2 albums a year with digital singles is fine. The problem is that songs are 2 minutes and these so called albums only have 5 or less songs. These microalbums are not even long enough to be considered a traditional mini album. I feel like at least one of the releases should be more than 30 minutes.
Yeah… I really wish we move on from this “shorter albums and shorter songs” trend very soon 😭 I didn’t mind it after first, but it’s now becoming such a standard that a 3 minute song is a rare surprise lol
@@nuages8915 mini albums are usually the midway point between EP’s and full albums for most people, so I think it’s more that 5 songs is hardly capable of being a mini-album when that’s how many songs most EP’s have
@nuages8915 A mini-album, or EP is typically 5 tracks and less than 30 minutes of runtime. An album is typically defined as 6+ tracks, OR a 30+ minute runtime. So, some companies are skirting this standard by releasing 6-track albums that aren't even 20 minutes long. Some of them are 5 songs and an instrumental. A company could even add previously released songs, or an alternate-language version (or two) of a song, so there are even fewer new tracks, but the track number is still right, or the run time is padded.
I think kpop should continue the 2 albums a year pattern it works very well and plus the groups can have a lot content without overworking the idols and also it give the companies more money without doing too much and plus fans won't too hungry for content which everyone wins and plus a group having a comeback every 6 months gives idols time to rest and to make plans for a tour as well so the current system is already fair as it is and has been the norm for the past 2 decades
I agree. As a multistan myself, I find that I can look forward to comebacks from different groups and solo artists. Every month, I look and realize that I have a bunch of comebacks to look forward too.
what you said about the 8 months hiatus of new jeans made me think about 3rd gen and how that period for a new group with less than 3 comebacks (like nwjns) was consider a death sentence for their career and it was really difficult to recover from that, often leading group to never achive the levels of popularity of their debut and disband or taking a loooot of time to do it, and by that time, those groups were already surpased by the new and fresh group of the moment
imo LSF does it correctly. they’ll release a titletrack and then weeks later they will release the MV for a bside and promote that too. pre-releases take away the comeback hype for the main titletrack or it ruins the anticipation and then the main titletrack doesn’t do as well.
I agree! Some people say the 1-2 comeback a year model is better this way, but it seems like idols are just being overworked in other ways outside of that. I think it’s a problem that is systemic in the work culture of the kpop industry
I feel like pre-releases most of the time get rid of the novelty of a title track and b-sides. For me, a title track is meant to introduce kpop fans to the concept of a comeback, which will be reinforced by bsides that represent different interpretations of that concept through sharing similar themes but through different soundscapes. But the problem is that these pre-releases are being used by companies as an alternative song to the title track that introduces different themes to it rather supporting the title track's concept. To me this often affects the cohesion of an album. In other words, I see pre-releases as being a prequel, title tracks as the main movie and b-sides as sequels. For this reason, I feel like Allergy by (G)-IDLE is the only pre-release that I've listened to so far which has made sense.
I haven’t thought about it this way, but I definitely agree! It’s very rare for pre-releases to be at all connected to the concept of the album. I think it’s more intended to be an extra chance at appealing to a different market, and so the pre-release ends up sounding so out of place when the album is released I think a company would benefit from choosing a pre-release that at least references the concept of what the title track is going to be, so it seems more cohesive and makes sense in retrospect
Aespa Welcome To My World atleast shows their lore. Like explain that Aespa are now in the real world with Navis, that continues in Spicy. As in Spicy they explore the real world.
@@vixxexo6855 yeah I think my world’s pre-release and track videos added so much to the concept of the album! That’s one of the best examples of this release model
Makes me think companies are doing that on purpose bc they known songs on playlist that go on repeat can’t count as a full “stream” (conspiracy theory of mine nothing to take too seriously 😂)
having pre-releases and multiple singles on a 4 track mini album is just so unserious imho.. this model would work if people were releasing full albums but having pre releases for an EP just makes the actual full comeback seem so dull when youve already heard half of it before playing the album
Yeah pre-releases for EP’s don’t make sense at all… It kind of defeats the purpose of an “album release” when 50-80% of the songs have already been released 😭
i agree that overall, this fourth generation model is much better for building anticipation and lessening the workload on the idols. but… this is really just an issue i‘ve had with fromis_9, who are one of my ults. pledis just hasn’t given them a comeback in almost a year, and supposedly are planning on their new comeback coming in july, which would be one month after a year since their most recent release. at this point, this wait im experiencing is building anticipation in a sense but is also building resentment towards pledis, as it’s getting agonizing to wait and wait. i hope that this feeling isn’t something that becomes the norm. i like the position we are at right now with how much waiting is between releases for groups. thanks for making this video though! i‘m a relatively new kpop stan (started listening in 2022) and so i really never realized how busy some years were for some artists like twice (who are also one of my ults lol)
Yeah, groups like fromis and red velvet feel like they deserve more than just one comeback a year. I think situations like that are just companies neglecting their groups, rather than building up anticipation, which seems like a lose-lose situation all around. I hope they get better treatment 😭
I like pre-releases, but i want to offer an alternative (bcuz apparently everyone and their mother is deciding to spoil their entire mini album) make it several of them when a comeback is a full lenght album, or the mini album is 6-7 songs, bvuz it leaves more space for the song to breathe, and we also get a good chunk of new songs. Think about it? Why you'll have a pre-release song when your mini album will have a title track, and your mini is 4-5 songs.
Yeah 😭 pre-releases for an EP with 4-5 songs doesn’t make sense - I think it may be better if the title track is released first, and additional singles come after the album is released
@@Chuu_VaultYeah, I don't understand it. Remember in TDC: Eternity era, when after the promotions for CYSM wrapped, they dropped a MV for Puma and then proceed to promote that song? I need more companies to do that
I think that‘s the problem most people have. You wouldn't release multiple singles for an EP/mini-album that has just 6 or less songs. Or have the entire EP be just singles and one additional new track in NewJeans' with Get Up. But the problem is, K-Pop groups rarely release studio albums (full albums). They just release an EP with 7 songs, have two singles for it, promote it for like 2 weeks and then move on. Western artists release 2-3 singles before even announcing an album. Then they might drop a single alongside the album and the music video is going to be released a bit later that day. And depending on the success there‘s going to be one more single some weeks or even a couple of months after the album was released. And here they release the singles with time between each other. Not like how JYPE did it with Itzy's album Born To Be. They announced the album on December 3rd last year, dropped the first single and MV Born To Be (the actual title track since it has the same name as the album). Two days later they dropped a motion video or whatever it‘s called for Yeji's solo song and here they basically gave us almost the entire thing but not 100% of it. Then two days later, December 21st they did for Ryujin's solo song. Chaeryeong's was released three days later and Yuna's two days later. That's already basically the entire album being dropped but within not even a month. The second single, Mr. Vampire was dropped on January 1st and one, yes only one week later the main and last single Untouchable was released alongside the album. That's basically the entire thing dropped within one month, no time to prepare and no time to take in each song. With western artists, they announce the album (name and release date) around the second or third single. And the track list and how many songs the album will have might also be dropped a while after that. And they can still secure a bunch of sales and streams. Even with the whole thing taking one year or even longer. Madison Beer as an example took 2 years between her debut album Life Support (2021) and Silence Between Songs (2023). And the album still did GREAT.
