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
- Three K-pop groups announced upcoming concerts in Seoul and world tours for 2022:
- NCT 127 will have a solo concert at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul from December 17-19, making them the first artists to perform there in almost two years (since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic). SM Entertainment has confirmed they will be doing a world tour, and some places have been mentioned in news reports – however, there isn’t an official list of cities and dates for the tour yet.
- TWICE will have a solo concert at KSPO Dome in Seoul from December 24-26, and they have announced some United States stops for their upcoming world tour (which you can see here).
- ATEEZ will have a solo concert at the Olympic Hall in Seoul from January 7-9, and they have also released other cities and dates for their 2022 world tour (which you can see here).
- CJ E&M has provided some more information about MNET’s upcoming awards ceremony in December (MAMA). Several special performers that have been revealed are the crews of Street Woman Fighter, Ed Sheeran, and Wanna One in their first appearance since 2019 (a reunion which was previously rumored but unconfirmed). You can read more about CJ E&M’s announcements here.
- Thai idol Sorn has officially left girl group CLC and her agency Cube Entertainment after the expiration of her contract. You can read a translation of Cube’s statement and Sorn’s personal social media post about it here.
- SM Entertainment confirmed that EXO’s Chen and his wife are expecting their second child.
- After the expiration of Lovelyz’ original contracts early this week, there have been updates about several members:
- Mijoo officially signed with Antenna (which was reported last week but not confirmed). You can read more about it here.
- Baby Soul, the only member who stayed with Woollim Entertainment, has decided to go by her real name Lee Sujeong from now on. You can see her new profile pictures here.
- Jiae has signed with YG KPlus, and it appears she will continue her career as both an actress and singer. You can read more about it here.
- Soloist Samuel (perhaps best known as a Produce 101 contestant) has won his lawsuit to terminate his contract with Brave Entertainment. You can read more about it here.
- Former BTOB member Jung Ilhoon had his first appeal trial after previously being sentenced to two years in prison for buying and using marijuana. You can read more about the situation and what happened here.
- SM Entertainment was regularly uploading videos onto EXO member Baekhyun’s YouTube channel during his military service, but they have decided to stop until he has finished. Men who are serving are not allowed to have another job or source of income – while there are no legal consequences for Baekhyun since he filmed all of the content before he enlisted, SM chose to take the videos down and stop uploading on his behalf to avoid any misunderstandings. You can read a translation of their statement about it here.
- Girls Planet 999 contestant and Mystic Story trainee Kim Suyeon will soon be joining the agency’s recently debuted girl group Billlie, promoting under the stage name “Sheon.” (From what I can see online, the Hangul for this name is “션” – so it will most likely be pronounced as one syllable like “shun” and not “she on.”) Suyeon previously placed 10th on Girls Planet 999, just missing out on debuting with project group Kep1er. You can read a translation of Mystic Story’s statement about it here.
- After it was revealed that Weki Meki’s Doyeon injured her wrist last week, Fantagio Entertainment confirmed that she won’t be performing with the group during promotions or appearing during certain activities. You can read a translation of their statement about it here.
- ENHYPEN’s Jungwon has apologized for his comments about the Korean college entrance exam during a V-Live the group held. I’ve seen different translations, but the basic gist is that he suggested fans who were either watching ENHYPEN’s V-Live or coming to their fan meet the next day might not have done well on the exam – which is an extremely important test for students who wish to attend college in South Korea. You can read more about the situation and a translation of his apology 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.)
T-ARA, “TIKI-TAKA” (11/15)
Monsta X, “Rush Hour” (11/19)
Weki Meki, “Siesta” (11/18)
Coming Up Next Week
| Monday (11/22) | Tuesday (11/23) | Wednesday (11/24) | Thursday (11/25) | Friday (11/26) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SF9 | Hwasa (MAMAMOO) |
This Week’s Music Show Wins
| The Show (SBS MTV) | ONEUS, “Luna” (1st win / 1st EVER win) |
| Show Champion (MBC) | No broadcast/winner announced |
| M! Countdown (MNET) | No broadcast/winner announced |
| Music Bank (KBS) | TWICE, “Scientist” (1st win) |
| Music Core (MBC) | IU, “Strawberry Moon” (3rd win) |
| Inkigayo (SBS) | IU, “Strawberry Moon” (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 | TWICE, Formula of Love: O+T=<3 | ONEUS, Blood Moon | NCT 127, Favorite | NCT 127, Favorite (kit version) | B.I, Cosmos |
| Overall Digital | “BREATHE,” Show Me the Money 10* | IU, “Strawberry Moon” | “Wake Up,” Show Me the Money 10** | aespa, “Savage” | The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber, “Stay” |
| Streaming | “BREATHE,” Show Me the Money 10* | IU, “Strawberry Moon” | “Wake Up,” Show Me the Money 10** | aespa, “Savage” | The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber, “Stay” |
| Downloads | Jin (BTS), “Yours” (Jirisan OST) | “BREATHE,” Show Me the Money 10* | ONEUS, “Luna” | “Wake Up,” Show Me the Money 10** | The Boyz, “Maverick” |
| Social | BTS | Lisa | BLACKPINK | Im Young Woong | TWICE |
*”Breathe” is produced by Gray and is by Anandelight, Mudd the Student, BE’O, unofficialboyy, and Geegooin featuring Song Mino.
