As part of my plans for 2021, I decided to bring back my weekly news recaps (though I tweaked things a little bit). Keep reading for a summary of this week’s 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
- Gaon Chart released their year end charts for 2020. I’ve put some notable K-pop related results below. You can see more detailed information about the charts here.
- Zico topped the overall digital chart, the streaming chart, and the download chart with “Any Song.”
- BTS placed #2 on the download chart with “Dynamite.”
- Red Velvet’s “Psycho” is the only K-pop group song in the Top 10 of the overall digital chart at #9.
- BTS placed #1 and #2 on the album chart with Map of the Soul: 7 and BE respectively. SEVENTEEN placed #3 with Heng:garae, NCT placed #4 with Resonance: Part 1, and BLACKPINK placed #5 with The Album.
- Dispatch has reported that all seven members of GOT7 will leave JYP Entertainment and go their separate ways. This news comes after rumors about Jinyoung and Yugyeom moving to different agencies, as well as some unfollowing action between Park Jin Young and the GOT7 members on social media. Though there are several reports about each member’s future plans, JYP Entertainment has not yet put out an official statement and none of the members have said anything specific (although most of them posted the same group picture on Instagram and Mark wrote a message on Twitter). Since GOT7’s contract expires soon, we can most likely expect more definitive news in the following days.
- The Golden Disc Awards were held on January 9 (digital categories) and January 10 (physical categories). I have put the Bonsang and Daesang winners below, but you can see full lists of winners for Day 1 here and Day 2 here.
| Day 1 – Digital/Songs | Day 2 – Physical/Albums | |
|---|---|---|
| Bonsang Winners | BLACKPINK BTS HWASA ITZY IU MAMAMOO Noel Oh My Girl Red Velvet Zico | Baekhyun of EXO BLACKPINK BTS EXO GOT7 NCT NCT 127 SEVENTEEN TWICE TXT |
| Daesang Winners | IU (“Blueming”) | BTS (Map of the Soul: 7) |
This Week’s Debuts and Comebacks
Jeong Sewoon, “In the Dark” (1/6)
MCND, “Crush” (1/8)
Coming Up Next Week
| Monday (1/11) | Tuesday (1/12) | Wednesday (1/13) | Thursday (1/14) | Friday (1/15) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Victon | ||||
| (G)I-DLE | ||||
| TREASURE |
This Week’s Music Show Wins
| The Show (SBS MTV) | No broadcast/winner |
| Show Champion (MBC) | No broadcast/winner |
| M! Countdown (MNET) | No broadcast/winner |
| Music Bank (KBS) | “Dynamite,” BTS (30th win) |
| Music Core (MBC) | “Life Goes On,” BTS (8th win) |
| Inkigayo (SBS) | “Shiny Star,” KyoungSeo (1st win) |
Album Sales, Streaming, and Charting
Gaon Weekly Chart
NOTE 1: Gaon‘s weekly charts reflect the previous week.
NOTE 2: Because not many K-pop songs make it onto the digital charts, I’ll only list the Top 5 for album sales and the social chart. Then I’ll make notes of any K-pop songs that placed high on the digital charts. To see a full breakdown of the chart, you can go here.
| #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Album Sales | TXT (minisode1_ Blue Hour) | ENHYPEN (Border_ Day One) | Song Ga In (Dream) | Kim Jaejoong (Ayo) | P1HArmony (Disharmony_ Stand Out) |
| Social | BLACKPINK | BTS | Song Ga In | Park Seo Jin | Im Young Woong |
- BTS’s “Dynamite” placed #3 on the overall digital and streaming charts.
Gaon Monthly Chart (for December 2019)
| #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Album Sales | NCT (Resonance Pt. 2) | IZ*ONE (One-reeler / Act IV) | Kim Ho Joong (The Classic Album I) | Kim Ho Joong (The Classic Album II) | Kai (EXO) (KAI) |
| Social | BLACKPINK | BTS | Im Young Woong | IZ*ONE | Yang Joon Il |
- BTS’s “Dynamite” placed #2 on the overall digital chart and streaming chart.
- BLACKPINK placed #1 on the social chart for the eighth month in a row.
Gaon Certifications
| Million Album Certification | Double Platinum Album | Platinum Album | Platinum Downloads | Platinum Streams | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Group/Artist | BTS, BE (2 million) | SuperM, Super One | Monsta X, Fatal Love | Ben, “180 Degrees” | Gaho, “Start” |
The International Side of K-pop
- MRC Data (formerly Nielsen Music) released a report on United States music sales for 2020. You can see the full summary here. The following K-pop acts appeared on it:
- BTS’s “Dynamite” was the #1 best-selling song and was also the only song to sell over 1 million units.
- BTS’s Map of the Soul: 7 was the #1 best selling physical album and #2 in terms of overall sales.
- BTS’s BE placed #5 on the best-selling physical albums list.
- NCT 127’s Neo Zone placed #6 on the best-selling physical albums list.
- BTS’s “Dynamite” remained on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart for the 19th week in a row, placing at #5. This marked its 13th (non-consecutive) week in the Hot 100 and set a record for longest song by a Korean act to remain in the Top 10 of the chart.
- Several groups hit some viewer milestones on YouTube this week:
- BTS’s “Dynamite” hit 750 million views. It is currently the fastest K-pop music video to hit that milestone.
- aespa’s “Black Mamba” hit 100 million views and set a record for fastest K-pop debut video to reach that number. (The previous record was held by ITZY in 2019.)
- TWICE’s “I Can’t Stop Me” hit 200 million views, becoming their fastest music video to do so. TWICE also holds a record as the K-pop girl group with the most music videos over 200 million views.
Notable Variety Shows Featuring K-pop Idols
| Weekly Idol | Knowing Brothers | Amazing Saturday | |
|---|---|---|---|
| This Week | No guests | Non-idol guests | Weki Meki (Yoojung and Doyeon) |
| Next Week | (G)I-DLE | Yunho (TVXQ), DinDin | Epik High |
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_mes2), The Seoul Story (Twitter @theseoulstory), and Girl Group Zone! (Twitter @girlgroupzone)
FEATURED IMAGE SOURCE: JYP Entertainment (it’s a teaser photo for GOT7’s latest comeback)
VIDEO SOURCES: YouTube, Starship Entertainment (for Jeong Sewoon), TOP Media (for MCND)
OTHER SOURCES: YouTube, Wikipedia, Billboard, Gaon Chart, KBS, MBC, MNET, SBS
Katherine Does K-POP 
Nice to see the weekly updates back! I feel so well informed!
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Glad you find it helpful! ^^
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