It feels weird to me when some people complained gen 4 groups having too few projects cause back then in gen 2, we got like 1 or at most 2 projects per year and sometimes not at all...
@@choujimi i was a Star1 (Sistar's fan) and i even felt blessed that they have one comeback every year. Then there were groups like Miss A, Girl's Day and f)(x)...
Yea cause Gen 2 was kind of doing it like how western artists do it. Not have multiple EPs and so on be released within one year, overworking the groups to their core.
I think for me the best way to milk an album to its full potential is the Ateez model we saw with their latest project. We got Crazy Form out the gate and there was so much hype from that, and then it was able to continue as they released week by week the unit projects. I think the opposite way (like Itzys) is more likely to hurt the success of the comeback. Also on the short song train someone else mentioned- I’m so so thankful KQ hasn’t fallen down that hole too because I HATE the short song issue we’re dealing with.
This is really just the typical rollout for Western Artists and I’m glad that K-Pop has adapted to it for many ways. First, multiple comebacks a year can kill hype for a project upon release if people don’t like the title track whereas this format allows the project itself to breathe. I mean so many people talk about forgotten songs that were never on the radar to begin with. Second, on paper, it does give artists more breathing room. You used Le Sserafim so I’ll use them too. When you take out music show promotions, Unforgiven was followed by their first tour, fan-con, solo schedules, Chaewon catching influenza which then led to her sitting out most Perfect Night promotions. Luckily Chaewon only missed out on about a week and a half of promotions for a single song but imagine (and I’m sure longterm K-Pop fans don’t) her and the rest of the group having to juggle all of that on top of 3 actual comebacks last year? It would’ve been a health nightmare. Yes, this model isn’t perfect and it’s effectiveness varies from company-to-company/artist-to-artist BUT I do think it is overall way more healthy for both idols and the industry. Especially for the industry as more spaced out comebacks helps combat K-Pop’s overall over saturation market caused by the sheer amount of active artists.
A separate thing that frustrates me with pre-releases on youtube is that the channel owner would often remove the pre-release music topic and then re-add the topic newly to the rest of the album later. So if you had it saved to a playlist, it will tell you there's hidden videos. This takes forever to find out which music got removed. It's a chore and a pain. I tend to avoid pre-releases now as someone who primarily uses youtube music as their main playlist source.
I’ve seen people complain about this before! It doesn’t make sense to me to change the title of the song on any platform, especially when it messes up people’s playlists and runs the risk of losing streams 😭
One thing I can say about Twice (imo), is that when they were doing SO MANY releases in a year the quality of their B-Sides were very hit and miss for me. Now, I feel like I listen to the entirety of their albums and mini albums, whereas, I used to a lot of skipping around with their earlier releases. I’m not sure how groups like Red Velvet managed to have such quality B-Sides with so many comebacks back then but they always felt like the exception to the rule to me. Nowadays, while there is definably less music and longer wait times, the quality of the music is usually incredibly good which can help hold over fans wanting more content. What I’m curious about though, is what happens when your comeback is just not very good and then you have that long waiting period. Itzy may be a good example of this (although their issues go beyond just the new comeback model tbh), but I feel as though they aren’t as looked for even though their last album was pretty fun. I think those more middling comebacks before that release really tampered with their momentum (that was already losing steam for other reasons).
Agreed most of twice's bsides before 2019 we're kinda skips for me, I didn't feel like the company put effort in them and just wanted to release as much content as they could. This has luckily improved with the recents years and their bsides are so good nowadays thanks to the fact that they actually have time to put in more efforts in their bsides. As for rv it doesn't surprise that their bsides are so good since sm despite how awful the company has always been at releasing full albums with good bsides.
for red velvet and most sm groups they stock up on a ton of REALLY good songs at songwriting camps and hold them for years so they can spend a LOT of time towards planning and arranging albums in advance
@@whywhy8899 idk but the aespa members did say they were working on it for a while before. some other companies do that too, like all of newjeans comebacks up to get up were planned for years before their debut
I saw the title of the video on my notifications and involuntarily yelled, "YUP." 😂 Too many prereleases can cause the title track get lost in the shuffle. ITZY's "Untouchable" comes to mind. Completely agree about NewJeans, too. By the time "Cool With You" rolled around, I was rolling my eyes. Not that I dislike NewJeans, either! It just felt like too much too quickly. I also related to your bit about having kpop conversations with yourself on a fundamental level. 😂 That was one of the biggest impetuses behind my creation of this channel as well.
@@choujimi Such a shame because "Born to Be" and "Mr. Vampire" are both great tracks as well. JYP put out so many releases in such a short time that they simply didn't have the budget to invest in high-quality MVs for all of the songs they were putting out. If you want to see a really good example, watch the "Born to Be" video and LOONA's "PTT" video back to back. It really says something that Blockberry could make a video with such a similar aesthetic that makes the ITZY video look abundantly cheap by comparison. Like, yeah, I get that it was just a prerelease, but don't put it out there if you're not willing to fully commit to it. It might be fun to put together an episode of phoned-in MVs. I'm also looking directly at you, "Wife." 😂 I'll add it to my list.
@@overthinkingkpop I get sad thinking about Mr. Vampire especially 😭 I think it really deserved its own release as a title track with a fully fleshed-out conceptual music video
@@choujimi What, you mean to say you were disappointed by a glorified performance video shot in either what appears to be an office with the cubicles moved out of the way or a blank room with a bunch of table lamps from Goodwill? 😂 Such a missed opportunity, truly. Wish they would have saved it and released it as a digital single or something.
@@overthinkingkpopTalking about phoned-in MVs, we need to include most Japanese releases. I understand that you are not going to put the same budget that you would put in a Korean release, but I'm just asking to have a decent MV (Some exceptions that I can think of right now are #CookieJar by Red Velvet, Drama by TXT, every Stray Kids Japanese release, Not Okay by ATEEZ and BDZ by Twice, to quote some examples)
The thing I miss about many separate releases are the amount of bsides we would get. I feel like having unpromoted tracks are very important to strengthen a groups discography. Having a performance video on the group’s channel is one thing, but going onto music shows to promote the song is something completely different. However, I also see how groups with such small discographies can get many wins on music shows just by promoting different tracks off of one project (like nwjns) and I understand why companies would want to lean to this model.
