u/eveningsnewestetoile

From my understanding, HYBE is a holding company that owns several different music labels, including BigHit, Pledis, Belift, ADOR, KOZ, etc. Each label has its own independent management team that makes decisions for the 1-3 groups under the label, with HYBE only involved on the financial side.

On the other hand, SM has several different “centers” with their own names, including One, Prism, Red, Neo, and Wizard. These centers seem to function very similarly to HYBE’s labels, each having around 1-3 groups and a management team that has independence regarding how the groups are managed. JYPE also has a similar setup with four different “divisions,” each having its own name, management team, and 1-3 artists.

Additionally, there are some entities under both SM and JYPE called “labels,” including ScreaM Records and Krucialize for SM and Studio J and INNIT for JYPE. These are distinct entities from the centers/divisions, but I don’t know what the difference is.

What are the functional differences between the operations of labels under HYBE vs. SM’s centers or JYPE’s divisions? And why are some entities under SM or JYPE considered “labels,” while others are considered centers or divisions instead? How are the labels managed differently from the centers/divisions?

Also, please correct me if I got anything wrong

The two oldest members of Ateez (including their leader) have to enlist next year, then five more of them have to enlist the following year. There’s no way for them to avoid the majority of the group being inactive for a minimum of 2 years. There aren’t even any foreign members who could do solo work while the others are gone.

Last year, Hongjoong (the leader) said that the group had run out of pre-recorded music in the vault. Since the group has already had two comebacks this year, it’s hard to imagine how much more material they would have time to pre-record before next year, as their schedule is packed and they don’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon.

If KQ is planning to release solo albums, they have to keep in mind that none of the members (even San) have proven that there’s high demand for them as a solo act. KQ has been very OT8 in their promotions thus far, but that comes at the expense of the members having strong individual fandoms who would happily buy anything the member puts out, especially if the member is not even around to promote it.

The only other active group at KQ is xikers. xikers is doing okay—their album sales have been modestly increasing—but their latest album still only sold 364k in the first week. For comparison, Ateez’s last album sold 1,885,712 in its first week. xikers alone clearly can’t make up for Ateez’s album sales, and they’re not really a touring powerhouse either.

KQ also has Sohyang, who has been releasing music, but KQ hasn’t done so much as post an IG story to promote it.

I just don’t see what their plan is to keep the lights on for the 2-3 years that their main moneymaker will be inactive. They’re kind of in a similar position to BigHit in 2019, especially since they’ve also allegedly been preparing for an IPO at some point in the next couple years. BigHit prepared for it by buying a bunch of already successful companies, which I don’t see KQ having the resources to do. What else could they do to keep their revenue from cratering?

With the exception of G-Dragon, because I know about him.

Are there any other male idols that straight men generally like? Someone suggested that straight men may like male idols with more masculine physiques, or just ones that aren’t “pretty boys.” But in my experience, straight men generally don’t care about any male idols, regardless of their muscles or looks.

Recently, I saw a post on another music sub with the most-streamed song on Spotify from each of the last ten years. I was curious what the most-streamed kpop song from each year would be, but I soon realized that all of them would be either BTS or Blackpink. Without those two, Twice would still have the most-streamed song in half of the last 10 years. So I removed these three from the equation, as they are clear outliers, so including them makes the list boring.

After excluding songs by BTS, Blackpink, and Twice & their soloists, here are the most-streamed songs by kpop groups on Spotify each year going back to 2015. Songs where the primary artist is a western artist were excluded.

Year	Song	Group	Streams
2015	Bang Bang Bang	BigBang	417,644,703
2016	Monster	EXO	266,593,788
2017	Don't Wanna Cry	Seventeen	257,829,119
2018	Love Shot	EXO	451,376,482
2019	Psycho	Red Velvet	563,181,793
2020	God's Menu	Stray Kids	537,514,149
2021	Fever	Enhypen	480,468,786
2022	Ditto	NewJeans	941,000,609
2023	Cupid	Fifty Fifty	1,009,858,555
2024	Magnetic	Illit	846,613,500
2025	GO!	Cortis	212,967,776
2026	Redred (so far)	Cortis	151,428,266

A few observations:

