For years, K-Pop idols have been breaking records, especially since the genre has been in the spotlight not just in Asia but all over the world. They are conquering charts worldwide and their music videos are being watched more than ever before! But even though the K-Pop industry can already look back on many groundbreaking successes in recent years, the time of new records is far from over:
Today, the different K-Pop idols are outdoing each other. New groups reach the same chart positions as their predecessors, only much faster. On top of that, even established artists like BTS and Seventeen, who have already celebrated countless successes, are still setting new personal bests.
And in just the last few days, stars like aespa, NewJeans and others have once again outdone themselves and even broken a Guinness World Record, among other things! With all these new records it is hard to keep up, so we are giving you an overview of the developments of the last 3 days:
Seventeen
Seventeen has broken more than just one record in the last few weeks! We already told you about the milestones the boy group has reached with its current album FML at the end of April. Since then, FML has even claimed first place on the list of best-selling K-Pop albums of all time, knocking BTS off the throne!
Yesterday, the boy group celebrated yet another success:
FML entered the Billboard 200 charts at number 2, which is a personal best for Seventeen. Just last year, the guys made it into the top 10 for the first time with Face the Sun. Seventeen’s previous record was number 4 with the album Sector 17, which was released in July 2022.
Fifty-Fifty
The young girl group Fifty-Fifty, which only debuted in November 2022, can already look back on some groundbreaking successes. They are not taking a break and made headlines again yesterday: Fifty-Fifty is the third K-Pop group ever after BTS and Blackpink to make it into the top 5 of the Global 200! We are curious whether the girl group will keep climbing!
aespa (& Le sserafim)
aespa finally released their third mini album MY WORLD yesterday. According to the Hanteo Chart, 1,372,929 copies were sold within the first day! This makes aespa currently the girl group with the most albums sold on the first day in K-Pop history!
This record is a good example of how quickly K-Pop idols outdo each other these days:
Only on May 2, Le sserafim set the record that aespa has now broken with their new album UNFORGIVEN. On the first day after release, 1.02 million copies of UNFORGIVEN were sold. Before that, Blackpink held the record with 1.01 million copies sold of Born Pink. BORN PINK was released in September 2022.
MY WORLD, UNFORGIVEN and BORN PINK are so far the only three girl group albums of which more than 1 million copies were bought on the first day. And they were all released within the last nine months!
Next year, the numbers could look completely different again! Which girl group do you think will be the first to break the 2 million mark?
This is probably not the only record for MY WORLD:
aespa is well on its way to also achieving the highest first-week sales. First place is currently held by BORN PINK with 1.54 million copies sold, followed by UNFORGIVEN (1.19 million copies sold). After just one day, MY WORLD has already surpassed UNFORGIVEN. aespa now has about six days left to catch up with BORN PINK.
On top of that, aespa has also set a personal best: MY WORLD was pre-ordered 1.8 million times, more often than any of their albums before! In K-Pop history, only one girl group album has reached more pre-orders: BORN PINK (2 million pre-orders.)
NewJeans
NewJeans has only released two albums, but is already one of the most popular fourth-generation K-Pop groups.
Two days ago, Guinness World Records announced that NewJeans has set a new world record!
On March 8, the girl group reached 1 billion streams on Spotify, only seven months and a few days after their debut. No K-Pop artist has ever done that so fast! This record is especially impressive because NewJeans only has six songs on Spotify so far: Attention, Hype Boy, Cookie, Hurt, Ditto and OMG.
Each of these records is a great achievement that the artists can still be proud of in many years. But as incredible as it seems, we don't think it will take long for these numbers to be surpassed by other artists again. The K-Pop genre keeps on rising and cannot be stopped by anything!
Sources: soompi