Yeah there are pros and cons to each model, but it is interesting to think about how NewJeans technically doesn’t have any b-side songs at this point 😭 the most obscure song I can think of is ‘hurt,’ but even that was promoted
That’s part of what I love about K-pop I consume so much music because of the nature of my job and when I only listened to western artists I was always looking for more since I had to wait 3-5 years in some cases for new music. My buddy thinks I’m insane for listening to every comeback from start to finish instead of just TT’s but man is it such a blast to have something new almost every week.
Same!! I wish groups would aim to release a full album at least every 1-2 years 😭 it’s sad that most 4th gen groups don’t release full albums much at all
I find this thing about pre-releases interesting on the one hand, as it helps to make sure that songs that some bsides have more chances to shine and that the projects themselves are better utilized, but on the other hand the excess of pre-releases it can harm groups, as was the case with Itzy with the release of the album 'born to be' and the promotion of the title track along with the solos of the members and mr. vampire (and all of this for 1 month!!) until reaching the untouchable title track. There were so many releases that it caused one song to swallow up another and it just showed how Jyp only makes completely wrong choices in anything that has to do with the group...
I think 1-2 comebacks a year is a better plan since idols can take some break between releases and rest both mentally and physically (especially since most of the 4/5th gen idols are minors). But companies also should have some resposibility by taking longer breaks, like good b-sides and title tracks with longer album.
Tbh, I don't think that IVE has been following that schedule just bcz of this model in kpop, it's just cuz they don't have time for anything else. They released at least 1 MV every 2 months on 2023 plus the tour started so they can't do anything else lol. Let's recap Feb 2023: The Prom Queens fancon starts March: Kitsch (Pre release) April: I'VE IVE (1st Full Album) May: WAVE (1st JP. mini album) July: I WANT (Pepsi collab) September: Either Way (Pre release) October: Off the Record (Pre release) I'VE MINE (1st mini album) November/December: Show What I have tour starts.
here I am waiting for NewJeans' next comeback since December 2023. I literally check hybe's account everyday 0am kst. I thought they would announce comeback after release of the remix album. and here we are in March.
triples is currently one of the groups that i feel like are somewhat overstaturating their content i mean consistent album releases is good but the numbers for each comeback popularity wise feels like its going down but they have been getting somewhat consistent sales, funny thing is that the comeback that they were blacklisted from promoting on music shows has the highest amount of sales the group has ever gotten in the 1st week
I kind of agree with this! TripleS has felt kind of overwhelming for me personally to get into when I look at how many projects have been released so far 😭 I know a bulk of those releases are subunit projects, but it still all feels like so much
@@choujimii don't think the fact that they are subunit releases is relevant considering its still an album with 6-8 songs, 1-2 mvs, and promoted bsides. But at the end of the day releasing alot of music is helping triples rather than harming and its never overworking (kotone was literally just chilling in triples haus for many month's just filming TH-cam content until her debut with evolution)
I think it just gets so overwhelming, so many people come back im imo a rr short time. I think fans don’t realize how much a comeback takes and for a group to have even 2 a year is so much work. And w alot of young idols debuting it takes a toll on a adults body but for kids its sm harder. I also think w groups having so much musical content it can feel rushed or not up to its full potential. Quantity over quality ngl. Ofc i applaud the groups like twice, ateez, skz, nct etc. I remember stayc having sm korea and Japanese cbs and then a world tour all in 2023, the girls are still pretty young so all i can think is how much theyre doing and i just feel bad 🤧. I like to think it has gotten better like u said w aespa njs and twice and how slowed down comebacks ESPECIALLY twice. With pre releases i just think they choose either the wrong song or they should have put a song as a pre release on a album that did have one.
I feel like It can be over powering and overshadowing to a lot of the groups releases but it can also be helpful in a way of profit for company and for the artist as if one song or comeback wasn’t that loved the other might regain their support like skz for eg they released s class people didn’t liked it redeemed with lalala But i feel it might be better then less comebacks but for the artist’s relevance but not for the health i also feel like the 4th gen might work for both consistency as they are promoting more but releasing less and profit margins for companies can still work and it can help fans digest the release and get there final thoughts so my thoughts are still very much scattered and yeah that’s all i got 😅
I can understand why people felt desperate with long in-between comeback periods. If you were a JoJo Fan on Stone Ocean's """Emission""", you will remember we had to wait A YEAR AND A HALF TO GET 13 EPISODES OF AN ANIME THAT WASN'T EVEN ENDING IN THOSE NEW 13.
OMG I FELT THE STONE OCEAN PAIN. Even when the ending is very good and ofc sad I NEED MORE. Gimme my boys Johnny n Gyro right here right now i need em after all that waiting😔
also one more think regarding pre-releases, sometimes pre-release and album is just 2 or 3 weeks apart. and it seems funny to me. 😅if the group and company is confident about quality of the pre-release they are putting out, why don't they give fans at least one or two months to enjoy and basically divest it and be prepared for upcoming album? what is the point of releasing a pre-release just 2 or 3 weeks prior to the album? as a fan I can simply wait for 3 more weeks till the album, pre-release is not really necessary. I know only Blackpink did that. and YG is doing it again with Babymonster by releasing pre-release in February and the album in April, taking 2 months between new music.
I think there’s pros and cons to both strategies. For blackpink, the long wait times between singles builds up a lot of anticipation, but for some other groups, waiting a month in between singles may kill the anticipation surrounding the album launch entirely - people may forget about it lol
I think the most important part is to watch and see if the idol is improving on every comeback. If they do, I think we should appreciate their effort and not criticize them. To me, an idol group should be improving throughout their career, If the idol doesn't improve, I think I will lose interest, but I won't hate them, I just move on with my life, is not a big of a deal.
I glad that we are still getting albuns a not jumping to the only singles model. Have some narrative between songs or some sonic similarity makes see the nuances and deep that they can get. Or unfortunally the lack of variety there is. Last I ve and le sserafim realeases wasnt what I was expecting from them but unlike american pop I feel some safety that a next release May have what I like it better about them soon. And the variety content is here to "hold hands" to keep me waiting until it comes. Somenthing interesting that other generes of music marketing dosent have the same retention.
From my point of view(casual fan): No, groups can't comeback too often. If a group has 3 or 4 releases per year with albums having at least one or two good songs, great, keep it coming. I also don't mind if a group has 2 releases per year either, but if an album is released that doesn't have a single song to my liking, then obviously I'd prefer a comeback sooner rather than later.
