By 2025.01.06
A HAPPY NEW YEAR！
Happy New Year.
I look forward to your continued support for this column this year.
Now, for the first article of the new year, I would like to check the predictions I made a year ago.
Looking back about a year ago.
The column I wrote in Season1#5 about the 2024 KPOP outlook.
If you haven’t read it, I would greatly appreciate it if you could read the article from Season1#5 and then return to this article.
So, without further ado, the conclusion.
“2024 will be the year of the revival of girl groups.”
Whether my prediction from a year ago was correct or not.
The answer is…
“It can’t be said to be completely right, nor can it be said to be completely wrong.”
Although I wrote it myself, it turned out to be a rather ambiguous result that is neither a big hit nor a complete miss.
In 2024, there were three explosively hit songs in KPOP.
ILLIT’s “Magnetic”
aespa’s “Supernova”
And, Rosé & Bruno Mars’s “APT.”
Yes, one of the three explosively hit songs is aespa’s “Supernova,” a solid girl group track.
Moreover, “Supernova” did not just become a hit; it achieved remarkable success.
It achieved a “perfect all-kill” by simultaneously reaching number one on all major music charts in South Korea, and it maintained the number one position on the major South Korean music chart Melon for 15 consecutive weeks, surpassing New Jeans’ record of 14 consecutive weeks with “Ditto,” setting a new record for the longest consecutive number one.
Furthermore, the album “Armageddon,” which includes “Supernova,” sold 1.15 million copies in its first week, achieving four consecutive million-seller albums and reaching number one on the US Billboard World Albums chart.
Additionally, it was selected as number one in the “Billboard Staff Picks: The 25 Best K-Pop Songs of 2024” announced by Billboard at the end of the year.
Billboard praised it as “the K-Pop track that represents this year. This song unfolds over three minutes, perfectly combining innovation and structure, featuring three full choruses, dynamic sections, an emotional bridge, and an overwhelming dance break. Still, aespa maintains a sense of completeness and consistency throughout the song, showcasing new horizons.”
Moreover, at the largest music awards in KPOP, the “2024 MAMA AWARDS,” “Supernova” won Song of the Year.
Both domestically and internationally, “Supernova” was praised as the best KPOP song of the year.
Considering that 2023 was the year of New Jeans, which established the Y2K boom and easy listening in KPOP, I believe that very few people expected aespa, a representative girl group, to achieve such career-high sales and success in just one year, even though they were already a popular group.
In that sense, it feels appropriate to say that it was indeed a year of revival for girl groups!
Furthermore, in July, the pioneer of girl groups, 2NE1, announced their activities as a complete group for the first time in ten years, and tickets for their Asia tour, which started in October, sold out across the board.
YG Entertainment’s rookie girl group BABYMONSTER’s first full album “DRIP,” announced on November 1, topped the iTunes album charts in 11 countries and regions, and the music video for “DRIP” surpassed 100 million views in just 21 days.
Thus, there are countless examples of how girl groups advanced in 2024.
So why can’t the author confidently say that 2024 was the year of the revival of girl groups?
It boils down to the fact that when asked by casual KPOP fans, there aren’t many who would respond, “2024 was the year of girl groups!”
The number one factor is undoubtedly the presence of ILLIT.
ILLIT’s debut song “Magnetic,” released in March this year, went viral worldwide.
In South Korea, like aespa, it achieved a “perfect all-kill,” and it became the first KPOP debut song to chart on the US Billboard main chart “HOT100,” achieving the remarkable feat of charting for 22 consecutive weeks thereafter.
In Japan alone, it achieved a cumulative playback count of 100 million on the Oricon weekly streaming ranking in its 11th week.
This is the fastest in history for a female group and the second-best record overall in KPOP after BTS.
Additionally, it ranked number one for five consecutive weeks on the TikTok Weekly Top 20.
Moreover, ILLIT has elements that cannot be measured by these numbers alone.
That is the recognition among non-KPOP fans.
The aforementioned US Billboard main chart “HOT100” is difficult to rank on just by fans listening to the song; it is essential for general users to listen to the song.
Furthermore, in Japan, they achieved the remarkable feat of appearing on the two major year-end music programs, the Japan Record Awards and the Kohaku Uta Gassen, in their first year of debut.
Considering these factors, I believe that ILLIT’s “Magnetic” likely has a higher general recognition than aespa’s “Supernova.”
Yes, I assume that a considerable number of people would respond with “Magnetic” when asked what the best-selling KPOP song of 2024 was.
Another significant factor that cannot be considered a revival of girl groups is Rosé & Bruno Mars’s “APT.”
Although Rosé is a member of the representative girl group BLACKPINK, “APT.” is not a girl group song.
On the contrary, it is a song that is like a bundle of super pop songs, sweeping away the KPOP discussions in the fall.
In fact, it showed such momentum that it overshadowed both “Supernova” and “Magnetic.”
The music video surpassed 260 million views within two weeks of its release, achieving a “perfect all-kill” in South Korea.
On Spotify, it topped both the global and US charts.
In the UK singles chart, it recorded the highest position for a KPOP female artist at number two.
Additionally, it topped the iTunes charts in a total of 40 countries and regions.
Thus, in 2024, KPOP experienced three big waves with “Supernova,” “Magnetic,” and “APT.”
Honestly, it seems rare in recent years to have three explosively hit songs emerge from different artists.
However, I believe this has helped everyone understand.
“2024 will be the year of the revival of girl groups.”
The prediction I made a year ago,
“It can’t be said to be completely right, nor can it be said to be completely wrong,”
has resulted in a rather ambiguous and half-hearted conclusion.
This year, I hope to train and refine my KPOP path to accurately predict the 2025 outlook, as I conclude my New Year’s greeting.
The End
Nekomachi Peko
Head of the SKOOTA KPOP Department
〈Originally a Western rock music enthusiast, I once considered working at Rockin’ On. I started listening to KPOP due to BTS and later became obsessed with BLACKPINK, stepping into the KPOP world. I became a hardcore fan of Kep1er, who debuted from the survival audition program “Girls Planet 999,” resulting in me fully immersing myself in the KPOP world.〉
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