*”Wake Up” is produced by Code Kunst and is by Ourealgoat, SINCE, Ahn Byeong Woong, Tabber, and Jo Gwang Il featuring Gaeko.
Another Show Me the Money 10 song, “Merry-Go-Round,” achieved a Perfect All-Kill. This song is produced by Slom and performed by sokodomo featuring Zion T and Wonstein. “Merry-Go-Round” is the 9th song to get a Perfect All-Kill this year.
Also, TWICE’s new album Formula of Love: O+T=<3 recorded the highest first week sales of any girl group album of 2021 on Hanteo – beating out their June release Taste of Love.
The International Side of K-pop
- K-pop on various Billboard charts this week:
- NCT 127’s Sticker ranked #32 in its eighth week on the Billboard 200. It also ranked #1 on the World Album Sales chart.
- ENHYPEN’s Dimension: Dilemma ranked #172 in its third (non-consecutive) week on the Billboard 200. They are now the eighth K-pop group to have an album chart for three weeks or more on the Billboard 200 after BTS, BLACKPINK, SuperM, NCT 127, NCT, TXT, and TWICE.
- Coldplay and BTS’s “My Universe” ranked #43 in its seventh week on the “Hot 100.”
- Some other BTS news this week:
- BTS won four awards at the 2021 Europe Music Awards (EMAs), more than any other artist this year. They won Best Group, Best Pop, Best K-pop, and Biggest Fans.
- BTS will be appearing on The Late Late Show With James Corden on November 24th, giving an interview and performing “Permission to Dance.”
- BTS will be performing “My Universe” with Coldplay at the American Music Awards. They were also supposed to perform the remix of “Butter” with Megan Thee Stallion, but she tweeted a few days ago that she could no longer attend. (I’ll link the performance in next week’s post, as the awards ceremony will be broadcast on Monday morning Korean time.)
- “My Universe” has been certified silver in the UK.
- Variety announced that “Butter” has won its 2021 Record of the Year award.
- aespa was the other K-pop group to earn an award at the EMAs, picking up Best Korean Act.
- NCT 127 performed “Favorite (Vampire)” on The Kelly Clarkson Show, which you can watch here.
- ENHYPEN will also be performing on The Kelly Clarkson Show on November 23rd.
- CL will be performing at the Jingle Ball Village in Los Angeles on December 3rd.
- TXT’s latest Japanese release Chaotic Wonderland ranked #1 on Oricon’s weekly album chart. Including both Korean and Japanese albums, it’s their fifth to do so. TXT is the second non-Japanese group to top the chart with five consecutive albums after their labelmates BTS.
- The following K-pop music videos reached new viewer milestones on YouTube this week:
- BLACKPINK’s “As If It’s Your Last” is their fourth music video to hit 1.1 billion views after “DDU-DU DDU-DU,” “Kill This Love,” and “Boombayah.”
- BTS’s “Dynamite” is the fastest K-pop group music video to reach 1.3 billion views.
- ITZY’s “LOCO” reached 100 million views, which means that all six of their singles since debut have now passed that milestone.
Notable Variety Shows Featuring K-pop Idols
| Weekly Idol | Knowing Brothers | Amazing Saturday | |
|---|---|---|---|
| This Week | ONEUS | Street Woman Fighter contestants | Minhyuk and Jooheon (Monsta X) |
| Next Week | 2AM | Street Woman Fighter contestants (continued) | Moonbyul and Hwasa (MAMAMOO) |
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: Starship Entertainment (Monsta X)
VIDEO SOURCES: YouTube, Dingo Music (T-ARA), Fantagio Entertainment (Weki Meki), Starship Entertainment (Monsta X), The Kelly Clarkson Show
OTHER SOURCES: Wikipedia, Billboard, Gaon Chart, KBS, MBC, MNET, SBS
Katherine Does K-POP 