I don't like pre-releases. Just give me the MV for the main title track and then if the album is at least 5 tracks or more I would love to see another popular b-side get another MV like a month after it or so, to keep the hype for the album going or to still rake in people who missed the original release. If you hit me with 10+ promotional videos for the whole release you lose me due to it feeling like spam. Just have 1-2 MV teasers, then drop the main MV with the album and then drop the mv for a popular b-side a few weeks later. But that's me. To each their own of, course.
Great video! I am loving where we are at with Kpop releases. I do think company’s need to take this fact into account whenever doing comebacks I feel like many of the comebacks are generic and boring which isn’t what you should do if you are having 1 release a year
I also would like to say that I think this model was likely influenced by the fact kpop is now more popular in west. Kpop companies might have noticed how western artists tend to only release one full project every 1-2 years and a bunch of singles (important note: 4-5 years ago western artists would release one album every 3-4 years but this has changed recently with tiktok and streaming culture where newer western artists tend to release one full project every 1-2 and a bunch of singles while older artist stick to the older formula due to the fact that they are already established and have a solid fanbase) and decided to adapt to that model since it would easier for international fans to follow kpop groups if they didn't release too many projects in the span of a couple months. Plus international fans are already used to artists releasing multiple music videos so kpop groups releasing 2-3 mvs before the actual album sounds normal to them. I do admit that this model has it's flaws since sometimes the pre-releases tend to be more liked than the actual release (I personally prefer moonlight sunrise over set me free) and it also feels like you are getting less than before since back in 3rd gen kpop groups would just release the album without releasing any singles before and you would go in without expecting anything just to be blow away by how good the mini or full album was. It also doesn't help that full albums in kpop are getting shorter and most "full" albums only have 8 songs and are barely 20 minutes long when a typical full album should be at least 30 minutes long and have 10 songs. Not only that but songs are getting shorter due to streaming culture. LOL this was way longer than I expected it to be. Hope you don't mind me rambling haha.
I don’t mind it at all - I really appreciate comments like these haha! I agree - the model seems to work quite well given that international fans are used to it, but it also suffers from the fact that everything is getting shorter. I really think pre-releases work best when they’re used ahead of *actual* full-length albums, and are less effective when promoting an EP with only 4-5 songs on it
Great topic! From what I’ve read and heard, as a 10+ yrs fan, the competition was intense to amass fans during the 2nd-3rd gen, so promoting constantly was seen as “needed” to help rookies from smaller companies gain traction. With the rise of sites like youtube and social media in the early 2010s international interest started to increase which could have also accelerated the urgency to gather bigger attention and sales. On top of that, Boy groups also had a race to get as much content out before military duty started for their members. These days, it feels like each big group has so many fans they really don’t need to comeback or urgently promote as many times a year.
Hmm, I think I have mixed feelings. I don't like pre-releases at all. A lot of times it seems like only the fanbase knows that a MV is a pre-release, or the pre-release arrives so closely to the title track that it becomes confusing. I much prefer post-releases to anything because then I can enjoy an album (or title) and there isn't pressure on the company to maintain my attention by releasing a song too quickly, they can drop a new MV and a special stage whenever they're ready. This can attract attention back to the album for fans who were on the fence, and makes a great treat to fans who already enjoyed the album. There haven't been too many post-album promotions or MVs in kpop, this mostly happens as special clips or for subunits. The other thing I'm mixed on is just release frequency altogether. As someone who didn’t often bother with Japanese promotions (I got used to them being re-recordings of Korean singles) I did really like receiving two albums/EPs per year. I feel spoiled but unloved now xD However, when factoring in idols actually participating in Japanese promotions, not to mention they're recording new songs, sometimes entire EPs for Japan these days, these feelings are a bit unfair. I still feel like it's easy to forget about a group if you're just a casual listener, but for sure that's a me problem.
I agree! and that’s a good point that usually only the fanbase knows what songs are pre-releases, so non-fans probably feel even more overwhelmed by so many singles
Very off comment but I believe having these convos via notes app definitely feels more calming to me...idk why, guess it's cuz I get to revisit those thoughts and ideas whenever whereas if someone made a public comment thru yt twt of a video response, to me there's more of a pressure point for me to discuss it 😅
i honestly don't like the current pre-release strategy that kpop groups are implementing, specifically the ones with more than one single before the album. it was only fun when newjeans did it for their debut cause it was not common in kpop. once everyone hopped on the trend, it felt like we were being bombarded with content. some companies might see it as a way to prolong an era and milk one album for everything it has, but it kinda kills anticipation for the actual album release. and sometimes, the prereleases for one project feel so different from each-other that the concept gets lost. it's like they aren't culminating towards anything. the magic of Eras also gets lost when a group is trying to capture different audiences with different pre-releases instead of building the identity of one comeback. and most of all, the albums are SHORT. i also don't think the groups are working less per say. now they have to learn multiple choreographies and shoot multiple MVs for one album. their promotion periods are also long and there's no time to breathe for a good while.
Same 😭 I’m afraid that SM is going to give them even more work in the wake of all the controversies going on in a similar way that they did with red velvet
Its for me a bit sad that the albums and eps are so short, sure there are many but there isnt a deep cut there, a bside that is a actual beide. And there is somethin mg a too much singles from an album. Not saying the western Business model is better. Promotion are still so much work, shooting more mvs, more choreo, more for each Song, sure they record more contest and less music but still. I hope this isnt a trend swinging from one extrem to the next
Great video. I think a huge part of the reason that many groups have stopped promoting one single per project/physical release is because of the impact COVID had on the ability to do a proper roll-out for a physical release (e.g. it took longer to get the albums pressed/ready to ship, pre-orders would take longer to fulfill, etc). Western artists who used to do months long roll-out campaigns and sold tons of physical albums didn't bother doing that in 2020 because it just would not be possible to release a physical album the way they did pre-COVID in 2020 (see: how Taylor Swift released Folklore). Kpop companies realized that it saved them money to promote more singles off of one physical release, and kept the practice rolling post-2020. Given that people were speculating that kpop album sales were going to begin declining post-COVID, I wouldn't be surprised if companies kept that in mind when deciding to release fewer projects -- they could concentrate sales on a smaller number of projects, rather than face declining sales with each release if they decided that every promotional single needed its own dedicated project. I've been a kpop fan for a long time, and I prefer when groups promote multiple singles off of one project. It results in better quality albums, because companies haven't stuck the promotional single onto a bunch of filler B-sides. It's less work for the idols. It's also better for the environment/fan's wallets (though obviously not the case if you're a bulk buyer). In terms of whether groups can come back too often, I think that probably depends on who you ask. A group's fans will probably think that they can never come back too often, and that there is no such thing as too much content. IMO one of the reasons Twice has had such longevity is how consistent they've been with their releases. In contrast to that, I think SM REALLY fumbled by not capitalizing on the momentum aespa had coming out of 2021 by waiting until July 2022 to give them a comeback, and then waiting until May 2023 to follow that up.