• Only one-third (4 of 12) of top songs were by girl groups, but three of those have been within the last 5 years.
• Among companies, HYBE has 5 number ones, followed by SM with 3, then JYP, YG, Pledis (pre-HYBE), and Attrakt with 1 each.
  • Except in 2023, HYBE has had the top song every year since it was established in 2021.
• Cupid is the only top song not by a big-name group.
• If Cortis maintains the number one for this year, they’ll join EXO as the only groups to have the top song more than once.
• There's a clear delineation between generations (keeping in mind that we're excluding the three biggest 3rd gen groups):
  • 3rd: 2016-2019
  • 4th: 2020-2023
  • 5th: 2024-2026
• Does this mean 5th gen will be on top for only one more year?

If you're curious, here is the list with Twice added:

Year	Song	Group	Streams
2015	Bang Bang Bang	BigBang	417,644,703
2016	TT	Twice	268,017,836
2017	Likey	Twice	263,487,755
2018	What Is Love?	Twice	676,166,807
2019	Fancy	Twice	632,975,483
2020	God's Menu	Stray Kids	537,514,149
2021	The Feels	Twice	580,814,528
2022	Ditto	NewJeans	941,000,609
2023	Cupid	Fifty Fifty	1,009,858,555
2024	Magnetic	Illit	846,613,500
2025	Takedown	Twice	332,906,998
2026	Redred (so far)	Cortis	151,428,266

And here is the list with BTS and Blackpink (both the groups & soloists):

Year	Song	Artist	Streams
2015	I Need U	BTS	496,349,812
2016	Blood Sweat & Tears	BTS	722,160,423
2017	DNA	BTS	821,989,172
2018	Fake Love	BTS	1,122,711,709
2019	Boy With Luv	BTS ft. Halsey	1,410,236,865
2020	Dynamite	BTS	2,305,878,094
2021	Butter	BTS	1,483,683,108
2022	Pink Venom	Blackpink	1,020,592,627
2023	Seven	Jungkook ft. Latto	3,027,237,823
2024	APT	Rosé ft. Bruno Mars	2,548,348,263
2025	Don't Say You Love Me	Jin	978,288,321
2026	Swim	BTS	726,192,346

This thought brought to you by Enhypen's Ni-ki and his vendetta against his group's own song Bad Desire. He has straight-up said on multiple occasions that he doesn't like this song at all. Not "I prefer our other songs," but just plain "I dislike Bad Desire." Recently, when engenes at a concert requested Bad Desire, Ni-ki told them "no" outright 😭

That got me thinking, are there any other idols who have plainly admitted that they didn't like one of their group's own songs? If so, how did you feel about it?

There are many ways to attempt to measure which idols and groups are the most popular. For this post, I compared idols and groups in Google Trends to measure their relative interest both worldwide and in some of K-pop’s biggest markets.

Reasons that I like using Google Trends:

• Very few, if any, fans google their faves over and over just to boost their search numbers, so these numbers are more likely to reflect genuine interest.
• Google gets significant traffic from most countries around the world, including South Korea.
• It works well for direct comparison. You can get the same data for almost all groups and idols in the same place, using the same methods.

Some caveats:

• Google isn’t used significantly in some countries, including China, one of kpop’s biggest markets.
• While Google accounts for 30-47% of search traffic in South Korea, it’s not as dominant as Naver.
• There are reasons an idol or group may be googled other than their popularity, which is why I use “interest” instead of popularity in this post. However, it’s pretty easy to know when an idol or group’s search data are inflated by circumstances unrelated to their popularity, and I’ve tried to account for those when necessary.

With that said, here are the data from 2026 so far.

