Katherine’s K-pop Recap: July 19-25, 2021

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

• All of the members of SEVENTEEN have renewed their contracts with Pledis Entertainment. Since they debuted in 2015 and initial contracts generally last seven years, this news comes about a year earlier than expected. You can read a translation of Pledis Entertainment’s statement here.
• EXID’s Hani recently contracted COVID-19 from one of her staff members. Since she was filming the drama IDOL: The Coup, filming has halted for the time being. LABOUM’s Solbin and Cosmic Girls’ Exy, who are also cast members, were tested as a precautionary measure and got negative results.
• South Korean president Moon Jae In has appointed BTS as a Special Presidential Envoy for Future Generations and Culture. BTS will be going to New York City to attend the UN General Assembly this fall, and this will be their third time doing so. You can read more about the situation here.
• Brave Entertainment released a lengthy statement mentioning several issues that Brave Girls fans have brought up recently. You can read a translation of it here.

Coming Up Next Week

(There weren’t any major comebacks this week because July is a little slow, so I deleted that section this time around.)

Monday (7/26)	Tuesday (7/27)	Wednesday (7/28)	Thursday (7/29)	Friday (7/30)
D.O. (EXO) *SOLO DEBUT*				Dreamcatcher
Akdong Musician

This Week’s Music Show Wins

NOTE: Most music shows are on hiatus for 1-3 weeks because their respective TV channels are airing the Tokyo Olympics.

The Show (SBS MTV)	No broadcast/winner
Show Champion (MBC)	BTS, “Permission to Dance” (3rd win)
M! Countdown (MNET)	No broadcast/winner
Music Bank (KBS)	BTS, “Permission to Dance” (4th win)
Music Core (MBC)	No broadcast/winner
Inkigayo (SBS)	No broadcast/winner

Album Sales, Streaming, and Charting

Gaon Chart

NOTE: Gaon‘s weekly charts reflect the previous week. To see a full breakdown of the chart, you can go here.

	#1	#2	#3	#4	#5
Album Sales	BTS, Butter	NCT Dream, Hello Future (Kit version)	DAY6 (Even of Day), Right Through Me	NCT Dream, Hello Future	ENHYPEN, Border: Carnival
Overall Digital	MSG Wannabe (M.O.M), “Foolish Love”	BTS, “Permission to Dance”	aespa, “Next Level”	Taeyeon, “Weekend	Lee Mujin, “Traffic Light”
Streaming	MSG Wannabe (M.O.M), “Foolish Love”	aespa, “Next Level”	BTS, “Permission to Dance”	BTS, “Butter”	Lee Mujin, “Traffic Light”
Downloads	BTS, “Permission to Dance”	Im Young Woong, “Trust in Me”	Taeyeon, “Weekend”	MSG Wannabe (M.O.M), “Foolish Love”	MSG Wannabe, “I Love You”
Social	BTS	BLACKPINK	Im Young Woong	Kim Ho Joong	Block B

Aside from the charts mentioned in the table, BTS also topped three others: the BGM chart (background music for things like blogs and social media profiles), the bell chart (ringtones), and the ring chart (ringback tones). So, BTS placed #1 on six separate Gaon charts this week.

The International Side of K-pop

• BTS news this week:
  • “Permission to Dance” took over the #1 spot on Billboard‘s “Hot 100” from “Butter,” making BTS the first group to dethrone one of their songs on the chart with another. (“Butter” ranked at #7 this week.) “Permission to Dance” is also BTS’s fifth song to reach #1.
  • “Permission to Dance” also ranked #1 on Billboard‘s Digital Song Sales chart, Global 200 chart, and Global Excl. U.S. chart.
  • BTS placed #1 on Billboard‘s Artist 100 chart for the 17th (non-consecutive) week.
  • “Dynamite” passed 1 billion streams on Spotify, making BTS the first K-pop artist to join Spotify’s Billions Club.
• TXT’s The Chaos Chapter: FREEZE continues to be the longest-charting K-pop album of 2021 on the Billboard 200 so far, this time ranking at #109 in its sixth week.
• American company Creative Artists Agency has signed aespa and will presumably be in charge of their more global activities. (Fellow SM artists NCT 127 and SuperM are also signed to the agency.)
• The following K-pop music videos reached new viewer milestones on YouTube:
  • BLACKPINK’s “Ice Cream” with Selena Gomez hit 600 million views.
  • SISTAR’s “Touch My Body” reached 100 million views, which is pretty impressive considering they disbanded over four years ago. (I’m so surprised by this, but also so happy because it’s a CLASSIC.)

Notable Variety Shows Featuring K-pop Idols

	Weekly Idol	Knowing Brothers	Amazing Saturday
This Week	None (special episode)	Non-idol guests	Yoon Dohyun, Hongki (FT Island)
Next Week	Dreamcatcher	Non-idol guests	Non-idol guests

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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), The Seoul Story (Twitter @theseoulstory), and Girl Group Zone! (Twitter @girlgroupzone)

FEATURED IMAGE SOURCE: BTS’s Twitter account (original tweet here)

OTHER SOURCES:  YouTube, Wikipedia, Billboard, Gaon Chart, KBS, MBC, MNET, SBS, Spotify