Ahh I didn’t think of that! The pre-release model getting popular post-2020 makes so much sense with that in mind I also heavily agree that aespa’s hiatuses in particular seemed to cause a lot of unrest in the fandom. I wonder if that was just a momentary problem, considering SM was going through a lot of management changes during that time? Drama came 6 months after Spicy, and it seems like they’ll have another comeback in April. It looks like 5-6 months in between albums is the goal
New jeans 👖 has kinda left my radar a little bit. I felt like they could have spread out there last comeback music videos out a little more so it seems like we are getting more stuff. JYP 😵💫 is doing way too much at one time. They were promoting ITZY, mini album from twice, VCHA debut and releasing a new song buy them this month, two groups currently having concerts, & it’s just now March. I can’t support the other groups cause they are all releasing stuff at the same time 😵💫😵💫😵💫
SM did that recently too 😭 aespa and Red Velvet released projects so close to each other at the end of 2023, I wonder if it’s just by coincidence or if there’s a strategy to releasing all of them at a similar time
Ep releases twice a year with solid comeback schedule or a once with a full album is totally fine by me. Otherwise, I would feel overloaded with too many content that I cannot keep the track of the group's concept anymore. It feels scammy when they are too much around. I want to miss them and get excited when I hear abt their cbs.
I think releasing singles before an album, as in studio album or one single before an EP with 7 songs is good. It gives people an idea what the album is going to be like and can offer some variety. The problem though is, with how singles are being released or albums or more likely just EPs for that matter. Cause the way Itzy's roll out for their album Born To Be was handled is still insane to me. Cause you don‘t announce an album, drop the track list the same day or one day after. Then drop the first single within two weeks, the second single was dropped three weeks later and the last single one week after that, alongside the album. But then they also released motion videos/ music videos or whatever for Yeji, Ryujin , Chaeryeong and Yuna's solo tracks (excluding Lia here cause she was already on a hiatus). They all were dropped with 2 days distance between each other TWO days after the first single dropped. That's just too much. We basically got almost the entire album before it even dropped. Cause five solo songs and five groups tracks, two of these being released before the album as well as the solos. We got 7 out of 10 tracks before the album was released officially. I personally like it when an artist is announcing and releasing the first single, after some weeks or a couple of months the second single. Between the third single or around the time they officially announce the album; its name and the date. Then they release another single perhaps and then they‘re dropping the track list and how many songs we’re getting. And then after some more months the album drops. But no, they don‘t just abandon it after two weeks. No, they might even drop another single months after the album. And then go on tour. Albums in the western music industry have a much longer life then any releases ever do in K-Pop.
I think the instances in which a pre-release can hurt the releasing of the tittle track is when there isn’t enough time in between them. We have gotten pre-releases from some groups and the tittle track not even 2 weeks later. Some of us multi-stans, and the general public, need a lil more than a week and a half to engage with the content and see how we feel about it. I think this type of pacing also kills proper anticipation for a tittle track and puts both songs in direct competition with each other (which is not always bad!). But since it does look like more and more companies are adopting the 2 albums a year concept to hopefully they’ll figure out a pacing that works better for the group/soloist and the consumer.
I would be happy with just 1 album a year, just make it a full length album with songs over 3/3.5 minutes with bridges (please do a bridge, they're going extint)
Now that I think 🤔 about I wonder if they do this to get on charts and make headlines. Twices You-th album is already at the end of promotions 😢. Like put out the pre release to get hype up for the album, then bombard all the promoting, performances, fan meets, and more music videos in a short amount of time just to get on sale charts. Once’s that’s done they move on to the next project. I would focus on selling the album as long as I can by stretching out the promotions over months.
I’ve been into Kpop since 2017 and Tbh the pre-release model seems super risky. In some cases, though, I think it can be really good for exposure/promotion. I recently changed my perception on this when ARTMS (my ult group) announced that they’re debuting with 4 prerelease singles followed by a regular tt + album release. I was able to come to terms with this schedule knowing that they’re releasing an ACTUAL full length album. So, If it has at least 10 tracks, fans and casual listeners will get a taste of their music without being completely spoiled. They’re under a relatively small company though, so the whole thing is extremely ambitious lol…
I personally like the old way better. When a group has too many pre-releases, it just gets confusing for me. For example, for Itzy's recent comeback, I saw Born to Be and I was like "oh, that's the title track, cool". Then later I saw Mr. Vampire and was like "Ooooh ok Born to Be was a pre-release and this is the title track", and then I was reading the comments and someone said like "can't wait for the title track" and at that point I was just like "What the heck?". I just honestly loose engagement in a comeback when it has too many songs, and I loose engagement in an artist when they only comeback once a year. Twice a year is fine with me.
The way I would count mainline title tracks, I feel like 3 per year used to be the norm. Now we're at 1.5 comebacks per year with the number of mainline title tracks varying from group to group with 2 title tracks be comeback being the median by my guess. I feel like peak TWICE and I've Mine's 3 title tracks did push too far though. I feel like if too many songs are being released, people are less willing to pay as much attention to each. That definitely happened to Off The Record. It's not a matter of buying albums, but rather getting casual listeners to feel like they have to listen to be a part of the culture.
Imo, I think here’s the plan: Debut year: 3 Korean albums 2nd year and onwards: 2 Korean albums per year (2 singles per album, so either pre-release + title track or title track + follow-up track) When they become an A tier or above group like Twice, BTS or even newjeans: 1 Korean album per year + special singles/ solo projects + use that time for touring That being said, a group can have 1-2 jpn releases each year along with their Korean albums
The prerelease trend is like a two edged sword. One one hand, it’s a great way to introduce an album to your audience, to get them intrigued enough to want to check out the other songs. On the other hand, if you abuse this formula, you might get your audience overwhelmed to the point of them having second thoughts about wanting to check it out at all.