4th Gen

#	Worldwide	South Korea	USA	Japan
1	🔹 Felix	💕 Karina	🔹 Felix	💕 Wonyoung
2	🔹 Evan (Heeseung)	💕 Wonyoung	🔹 Hyunjin	💕 Karina
3	🔹 Hyunjin	💕 Winter	🔹 Evan (Heeseung)	💕 Chaewon
4	💕 Wonyoung	💕 Yujin	🔹 Bangchan	💕 Sakura
5	💕 Karina	💕 Kwon Eunbi	🔹 Han	💕 Ningning
6	🔹 Bangchan	💕 Danielle	🔹 Lee Know	💕 Winter
7	🔹 Han	💕 Chuu	🔹 Ni-ki	🔹 Felix
8	🔹 Lee Know	💕 Lee Chaeyoung	🔹 Seungmin	🔹 Ni-ki
9	💕 Winter	💕 Sullyoon	💕 Wonyoung	🔹 Hyunjin
10	🔹 Ni-ki	🔹 Woodz	💕 Danielle	🔹 Evan (Heeseung)
11	💕 Chaewon	💕 Liz	🔹 Sunghoon	💕 Kazuha
12	💕 Danielle	💕 Yena	🔹 Changbin	🔹 Yeonjun
13	🔹 Sunghoon	💕 Chaewon	💕 Karina	💕 Giselle
14	🔹 Seungmin	💕 Jiheon	💕 Chaewon	💕 Yena
15	🔹 Yeonjun	💕 Hayoung	🔹 I.N	💕 Rei
16	💕 Yena	💕 Yuna	🔹 Yeonjun	💕 Liz
17	💕 Ningning	💕 Leeseo	🔹 Jungwon	💕 Hanni
18	🔹 Jungwon	💕 Haewon	🔹 Sunoo	🔹 Lee Know
19	🔹 Sunoo	💕 Rei	🔹 Soobin	🔹 Beomgyu
20	🔹 Changbin	💕 Haerin	🔹 Mingi	💕 Miihi Suzuno

Worldwide: Felix keeps his crown, but Evan/Heeseung nearly usurps the throne due to his dramatic exit from Enhypen. I noticed that Evan’s trend line remained significantly higher than where it was at the beginning of the year even well after The Event, so if he/his company was aiming for publicity, it seems to have worked. The biggest and most pleasant surprise is seeing Yena debut at 16.

South Korea: Only one male idol sits in the top ten: Woodz, who I counted as a fourth gen idol because he gained more visibility with his X1 debut than with Uniq. I may have also included him because otherwise, there would be no male idols in the top twenty at all. Zero. Zilch. Nada. What makes fourth gen boys' nugudom in Korea more interesting is its divergence from general worldwide trends for fourth gen, and especially the trends in the US. I was also surprised by the extent of Korea’s interest in the remaining members of fromis_9.

USA: We’ve talked often about male idols’ nugudom in Korea during fourth gen, but I don’t think fourth gen female idols’ relative lack of recognition in Western countries has been as much discussed. Two female idols just barely make the top ten in the US (Wonyoung and Danielle at 9 and 10), and only two more reach the top twenty (Karina and Chaewon at 13 and 14). The gender balance is just as lopsided or even worse across Europe and Latin America. There are plenty of female idols in the US’ top list for fifth gen, so the relative lack of interest in ladies from fourth gen, when girl groups were at their most dominant back home, is head-scratching. Though, if you look closely, you’ll notice all eight members of Stray Kids occupy spots in the top 15. This lends credence to the point—which I’ll elaborate on in the groups discussion—that it’s less of a boy group domination and more of a Stray Kids dominATEion.

Japan: It’s interesting to see that Japanese kpop idols may not have as absolute a hold on Japanese kpop fans as they have in the past. We see Chaewon above Sakura, Felix above Ni-ki, and Liz nearly catching up with Rei. Despite continued interest in the group, there’s only one NiziU member on the list (Miihi Suzuno at 20).

