A summary of the news, current and upcoming comebacks, charts and music show wins, and more!
NOTE: Except in special cases, the news recapped in these posts will refer to K-pop only. K-dramas, variety shows, and other forms of entertainment will only be mentioned if there is an idol or idol group involved.
News to Note
- Greek television show host Katerina Kainourgiou came under fire for making derogatory comments about idols such as EXO‘s Sehun, BTS‘s V and Jungkook, and Wanna One‘s Kang Daniel during a panel discussing TC Candler’s list of “The Most Handsome Faces of 2018.”
- IU is taking legal action against rumors of investment fraud concerning a building she bought in Gyeonggi province.
- Super Junior member Kyuhyun‘s older sister revealed that someone has been stalking her and members of her family for over three years.
- After departing Seven Seasons late last year, Zico (Block B) is opening his new agency KOZ Entertainment. KOZ stands for “King of the Zungle,” which was the name of his latest tour.
- Big Hit Entertainment started to tease their new boy group TXT (Tomorrow x Together), causing first revealed member Yeonjun to trend on Twitter. The second announced member Soobin trended worldwide as well.
- Girl’s Day‘s agency Dream T Entertainment revealed that Sojin has chosen not to renew her contract. The remaining three women are in discussions about contract renewal. The agency maintains that Girl’s Day is not disbanding, but various news sources speculate that they might because all four members are successful individually.
NOTE: Linked articles are from Soompi.
This Week’s Debuts and Comebacks
- Apink, “%% (Eung Eung)” / Percent
- iKON, “I’m Okay” / The New Kids*
- KNK, “Lonely Night” / Lonely Night
- Cosmic Girls, “La La Love” / WJ Stay?
- *DEBUT* / VERIVERY, “Ring Ring Ring” / VERI-US
- *DEBUT* / ONEUS, “Valkyrie” / Light Us
*iKON’s single was the title track for their New Kids repackage, but they won’t promote it on any music shows.
Coming Up Next Week
| Monday (1/14) | Tuesday (1/15) | Wednesday (1/16) | Thursday (1/17) | Friday (1/18) |
| *GFriend | *Ateez *Favorite *Minhyuk (BTOB solo debut) | *ASTRO | *WayV (SM’s new Chinese group) |
This Week’s Music Show Wins
| The Show (SBS MTV) | No Broadcast |
| Show Champion (MBC) | Chungha, “Gotta Go” (1st win) |
| M! Countdown (MNET) | Chungha, “Gotta Go” (2nd win) |
| Music Bank (KBS) | WINNER, “Millions” (6th win) |
| Music Core (MBC) | Chungha, “Gotta Go” (3rd win) |
| Inkigayo (SBS) | Chungha, “Gotta Go” (4th win) |
Album Sales, Streaming, and Charting
- Wanna One topped Gaon’s weekly physical album chart with 1¹¹=1 (Power of Destiny), while BTS‘s “DNA” tops the social chart.
- EXO placed first and second on Gaon’s monthly physical album chart with Love Shot and Don’t Mess Up My Tempo (for December).
- WINNER‘s Mino topped Gaon’s monthly digital chart and streaming chart with his single “Fiance” (for December).
- Wanna One’s album 1¹¹=1 (Power of Destiny) was certified double platinum by Gaon with TWICE‘s mini album Yes or Yes.
- Hwasa (MAMAMOO) and Loco‘s single “Don’t” was certified double platinum by Gaon.
- EXO’s Don’t Mess Up My Tempo became their fifth album to receive a million certification by Gaon, making them quintuple million sellers.
NOTE: Gaon‘s weekly charts reflect the previous week.
The International Side of K-pop
- K-pop groups and artists dominated Billboard‘s World Albums chart this week, taking all of the Top 10 spots.
- BTS stayed in the Top 3 spots with Love Yourself: Answer at #1, Love Yourself: Her at #2, and Love Yourself: Tear at #3. Their Japanese album Face Yourself was #6.
- EXO had Don’t Mess Up My Tempo at #4 and Love Shot at #8.
- NCT 127 had Regular-Irregular at #5 and Regulate at #9.
- EXO’s Lay came in at #7 with NAMANANA.
- Monsta X took #10 with Take 1: Are You There?
- BTS’s music video for “DNA” became the first Korean group music video to reach 600 million views on YouTube. Several days later, BLACKPINK‘s music video for “Ddu Du Ddu Du” became the fastest Korean group music video to reach 600 million views.
Notable Variety Shows Featuring K-pop Idols
| Idol Room Guest(s) | Weekly Idol Guest(s) | Knowing Brothers /Ask us Anything Guest(s) | |
| This Past Week | Year of the Pig Special: Sowon (GFriend), YooA (Oh My Girl), Bona (Cosmic Girls), Jiyoung (Bolbbalgan4), Chungha | First Episode With New Hosts: Hyojung, Arin, and Seunghee (Oh My Girl) / Taeyong, Doyoung, and Jungwoo (NCT) | Kwanghee (ZE:A) P.O (Block B) |
| Next Week | GFriend | Cosmic Girls | (Non-idol guest) |
Other Notable Variety Shows This Past Week
- SUN 1/13 / Running Man / SBS / Guest stars included WINNER members Seunghoon and Seungyoon, Chungha, and Weki Meki’s Doyeon.
Coming Up Next Week
- TUE 1/15 / “To NEVERLAND” / MNET / (G)I-DLE’s travel variety show that will follow members on a trip to San Francisco, California. (“Neverland” is their fandom name.)
- WED 1/16 / GOT7’s Real Thai / XtvN / GOT7’s travel variety show featuring Mark, Jinyoung, Youngjae, and BamBam
*SOURCES NOTE: I get my news from a mix of sources, and all of them report the same information and sometimes cite each other as well. So rather than linking the exact article for each and every news item (unless the article provides a lot more detail), I will cite my general news sources below. Each of them will most likely have an article and/or tweet providing more details on the item in question.
MY REGULAR NEWS SOURCES: Soompi, Omona They Didn’t (Livejournal), mes #TeamPinky (Twitter @OH_mes), The Seoul Story (Twitter @theseoulstory), Girl Group Zone! (Twitter @girlgroupzone)
FEATURED IMAGE SOURCE: Big Hit Entertainment and TXT’s Twitter account
VIDEO SOURCES: Jellyfish Entertainment (VERIVERY), Plan A Entertainment (Apink), RBW Entertainment (ONEUS), Starship Entertainment (Cosmic Girls), and YG Entertainment (iKON) / 1theK distributed the music videos for Apink, Cosmic Girls, ONEUS / Stone Music Entertainment distributed VERIVERY’s music video / KNK is currently without an agency (from what I can tell), so I will directly cite their YouTube channel
OTHER SOURCES: Wikipedia, Billboard, Gaon Chart, JTBC, KBS, MBC, MNET, SBS, SBS MTV, V-Live
Katherine Does K-POP 