A lot of people don’t like the pre-release model, but me personally I really like it. I always hated the way groups would just promote a single song which is the title track and left another amazing songs on the album on the dust, so i like the idea of having more than one song promoted and having their moment to shine. Releasing a MV for a bside after the album is also a good idea, but kpop groups rarely do that anymore so I’m glad atleast like that we can have more promoted songs than just one
I agree they have too many comebacks but at the same time the company gives them like 2-5 songs each “Album” & it’s really an ep. If they give them atleast 8-10 songs per album, they wouldn’t have to cb so many times
I feel like the western expansion of kpop has also had an effect on the release cadence of idol groups. Domestic releases almost required the frequent comebacks lest a group be swallowed in the endless sea of competition. There was hardly any real level of attention paid to the western market outside of BTS in the third gen, and now post-BTS kicking in the door I feel like the larger entertainment companies who can afford to promote in the west are trying to play their hand at it. They’re competing for Billboard 200 album chart positions, pushing songs for longer to hopefully get on Billboard Hot 100 (which is FAR harder than BB 200). These are long held desires for K-pop entertainment companies that go back further than BTS’ existence and now they see a real path to it other than the one off moments. Over-saturating comebacks weakens a group’s identity in an unfamiliar market with different demands where now all these other groups are also competing against them for name recognition. Too much too soon can have the unintended consequence of diluting their own work and self-cannibalizing any brand-building momentum they’ve gained. It’s a game of “don’t be gone too long, but don’t come back too soon”. Idk tho, just my two cents!
Seems like companies are taking a page out of yg's book for bp's marketing lol. But jokes aside, I also feel like 2 comebacks a year is the best for both artists and fans. Although I'd like to be a lil greedy and also like a summer single in between. The point you made about groups risking alienation of fans, I think it would urge companies to make better music *cough* unlike yg *cough* which is just another win overall
It mostly worked for me with NewJeans debut, they released the pre-release tracks and MVs, and then "Cookie" which was the title (which I can't listen to but that's another conversation) and it was all a surprise, and it was their debut. Even having multiple different versions of MVs. It was cool. While it worked for their debut, it's felt a little bit unnecessary, for me, since. Having MVs for everything, and multiple versions of MVs, I don't think it's necessary. With NewJeans, it's at least been a consistent thing since debut. It's still confusing, though. A lot of people are confused about what their actual debut was. Having multiple pre-releases makes things more confusing, especially for a debut. Generally I think one pre-release before the title track/MV are released makes the most sense. But I don't think it should be a given. I think sometimes dropping the title and then following it up with B sides would be more impactful. I think it depends on the release. I don't think it should be bound by a formula. There's been a couple of groups who've dropped several pre-releases, with MVs, before the "actual" comeback, and I've ended up being confused and/or felt like it dampened the comeback to some degree. I've also seen a few where the pre-release made sense before the TT, for whatever reason.
Blackpink impact….. we are in the trenches with this current release style 😭 front load content then extended wait periods for any new content… not to mention these songs are hardly passing the two minute mark these days 😭💀 someone save us
why is everything about this video related to ggs I mean all examples of it were ggs and so is the thumbnail, but the video is only visually showing skz and svt…?
I didn’t really put much thought into the background videos for this discussion. I mentioned ATEEZ/SKZ in the multiple comebacks part, but I definitely should’ve brought up more boy groups in this discussion. I believe the boyz in particular got close to having 5 comebacks in a year
and some people still say blackpink wasn't a revolution. pre-release singles weren't even a big thing before How You Like That - Ice Cream - Lovesick Girls, and now everyone is releasing at least one of them. plus, every group nowadays is trying to widen the gap between comebacks as much as they can, just like blackpink has always done.
2 albums a year with digital singles is fine. The problem is that songs are 2 minutes and these so called albums only have 5 or less songs. These microalbums are not even long enough to be considered a traditional mini album. I feel like at least one of the releases should be more than 30 minutes.
Yeah… I really wish we move on from this “shorter albums and shorter songs” trend very soon 😭 I didn’t mind it after first, but it’s now becoming such a standard that a 3 minute song is a rare surprise lol
Well they are called mini albums
@@nuages8915 mini albums are usually the midway point between EP’s and full albums for most people, so I think it’s more that 5 songs is hardly capable of being a mini-album when that’s how many songs most EP’s have
@nuages8915 A mini-album, or EP is typically 5 tracks and less than 30 minutes of runtime. An album is typically defined as 6+ tracks, OR a 30+ minute runtime. So, some companies are skirting this standard by releasing 6-track albums that aren't even 20 minutes long. Some of them are 5 songs and an instrumental. A company could even add previously released songs, or an alternate-language version (or two) of a song, so there are even fewer new tracks, but the track number is still right, or the run time is padded.
I think kpop should continue the 2 albums a year pattern it works very well and plus the groups can have a lot content without overworking the idols and also it give the companies more money without doing too much and plus fans won't too hungry for content which everyone wins and plus a group having a comeback every 6 months gives idols time to rest and to make plans for a tour as well so the current system is already fair as it is and has been the norm for the past 2 decades
That would be good. The only thing that we need to acknowledge is that some fans won't be satisfied with just two comebacks a year.
I agree. As a multistan myself, I find that I can look forward to comebacks from different groups and solo artists. Every month, I look and realize that I have a bunch of comebacks to look forward too.
These companies need to remember a lot of their fans are like 11-18. A year is an eternity for kids.
I think 2 also are fine, I just don’t like when it’s only 1 like le sserafim did last year, aespa did in girls era etc
what you said about the 8 months hiatus of new jeans made me think about 3rd gen and how that period for a new group with less than 3 comebacks (like nwjns) was consider a death sentence for their career and it was really difficult to recover from that, often leading group to never achive the levels of popularity of their debut and disband or taking a loooot of time to do it, and by that time, those groups were already surpased by the new and fresh group of the moment
imo LSF does it correctly. they’ll release a titletrack and then weeks later they will release the MV for a bside and promote that too. pre-releases take away the comeback hype for the main titletrack or it ruins the anticipation and then the main titletrack doesn’t do as well.
I agree, I really like lsm model esp since that groups bsides are so good!
To me the biggest problem is the overworking.
Same
I agree! Some people say the 1-2 comeback a year model is better this way, but it seems like idols are just being overworked in other ways outside of that. I think it’s a problem that is systemic in the work culture of the kpop industry
@@choujimi unfortunately I think you’re right about that.
I feel like pre-releases most of the time get rid of the novelty of a title track and b-sides. For me, a title track is meant to introduce kpop fans to the concept of a comeback, which will be reinforced by bsides that represent different interpretations of that concept through sharing similar themes but through different soundscapes. But the problem is that these pre-releases are being used by companies as an alternative song to the title track that introduces different themes to it rather supporting the title track's concept. To me this often affects the cohesion of an album.
In other words, I see pre-releases as being a prequel, title tracks as the main movie and b-sides as sequels. For this reason, I feel like Allergy by (G)-IDLE is the only pre-release that I've listened to so far which has made sense.