5th Gen

#	Worldwide	South Korea	USA	Japan
1	🔹 Keonho	💕 Ian	💕 Wonhee	🔹 K
2	💕 Wonhee	💕 Wonhee	🔹 Keonho	💕 Wonhee
3	💕 Ahyeon	💕 Ahyeon	🔹 Martin	🔹 Sangwon
4	🔹 Juhoon	💕 Hina	💕 Moka	💕 Ahyeon
5	🔹 Martin	💕 Woni	🔹 Juhoon	💕 Moka
6	💕 Asa	💕 Natty	💕 Iroha	💕 Asa
7	🔹 Seonghyeon	💕 Chodan	🔹 Seonghyeon	💕 Iroha
8	💕 Rami	💕 Minju	💕 Ahyeon	💕 Minju
9	💕 Moka	💕 Jiwoo	💕 Rami	🔹 Harua
10	🔹 James	💕 Stella	🔹 James	🔹 Shotaro
11	💕 Chiquita	💕 Moka	💕 Yunah	💕 Ian
12	💕 Iroha	💕 Asa	💕 Minju	🔹 Nicholas
13	💕 Ian	🔹 Keonho	💕 Asa	🔹 Sung Hanbin
14	💕 Minju	🔹 Sion	💕 Natty	🔹 Jo
15	💕 Rora	🔹 Riku	💕 Chiquita	🔹 Wonbin
16	🔹 K	🔹 Yushi	💕 Rora	🔹 Riku
17	💕 Ruka	🔹 Seonghyeon	🔹 Zhang Hao	💕 Kotoko
18	💕 Natty	💕 Lee Ah-hee	🔹 Sakuya	🔹 Yushi
19	💕 Pharita	🔹 Sakuya	🔹 Ricky	🔹 Sakuya
20	🔹 Sangwon	🔹 Dohoon	💕 Ella	🔹 Zhang Hao

Worldwide: The five members of Cortis command the top ten, with Keonho squeaking past Wonhee for first place. Cortis, Illit, and Baemon together occupy the entire top ten, and sixteen of the top twenty. These groups appear to be the Big Three of fifth gen at this time.

South Korea: While there are still no boys in the top ten, seven of them fill out the bottom half of the list. Members of QWER (Hina, Chodan, Lee Ah-hee) and Rescene’s Woni are unique to Korea’s list, the latter due to her Runaway success as a YouTuber. Despite Cortis members’ dominance among male idols globally, they are currently on about the same level as NCT Wish members in Korea. H2H members, such as Ian, rank significantly higher at home than abroad.

USA: Given boys’ dominance in the US during fourth gen, it was a pleasant surprise to see so many girls in the top twenty, including at the very top! Illit members saw gains across the board after their participation in Iconic By Mistake. Another surprise is the US having far more interest in Zerobseone/And2ble’s Ricky than most other places (except likely China).

Japan: I’m guessing much of the interest in K from &TEAM is driven by a combo of his Japanese variety popularity and his casting in the highly anticipated Blue Lock movie. However, several other &TEAM members also rank highly, indicating the group’s cornering of the Japanese market has worked out. Japanese kpop idols like RIIZE’s Shotaro and UNIS’ Kotoko still rep their groups when no other members show up. Notably, Cortis has yet to make an impact here.

Overall

#	Worldwide	South Korea	USA	Japan
1	🔹 V (Taehyung)	💕 IU	🔹 V (Taehyung)	🔹 V (Taehyung)
2	🔹 Jungkook	💕 Karina	🔹 Jungkook	🔹 Jungkook
3	💕 Jennie	💕 Wonyoung	💕 Jennie	🔹 Jimin
4	💕 Lisa	🔹 Park Jihoon	💕 Lisa	💕 Wonyoung
5	💕 IU	💕 Jennie	💕 Rosé	💕 Sana
6	💕 Rosé	🔹 Cha Eunwoo	💕 IU	🔹 G-Dragon
7	💕 Jisoo	💕 Yoona	🔹 Felix	💕 Momo
8	🔹 Suga	🔹 Daesung	🔹 Jimin	💕 Jisoo
9	🔹 Jimin	💕 Jisoo	🔹 RM	💕 Jennie
10	🔹 Cha Eunwoo	🔹 V (Taehyung)	🔹 Suga	🔹 Jin
11	🔹 Jin	🔹 Jungkook	🔹 Hyunjin	💕 IU
12	🔹 RM	💕 Winter	🔹 Evan (Heeseung)	🔹 K
13	🔹 Felix	💕 Lee Hyori	🔹 T.O.P	💕 Karina
14	🔹 Evan (Heeseung)	🔹 G-Dragon	🔹 Jin	🔹 Cha Eunwoo
15	🔹 Hyunjin	💕 Bae Suzy	🔹 Bangchan	💕 Rosé
16	🔹 G-Dragon	💕 Yujin	💕 Jisoo	💕 Chaewon
17	💕 Wonyoung	💕 Sooyoung	🔹 J-Hope	💕 Wonhee
18	🔹 T.O.P	💕 Kwon Eunbi	🔹 Cha Eunwoo	💕 Sakura
19	🔹 J-Hope	💕 Ian	🔹 Han	💕 Winter
20	💕 Karina	💕 Rosé	🔹 Lee Know	🔹 Suga

