Katherine’s K-Pop Recap: August 30 – September 5, 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

• Several well-known idols have joined new labels:
  • MAMAMOO’s Wheein has officially signed with THE L1VE, a new label founded by VIXX’s Ravi that also represents soloist Ailee. (She will still be participating in group activities for at least the next couple of years.) You can read a translation of her Instagram post about it here.
  • Yuju is the third member of GFriend to join a new agency, after Yerin (Sublime Artist Agency) and Sowon (IOK Company). She has signed with KONNECT Entertainment, which was founded by Kang Daniel and also manages CL’s activities in South Korea. You can read more about the situation and see her new profile images here.
  • Sandara Park has signed with ABYSS Company after leaving YG Entertainment, joining fellow solo artists Sunmi and BamBam. You can see her new profile images here.
• Pledis Entertainment has announced that SEVENTEEN members Jun and THE8 will be going on hiatus for several months in order to return to China and spend time with their families. The rest of SEVENTEEN will promote as eleven members from September to December. You can read Pledis Entertainment’s statement about it here.
• A large number of idols have unfortunately contracted COVID-19 this week:
  • Six out of seven ENHYPEN members tested positive after coming into close contact with a case. Initially, it was five members: Jungwon, Heeseung, Jay, Jake, and Sunghoon. Several days later, their agency confirmed that Ni-ki had gotten COVID-19 as well. Since they’re recovering, they have canceled their appearance at the upcoming KCON:TACT HI5. You can read a translation of BE:LIFT Lab’s statement about the first five members here and about Ni-ki here. (I didn’t link the statement about them not going to KCON because it doesn’t have any extra information.)
  • Four out of five N.Flying members have also tested positive for COVID-19. Seunghyub, Hweseung, and Dongsub were diagnosed first; Jaehyun’s condition was confirmed a day later. You can read translations of FNC’s statements about the situation here (for the first three members) and here (for Jaehyun).
  • After testing negative for COVID-19 last week, former IZ*ONE member Ahn Yujin tested positive while monitoring her symptoms during self-isolation. (Both she and Jang Wonyoung came into close contact with a case last week; Wonyoung already tested positive at that time.) You can read a translation of Starship Entertainment’s statement about it here.
• TVXQ’s Yunho has been fined for violating social distancing regulations in February (rather than being criminally charged). It was previously reported that he stayed at a restaurant in Gangnam after the 10 p.m. curfew that was being enforced at the time. You can read more about the situation here – it also has translations of SM Entertainment’s statement and a social media post Yunho made about it.
• HYBE has denied reports of acquiring Mulgogi Music, the label of famous and trending trot singer Lim Young Woong (winner of the TV show Mister Trot). You can read more about the situation here.
• Maroo Entertainment announced that GHOST9 members Taeseung and Dongjun will be leaving the group. You can read a translation of their statement here, though it doesn’t provide any specific reason for the members’ departure.
• Forbes Korea released a list of the Top 20 highest earning celebrity channels on YouTube in South Korea, and nearly all of them belong to K-pop groups or idols. I’ve put all the K-pop related ones below, but you can see a full list and breakdown here.
  • #1: BTS
  • #2: BLACKPINK
  • #3: NCT Dream (the NCT Daily channel is #16, and the regular NCT channel is #20)
  • #4: SEVENTEEN
  • #5: GOT7’s BamBam
  • #6: MAMAMOO
  • #7: EXO
  • #8: IU
  • #9: aespa
  • #10: TXT
  • #13: Red Velvet
  • #14: LOONA
  • #19: Akdong Musician

This Week’s Debuts and Comebacks

(Please note that I won’t necessarily link every release that came out this week – just the ones that I’m aware of or popped up on my radar. The same is true of the “Coming Up Next Week” category.)