I haven’t thought about it this way, but I definitely agree! It’s very rare for pre-releases to be at all connected to the concept of the album. I think it’s more intended to be an extra chance at appealing to a different market, and so the pre-release ends up sounding so out of place when the album is released
I think a company would benefit from choosing a pre-release that at least references the concept of what the title track is going to be, so it seems more cohesive and makes sense in retrospect
Aespa Welcome To My World atleast shows their lore. Like explain that Aespa are now in the real world with Navis, that continues in Spicy. As in Spicy they explore the real world.
@@vixxexo6855 yeah I think my world’s pre-release and track videos added so much to the concept of the album! That’s one of the best examples of this release model
Makes me think companies are doing that on purpose bc they known songs on playlist that go on repeat can’t count as a full “stream” (conspiracy theory of mine nothing to take too seriously 😂)
having pre-releases and multiple singles on a 4 track mini album is just so unserious imho.. this model would work if people were releasing full albums but having pre releases for an EP just makes the actual full comeback seem so dull when youve already heard half of it before playing the album
Yeah pre-releases for EP’s don’t make sense at all… It kind of defeats the purpose of an “album release” when 50-80% of the songs have already been released 😭
i agree that overall, this fourth generation model is much better for building anticipation and lessening the workload on the idols. but… this is really just an issue i‘ve had with fromis_9, who are one of my ults. pledis just hasn’t given them a comeback in almost a year, and supposedly are planning on their new comeback coming in july, which would be one month after a year since their most recent release. at this point, this wait im experiencing is building anticipation in a sense but is also building resentment towards pledis, as it’s getting agonizing to wait and wait. i hope that this feeling isn’t something that becomes the norm. i like the position we are at right now with how much waiting is between releases for groups. thanks for making this video though! i‘m a relatively new kpop stan (started listening in 2022) and so i really never realized how busy some years were for some artists like twice (who are also one of my ults lol)
Yeah, groups like fromis and red velvet feel like they deserve more than just one comeback a year. I think situations like that are just companies neglecting their groups, rather than building up anticipation, which seems like a lose-lose situation all around. I hope they get better treatment 😭
I like pre-releases, but i want to offer an alternative (bcuz apparently everyone and their mother is deciding to spoil their entire mini album) make it several of them when a comeback is a full lenght album, or the mini album is 6-7 songs, bvuz it leaves more space for the song to breathe, and we also get a good chunk of new songs.
Think about it? Why you'll have a pre-release song when your mini album will have a title track, and your mini is 4-5 songs.
Yeah 😭 pre-releases for an EP with 4-5 songs doesn’t make sense - I think it may be better if the title track is released first, and additional singles come after the album is released
@@choujimi literally like why companies are scared of after the Main single release to promote a b-sides 😔
@@Chuu_VaultYeah, I don't understand it. Remember in TDC: Eternity era, when after the promotions for CYSM wrapped, they dropped a MV for Puma and then proceed to promote that song? I need more companies to do that
Ooo yes kinda like what jo1 did with their recent full length album equinox
I think that‘s the problem most people have. You wouldn't release multiple singles for an EP/mini-album that has just 6 or less songs. Or have the entire EP be just singles and one additional new track in NewJeans' with Get Up.
But the problem is, K-Pop groups rarely release studio albums (full albums). They just release an EP with 7 songs, have two singles for it, promote it for like 2 weeks and then move on.
Western artists release 2-3 singles before even announcing an album. Then they might drop a single alongside the album and the music video is going to be released a bit later that day. And depending on the success there‘s going to be one more single some weeks or even a couple of months after the album was released. And here they release the singles with time between each other. Not like how JYPE did it with Itzy's album Born To Be. They announced the album on December 3rd last year, dropped the first single and MV Born To Be (the actual title track since it has the same name as the album). Two days later they dropped a motion video or whatever it‘s called for Yeji's solo song and here they basically gave us almost the entire thing but not 100% of it. Then two days later, December 21st they did for Ryujin's solo song. Chaeryeong's was released three days later and Yuna's two days later. That's already basically the entire album being dropped but within not even a month.
The second single, Mr. Vampire was dropped on January 1st and one, yes only one week later the main and last single Untouchable was released alongside the album. That's basically the entire thing dropped within one month, no time to prepare and no time to take in each song.
With western artists, they announce the album (name and release date) around the second or third single. And the track list and how many songs the album will have might also be dropped a while after that.
And they can still secure a bunch of sales and streams. Even with the whole thing taking one year or even longer. Madison Beer as an example took 2 years between her debut album Life Support (2021) and Silence Between Songs (2023). And the album still did GREAT.
It feels weird to me when some people complained gen 4 groups having too few projects cause back then in gen 2, we got like 1 or at most 2 projects per year and sometimes not at all...
That’s true 😭 I guess 3rd gen’s hyper release cadence kind of spoiled us before going back to what it used to be lol
@@choujimi i was a Star1 (Sistar's fan) and i even felt blessed that they have one comeback every year. Then there were groups like Miss A, Girl's Day and f)(x)...
Yea cause Gen 2 was kind of doing it like how western artists do it. Not have multiple EPs and so on be released within one year, overworking the groups to their core.
I think for me the best way to milk an album to its full potential is the Ateez model we saw with their latest project. We got Crazy Form out the gate and there was so much hype from that, and then it was able to continue as they released week by week the unit projects. I think the opposite way (like Itzys) is more likely to hurt the success of the comeback. Also on the short song train someone else mentioned- I’m so so thankful KQ hasn’t fallen down that hole too because I HATE the short song issue we’re dealing with.
For me, pre-releases only work for studio albums, but an overkill for EPs.
This is really just the typical rollout for Western Artists and I’m glad that K-Pop has adapted to it for many ways. First, multiple comebacks a year can kill hype for a project upon release if people don’t like the title track whereas this format allows the project itself to breathe. I mean so many people talk about forgotten songs that were never on the radar to begin with. Second, on paper, it does give artists more breathing room. You used Le Sserafim so I’ll use them too. When you take out music show promotions, Unforgiven was followed by their first tour, fan-con, solo schedules, Chaewon catching influenza which then led to her sitting out most Perfect Night promotions. Luckily Chaewon only missed out on about a week and a half of promotions for a single song but imagine (and I’m sure longterm K-Pop fans don’t) her and the rest of the group having to juggle all of that on top of 3 actual comebacks last year? It would’ve been a health nightmare. Yes, this model isn’t perfect and it’s effectiveness varies from company-to-company/artist-to-artist BUT I do think it is overall way more healthy for both idols and the industry. Especially for the industry as more spaced out comebacks helps combat K-Pop’s overall over saturation market caused by the sheer amount of active artists.
A separate thing that frustrates me with pre-releases on youtube is that the channel owner would often remove the pre-release music topic and then re-add the topic newly to the rest of the album later. So if you had it saved to a playlist, it will tell you there's hidden videos. This takes forever to find out which music got removed. It's a chore and a pain. I tend to avoid pre-releases now as someone who primarily uses youtube music as their main playlist source.