Worldwide: As one would expect, BTS and Blackpink members occupy eight of the top ten spots, and all eleven members make the list. Felix barely holds off Heeseung to remain the highest-ranking fourth gen idol on the list at 13. Cha Eunwoo continues to occupy a spot on the list most likely due to his work as an actor and, to a lesser extent, his tax evasion scandal. 

South Korea: Park Jihoon has had a truly remarkable rise just since the beginning of this year, good for him. This is easily the place where BTS and Blackpink members rank the lowest, which makes sense, as there are countless kpop idols and groups that are more famous in Korea than anywhere else. One fifth-gen idol, Ian of H2H, manages to scrape in at 19. SNSD’s Sooyoung makes the list due to her recent split from Jung Kyung-ho, and Lee Hyori appears due to an incident in June that I’m unfamiliar with.

USA: Felix falls one spot to 7, but remains the highest-ranking fourth gen idol on the list. All of the remaining fourth gen idols are also from Stray Kids. The Blackpink members and IU make up the only female representation.

Japan: Though they’re both miles above everyone else’s, Taehyung and Jungkook’s numbers nearly match. This can only mean one thing in Japan. K scores the highest rank for a fifth gen idol on any overall list (at 12).

Groups

#	Worldwide	South Korea	USA	Japan
1	🔹 BTS	🔹 BTS	🔹 BTS	🔹 BTS
2	🔹 Stray Kids	💕 IVE	🔹 Stray Kids	💕 Twice
3	💕 Blackpink	💕 NewJeans	💕 Twice	💕 aespa
4	💕 Twice	🔹 Cortis	🔹 Enhypen	🔹 &TEAM
5	🔹 Enhypen	💕 Rescene	💕 Blackpink	🔹 Stray Kids
6	🔹 Seventeen	💕 Hearts2Hearts	🔹 Cortis	💕 Illit
7	🔹 Cortis	💕 Illit	🔹 Seventeen	💕 NiziU
8	💕 Babymonster	💕 aespa	💕 Illit	🔹 TXT
9	💕 aespa	💕 Blackpink	💕 Le Sserafim	💕 Blackpink
10	💕 Illit	🔹 BigBang	🔹 TXT	💕 IVE
11	🔹 TXT	💕 Twice	💕 NewJeans	💕 Le Sserafim
12	💕 IVE	🔹 Seventeen	🔹 Ateez	🔹 Seventeen
13	🔹 EXO	💕 fromis_9	💕 IVE	💕 Babymonster
14	💕 NewJeans	🔹 Enhypen	💕 aespa	🔹 Treasure
15	💕 Le Sserafim	🔹 TWS	💕 Babymonster	🔹 BigBang
16	🔹 BigBang	🔹 RIIZE	🔹 BigBang	🔹 Enhypen
17	🔹 Ateez	💕 NMIXX	🔹 EXO	🔹 TVXQ
18	💕 Hearts2Hearts	🔹 EXO	💕 Hearts2Hearts	🔹 TWS
19	🔹 TWS	💕 i-dle	🔹 P1Harmony	🔹 NCT Wish
20	🔹 &TEAM	🔹 Boynextdoor	🪻XLOV	💕 NewJeans

Worldwide: BTS at number one is not unexpected, though Stray Kids at number two may be to some. It was no surprise to me, as there are many countries around the world where all eight members of Stray Kids rank above all other fourth gen idols, male or female, by a hefty margin. Cortis bursts onto the list like the Kool-Aid man through a wall, shooting all the way up to 7 and becoming the highest-ranking fifth gen group worldwide.

