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
- Big Hit Music has announced global auditions for their next boy group, and any male born after 2002 can try out. You can learn more about how to apply here.
- The Melon Music Awards will be held on December 4. Like last year, it will be all online due to COVID-19.
- MNET’s latest survival show Girls Planet 999 held its live finale on October 22nd, revealing who made it into new project group Kep1er (pronounced “Kepler”). You can see the lineup here.
- BTS’s V performed seated during the group’s online concert on October 24th because he was experiencing some leg pain. You can read Big Hit Music’s statement about it here.
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.)
IU, “Strawberry Moon” (10/19)
CL, “Tie a Cherry” (10/20)
Eunhyuk (Super Junior), “be”
(special single, 10/20)
Woohyun (INFINITE), “냉정과 열정 사이” (10/19)
SEVENTEEN, “Rock With You” (10/22)
DJ Snake, Ozuna, Megan Thee Stallion, and Lisa (BLACKPINK), “SG” (collaboration, 10/22)
(Not K-pop, but I included it because it’s a high-profile collaboration)
Coming Up Next Week
| Monday (10/25) | Tuesday (10/26) | Wednesday (10/27) | Thursday (10/28) | Friday (10/29) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NCT 127 | EPEX | Secret Number | Park Jihoon | Jeon Somi |
| bugAboo (*debut*) |
This Week’s Music Show Wins
| The Show (SBS MTV) | ENHYPEN, “Tamed-Dashed” (1st win) |
| Show Champion (MBC) | ENHYPEN, “Tamed-Dashed” (2nd win) |
| M! Countdown (MNET) | No broadcast/winner announced |
| Music Bank (KBS) | ENHYPEN, “Tamed-Dashed” (3rd win) |
| Music Core (MBC) | aespa, “Savage” (5th win) |
| Inkigayo (SBS) | aespa, “Savage” (6th 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 | ENHYPEN, DIMENSION: DILEMMA | Lee Chan Won, ..Gift | Stray Kids, NOEASY | ITZY, Crazy in Love | Jo Yuri, Glassy |
| Overall Digital | Im Young Woong, “Love Always Run Away” (OST) | aespa, “Savage” | The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber, “STAY” | Lee Mujin, “Traffic Light” | Coldplay and BTS, “My Universe” |
| Streaming | aespa, “Savage” | The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber, “STAY” | Lee Mujin, “Traffic Light” | Coldplay and BTS, “My Universe” | aespa, “Next Level” |
| Downloads | Im Young Woong, “Love Always Run Away” (OST) | aespa, “Savage” | ENHYPEN, “Tamed-Dashed” | Lee Chan Won, “Cheer Up” | Donghae (Super Junior) feat. Jeno (NCT), “California Love” |
| Social | BTS | BLACKPINK | Lisa | Im Young Woong | aespa |
IU’s new single “Strawberry Moon” also received a Certified All-Kill in less than a day and a Perfect All-Kill in about four days – her third of each so far this year.
The International Side of K-pop
- K-pop on the Billboard charts:
- NCT 127’s album Sticker ranked #132 on the Billboard 200 in its fourth week. NCT 127 is currently the second K-pop artist to have a 2021 album chart for four weeks. (The first was TXT.)
- aespa’s first mini album Savage debuted at #20 on the Billboard 200. It also topped the World Albums chart and placed #2 on the Top Album Sales chart.
- BTS and Coldplay’s “My Universe” ranked #18 on the “Hot 100” in its third week.
- Lisa from BLACKPINK’s song “Money” passed 100 million streams on Spotify in a little over a month, becoming the fastest K-pop solo song to do so. (The previous record holder was her fellow member Rosé, whose song “On the Ground” took slightly more than 2 months to accomplish the feat.)
- BTS will perform at the Los Angeles stop for iHeartRadio’s 2021 Jingle Ball tour. This concert is on December 3rd, which is right after the last of their solo concerts.
- Disney Korea confirmed that BTS’s song “Friends,” a duet between Jimin and V, will be featured on the soundtrack for upcoming Marvel movie The Eternals.
- SEVENTEEN performed their new single “Rock With You” on MTV Fresh Out Live the day they dropped their new album. You can watch their performance here.
- Several K-pop groups and artists have been nominated for the 2021 MTV Europe Music Awards, which will take place on November 14th.
- BTS has been nominated for Best Group (which they’ve won the past three years), Best Pop, Best K-pop, and Biggest Fans (which they’ve also won the past three years).
- BLACKPINK is also nominated for Biggest Fans, while both Lisa and Rosé are individually nominated for Best K-pop.
- The other nominees for Best K-pop are Monsta X, TWICE, and NCT 127.
- The nominees for Best Korean Act are CRAVITY, Weeekly, WEi, STAYC, and aespa.
- BTS is leaving Columbia Records and joining Universal Music Group. (This is for distributing and marketing their music in the United States.) You can read more about the situation here.
- BLACKPINK delivered a speech about climate change on October 24th as part of YouTube’s “Dear Earth” project. You can watch their speech here and their performance of “Stay” here.
- The following K-pop music videos reached new viewer milestones on YouTube:
- Stray Kids’ most recent song “Thunderous” is now their fastest music video to reach 100 million views, hitting the new milestone at a little under two months.
- aespa’s latest single “Savage” is their fastest music video to hit 100 million views, doing so in about two and a half weeks. As of now, the music videos for all three of their official singles have over 100 million views.
Notable Variety Shows Featuring K-pop Idols
| Weekly Idol | Knowing Brothers | Amazing Saturday | |
|---|---|---|---|
| This Week | Super Junior D&E | aespa | Non-idol guests |
| Next Week | T1419 and EPEX | Non-idol guests | Non-idol guests |
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: Pledis Entertainment (SEVENTEEN)
VIDEO SOURCES: YouTube, BLACKPINK‘s YouTube Channel, CL‘s YouTube Channel, DJ Snake‘s YouTube Channel (“SG” music video), EDAM Entertainment (IU)*, Pledis Entertainment (SEVENTEEN)*, SM Entertainment (Eunhyuk), Woollim Entertainment (Woohyun), MTV
*”Strawberry Moon” music video distributed by 1theK.
**”Rock With You” music video distributed by HYBE Labels.
OTHER SOURCES: YouTube, Wikipedia, Billboard, Gaon Chart, KBS, MBC, MNET, SBS
Katherine Does K-POP 