Coming Up Next Week

Monday (9/6)	Tuesday (9/7)	Wednesday (9/8)	Thursday (9/9)	Friday (9/10)
YoungK (DAY6) *SOLO DEBUT*		PURPLE KISS	Hyuna & DAWN	Lisa (BLACKPINK) *SOLO DEBUT*
STAYC
Omega X

This Week’s Music Show Wins

The Show (SBS MTV)	Lee Chan Won, “Convenience Store” (1st win)
Show Champion (MBC)	Stray Kids, “Thunderous” (1st win)
M! Countdown (MNET)	Stray Kids, “Thunderous” (2nd win)
Music Bank (KBS)	Stray Kids, “Thunderous” (3rd win)
Music Core (MBC)	Red Velvet, “Queendom” (5th win)
Inkigayo (SBS)	Stray Kids, “Thunderous” (4th win)

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	Stray Kids, NOEASY	VERIVERY, SERIES ‘O’ [ROUND 2 : HOLE]	MIRAE, Splash	BTS, Love Yourself: Answer	BTS, Love Yourself: Her
Overall Digital	Lee Mujin, “Traffic Light”	The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber, “Stay”	MSG Wannabe M.O.M, “Foolish Love”	AKMU feat. IU, “NAKKA”	aespa, “Next Level”
Streaming	Lee Mujin, “Traffic Light”	The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber, “Stay”	MSG Wannabe M.O.M, “Foolish Love”	aespa, “Next Level”	AKMU feat. IU, “NAKKA”
Downloads	Lee Chan Won, “Convenience Store”	Stray Kids, “Thunderous”	Brave Girls, “After We Ride”	AKMU feat. IU, “NAKKA”	aespa, “Next Level”
Social	BTS	BLACKPINK	TWICE	Lim Young Woong	Kim Ho Joong

Other Charts and Sales Achievements

• Stray Kids’ NOEASY has sold over a million copies, making them the first ever “million sellers” from JYP Entertainment. They have now joined the ranks of artists like EXO (and member Baekhyun), BTS, NCT (and subunits NCT 127 and NCT Dream), SEVENTEEN, and BLACKPINK.
• BLACKPINK’s Lisa has already passed over 700,000 stock pre-orders of her upcoming single album, which sets a record as the highest amount for any female K-pop soloist.

The International Side of K-pop

• TXT’s album The Chaos Chapter: FREEZE re-entered the Billboard 200 after the release of its repackage (The Chaos Chapter: FIGHT or ESCAPE). It appeared at #8, making TXT the third K-pop artist to be in the Top 10 of this chart for more than one week. (The other two are BTS and BLACKPINK.)
• The Chaos Chapter: FREEZE also reclaimed the #1 spot on Billboard‘s World Album Sales chart.
• BTS news for this week:
  • “Butter” placed #7 on Billboard‘s “Hot 100” in its 14th week on the chart. It has now passed “Dynamite” as BTS’s longest-running single on this chart.
  • “Permission to Dance” ranked #97 in its 7th week on the “Hot 100.”
  • BTS was inducted into the Guinness Records Hall of Fame, currently holding 23 various records. You can read more about it here.
  • BTS will appear on YouTube’s series “Released” on September 10, before the release of their new version of the “Permission to Dance” music video which features their fans dancing along to the choreography. Coldplay’s Chris Martin will be interviewing them, which is adding to the ongoing rumors of a collaboration between the two bands.
  • BTS’s music video for “Not Today” has passed 500 million views.
• CL has signed with PR firm SATELLITE414, who also manages artists like Beyoncé, Adele, Halsey, and more. (Monsta X has a contract with this firm as well.)
• BLACKPINK’s Lisa will perform her debut single on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon on September 10th, just like fellow member Rosé did earlier this year.

Notable Variety Shows Featuring K-pop Idols

	Weekly Idol	Knowing Brothers	Amazing Saturday
This Week	CIX	Non-idol guests	Jang Youngran and Yoojung (Weki Meki)
Next Week	STAYC	Non-idol guests	Dynamic Duo and Code Kunst

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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: fromis_9’s Twitter account (original tweet here)

VIDEO SOURCES: YouTube, AOMG (Lee Hi feat. B.I), Beat Interactive (A.C.E)*, Brand New Entertainment (Lee Eunsang), Cube Entertainment (BTOB), Genie Music, (Kyuhyun), Pledis Entertainment (fromis_9)**, SM Entertainment (Key and Taeyeon), TOP Media (MCND)
*”Changer” music video distributed by 1theK.
*”Talk & Talk” music video distributed by HYBE Labels.

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