South Korea: NewJeans is 3, proving that Korea will never let NewJeans die. Cortis holds off stiff competition from Rescene, H2H, and Illit to claim the title of top fifth gen group on the list, joining BTS and BigBang as the only boy groups in the top ten. Enhypen gets a considerable boost from Heeseung’s sashay away, becoming the only fourth gen boy group to make the cut. Interestingly, Babymonster doesn’t show up, and neither does QWER, despite their ample representation on Korea’s fifth gen idols list. Cortis, TWS, RIIZE, and Boynextdoor are here to rep fifth gen boys, a huge improvement over fourth gen’s (lack of) male presence.

USA: With as much as boys dominated the US’ list of fourth gen idols, you’d think there’d be fewer fourth gen girl groups here. Alas, if you look at the numbers, most fourth gen boy groups aren’t doing THAT much better than girl groups in US search interest. It’s just that Stray Kids and its members are dominating everyone, everywhere, all around the world*, whether male or female. The US continues to prove its devotion to HYBE, with eight of the top eleven spots occupied by groups from the yellow one. P1Harmony and XLOV, who don’t even come close to other top twenty charts, make the list here at 19 and 20.

*excluding East Asia.

Japan: aespa’s search interest was still highly elevated at the start of the year due to Ningning’s lamp incident. &TEAM and NiziU coming in at 4 and 7 shows how effectively HYBE and JYPE have targeted the Japanese market with these groups (note: I only counted jpop groups from kpop companies if they’ve had an official Korean debut). Treasure’s appeal to the Japanese market also seems to have paid off, as they make the list here and not anywhere else. TVXQ live up to their name as gods of the East, still hanging on in Japan’s top twenty after 22 years.

Typically, the Recording Academy has Grammy voters only vote in the genre categories in which they actively work. For example, the Latin categories are usually voted on only by members who have verified credits in Latin music. Same for the rock categories, R&B, etc.

How many members of the academy are even qualified to vote for the Asian category? The academy has hardly any members who actively work in any Asian music, much less have knowledge of every music industry in Asia. The nominees and winners will likely be heavily skewed toward music that was worked on by Western producers/songwriters. In fact, it may end up just being the Western academy members who have worked in Asian music in the last year voting for their own work. I don't see how this can possibly be a fair award.

JYPE has a much stronger track record with girl groups than boy groups, with the sole exception of Stray Kids. They had representation in the top 3 ggs of both second and third gens, with Wonder Girls and Twice. 2PM and Got7 were popular and successful, but they’re not considered to be among the top 3 boy groups of their generations (BigBang-TVXQ-Super Junior and BTS-EXO-Seventeen/Wanna One, respectively).

JYPE has had huge success in Japan with NiziU, but their little brothers, Nexz, are still struggling to find success there to the extent of kpop-managed jpop bgs like &TEAM and INI.

On the other hand, Stray Kids is both unquestionably the no.1 kpop bg of fourth gen and one of the most successful kpop groups of all time. Their album sales and touring numbers put them at least in the top 5 worldwide.

Why has Stray Kids been more successful than any of JYPE’s other boy groups? Was it just a matter of luck and timing, or did JYPE do something different with Skz that worked (and can they replicate it with their younger boy groups)?

I know that “maknae” is the Korean word for the youngest member of a group, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a term specifically for the oldest member. Some people call them the “hyung” or “unnie” of the group, but that’s just a generic term for anyone who’s older than you, not specifically the oldest member of a whole group.

Redred is doing amazing on Spotify, Melon, Apple Music, and is super viral on TikTok. Even the Jonas Brothers posted it.

Greengreen just sold 2,313,291 copies in its first week, the 17th highest first week sales of all time. With their second album!

Obviously, you could say "oh, they're from Bighit," but I don't think that can fully explain it. TXT did well from the start, but it was nothing even close to this. In fact, none of the groups under HYBE had this much success this fast but NewJeans.

Cortis reminds me a lot of NJ in the way they both became instant sensations in the kpop fan community and also drew in non-kpop fans. I think it's even more impressive for Cortis because it's so much harder for boy groups to get the gp's attention than girl groups.

I like Cortis' songs and I think they're talented, but I could say the same for a lot of groups. Why do you think Cortis is blowing up so fast with both kpop fans and non-kpop fans alike? What are they doing differently from other kpop groups?