only group besides BM, Illit, and KioF that has held a tour yet. They’re performing at smaller venues of 2k~ capacity but it’s a crucially important step in any group’s journey and also shows they have both a discog strong enough to make a quality setlist from and quality live vocals. Ideally, this should leave the path open for them to focus simply on putting out new music next year, as they only had a single Korean cb this year.
To me, they’re possibly the most talented group here (although a2o might’ve stolen that crown) as they’re the overall best group at dancing, their vocals aren’t amazing but better than most on the list and anchored by possibly the best main vocalist of 5th gen, and their live performance is tremendous. Every single review I’ve read by people who have went to their rookie concert has been positive, with people blown away by their performance skills. Choi Jungeun is to me, hands down the best performer of the generation and I don’t think anyone is even close.
We know that talent doesn’t really have much to do with success in modern Kpop though, and it’d be silly to expect them to become popular just from that. Being the “performance group” doesn’t mean much if you can’t get people into the seats to see the performance. They have to attract fans at a better rate if they want to have a bright future
Overall it feels like their core fanbase is relatively the same level as Meovv and KiiiKiii, but the striking difference between them and everyone on this list is that they have a nonexistent casual base. Casual fans are a massive base to pull from, for every single metric – streaming, MV views, album sales. They are massively struggling to get people to check out their stuff on a whim like other groups do and that comes from really bad promotion and lack of exposure. If they can somehow fix that and get people to try them, their skill and wholesome group chemistry might make some people stay.
Comparison – NMIXX
While not similar musically or vocal talent wise to NMIXX, there are similarities in having a panned debut and losing a popular member extremely early on. Being a group that people respect for their performance skills and slowly but surely growing their base over time one performance at a time like NMIXX did is the best case scenario Izna can hope for. They’re obviously missing the JYP backing and 1 million debut album sales though, so it’ll be a tough road for them
Promotion – 3/10
They’re better off than true nugus who’d I’d put at 1/10 and fans act like Wakeone is the single worst company out there which really isn’t true. I think their youtube content team has improved a lot this year and their concert production was surprisingly good for a smaller company. Their social media is just painfully outdated, and they seem to have no connections at all to anything in regards to variety content. The members are never featured on anything and without Jeemin being the MC on MuBank they’d truly have nothing going for them exposure wise.
They only have 6 MVs (their Japanese debut MV was extremely low budget), extremely little content as part of their comeback rollouts, and in general are just far closer to a true nugu’s nonexistent budget then they are to a big4 group or even groups like Meovv/KiiiKiii. Still, Wakeone IS trying to promote them, they’re just woefully inept in some areas and don’t have a lot of spending.
KiiiKiii
Another pretty unique case is KiiiKiii. I didn’t pay attention at all during their debut, listening to it now the whole thing is a complete disaster to me musically outside of I DO ME. They followed one of the worst debut albums I remember with a very nice single in Dancing Alone and then both of their albums this year have been very strong, two of the best releases of the year. Unfortunately I dislike their choices in WhyKiiiKiii’s promotion, as I much prefer some of the b-sides they didn’t pick.
Talent-wise this group might legitimately be the worst on the list in both singing and dancing. They also have a problem in that none of the members stand out at all in a interesting way, and the members largely get outshined by the group concept overall. It would be nice if wonderful creative direction and interesting music in a rather uninteresting musical landscape was enough to make a group successful regardless of these issues – but I think Kpop has consistently shown you need to have more than that, and that’s the core issue facing KiiiKiii’s future.
I really like some of their music and am very impressed by their creative vision that they stick to, but I don’t think I would ever necessarily care to see them live over just streaming their songs and I’m unlikely to ever seek out their content.
Comparison – Illit
Musically you could make a lot of comparisons to various groups but I think it’d be a insult to f(x)’s immense talent to compare them as overall groups. Early Illit is who they remind me of the most, without a Wonhee level standout star.
Promotion – 9/10
This group is everywhere. Throwing the first pitch at a MLB game, performing at NBA China, ads in NYC and Times Square, a big League of Legends collaboration, award shows, photoshoots for every song, a full on creative website. Some of it is their team being creative in a great way, but there’s also no doubt Starship has massively invested a lot of their resources into KiiiKiii as they prepare for a potential post-IVE world. They’re not a part of the big4 but SSE is very obviously the 5th largest company and I think KiiiKiii has benefitted massively from being IVE’s little sisters
Other groups I’d like to mention but don’t know well enough to give a full detailed accounting Heart of Woman – one of the best albums released this year and one of the most impressive debuts I remember. ifeye – Really like this group and their music. Apparently they replaced their entire creative team before their last CB which disappointed people but I still found it to be fine, even if less original. Baby DONT Cry – Bittersweet is fantastic, excited for their next CB Keyveatz – Some great songs already I wasn’t really intrigued by Tuide or OBD so I don’t know too much about either, but the difference in promotion between the two is pretty crazy.
submitted by /u/spritepepsicola
[link] [comments]