Who does that? Never seen
I’ve seen people complain about this before! It doesn’t make sense to me to change the title of the song on any platform, especially when it messes up people’s playlists and runs the risk of losing streams 😭
One thing I can say about Twice (imo), is that when they were doing SO MANY releases in a year the quality of their B-Sides were very hit and miss for me. Now, I feel like I listen to the entirety of their albums and mini albums, whereas, I used to a lot of skipping around with their earlier releases. I’m not sure how groups like Red Velvet managed to have such quality B-Sides with so many comebacks back then but they always felt like the exception to the rule to me.
Nowadays, while there is definably less music and longer wait times, the quality of the music is usually incredibly good which can help hold over fans wanting more content. What I’m curious about though, is what happens when your comeback is just not very good and then you have that long waiting period.
Itzy may be a good example of this (although their issues go beyond just the new comeback model tbh), but I feel as though they aren’t as looked for even though their last album was pretty fun. I think those more middling comebacks before that release really tampered with their momentum (that was already losing steam for other reasons).
Agreed most of twice's bsides before 2019 we're kinda skips for me, I didn't feel like the company put effort in them and just wanted to release as much content as they could. This has luckily improved with the recents years and their bsides are so good nowadays thanks to the fact that they actually have time to put in more efforts in their bsides.
As for rv it doesn't surprise that their bsides are so good since sm despite how awful the company has always been at releasing full albums with good bsides.
for red velvet and most sm groups they stock up on a ton of REALLY good songs at songwriting camps and hold them for years so they can spend a LOT of time towards planning and arranging albums in advance
What was sm doing during drama@@luxenn
@@whywhy8899 idk but the aespa members did say they were working on it for a while before. some other companies do that too, like all of newjeans comebacks up to get up were planned for years before their debut
I saw the title of the video on my notifications and involuntarily yelled, "YUP." 😂 Too many prereleases can cause the title track get lost in the shuffle. ITZY's "Untouchable" comes to mind. Completely agree about NewJeans, too. By the time "Cool With You" rolled around, I was rolling my eyes. Not that I dislike NewJeans, either! It just felt like too much too quickly.
I also related to your bit about having kpop conversations with yourself on a fundamental level. 😂 That was one of the biggest impetuses behind my creation of this channel as well.
I agree about ITZY! Untouchable is such a good song, but definitely got lost after more than a month of pre-releases and member solo track videos 😭
@@choujimi Such a shame because "Born to Be" and "Mr. Vampire" are both great tracks as well. JYP put out so many releases in such a short time that they simply didn't have the budget to invest in high-quality MVs for all of the songs they were putting out. If you want to see a really good example, watch the "Born to Be" video and LOONA's "PTT" video back to back. It really says something that Blockberry could make a video with such a similar aesthetic that makes the ITZY video look abundantly cheap by comparison. Like, yeah, I get that it was just a prerelease, but don't put it out there if you're not willing to fully commit to it.
It might be fun to put together an episode of phoned-in MVs. I'm also looking directly at you, "Wife." 😂 I'll add it to my list.
@@overthinkingkpop I get sad thinking about Mr. Vampire especially 😭 I think it really deserved its own release as a title track with a fully fleshed-out conceptual music video
@@choujimi What, you mean to say you were disappointed by a glorified performance video shot in either what appears to be an office with the cubicles moved out of the way or a blank room with a bunch of table lamps from Goodwill? 😂 Such a missed opportunity, truly. Wish they would have saved it and released it as a digital single or something.
@@overthinkingkpopTalking about phoned-in MVs, we need to include most Japanese releases. I understand that you are not going to put the same budget that you would put in a Korean release, but I'm just asking to have a decent MV (Some exceptions that I can think of right now are #CookieJar by Red Velvet, Drama by TXT, every Stray Kids Japanese release, Not Okay by ATEEZ and BDZ by Twice, to quote some examples)
The thing I miss about many separate releases are the amount of bsides we would get. I feel like having unpromoted tracks are very important to strengthen a groups discography. Having a performance video on the group’s channel is one thing, but going onto music shows to promote the song is something completely different. However, I also see how groups with such small discographies can get many wins on music shows just by promoting different tracks off of one project (like nwjns) and I understand why companies would want to lean to this model.
Yeah there are pros and cons to each model, but it is interesting to think about how NewJeans technically doesn’t have any b-side songs at this point 😭 the most obscure song I can think of is ‘hurt,’ but even that was promoted
That’s part of what I love about K-pop I consume so much music because of the nature of my job and when I only listened to western artists I was always looking for more since I had to wait 3-5 years in some cases for new music. My buddy thinks I’m insane for listening to every comeback from start to finish instead of just TT’s but man is it such a blast to have something new almost every week.
I like what sm's been doing with 127 with one full lbum a year
Same!! I wish groups would aim to release a full album at least every 1-2 years 😭 it’s sad that most 4th gen groups don’t release full albums much at all
I find this thing about pre-releases interesting on the one hand, as it helps to make sure that songs that some bsides have more chances to shine and that the projects themselves are better utilized, but on the other hand the excess of pre-releases it can harm groups, as was the case with Itzy with the release of the album 'born to be' and the promotion of the title track along with the solos of the members and mr. vampire (and all of this for 1 month!!) until reaching the untouchable title track. There were so many releases that it caused one song to swallow up another and it just showed how Jyp only makes completely wrong choices in anything that has to do with the group...
I think 1-2 comebacks a year is a better plan since idols can take some break between releases and rest both mentally and physically (especially since most of the 4/5th gen idols are minors).
But companies also should have some resposibility by taking longer breaks, like good b-sides and title tracks with longer album.
Tbh, I don't think that IVE has been following that schedule just bcz of this model in kpop, it's just cuz they don't have time for anything else. They released at least 1 MV every 2 months on 2023 plus the tour started so they can't do anything else lol. Let's recap
Feb 2023: The Prom Queens fancon starts
March: Kitsch (Pre release)
April: I'VE IVE (1st Full Album)
May: WAVE (1st JP. mini album)
July: I WANT (Pepsi collab)
September: Either Way (Pre release)
October: Off the Record (Pre release)
I'VE MINE (1st mini album)
November/December: Show What I have tour starts.
here I am waiting for NewJeans' next comeback since December 2023. I literally check hybe's account everyday 0am kst.
I thought they would announce comeback after release of the remix album. and here we are in March.
triples is currently one of the groups that i feel like are somewhat overstaturating their content i mean consistent album releases is good but the numbers for each comeback popularity wise feels like its going down but they have been getting somewhat consistent sales, funny thing is that the comeback that they were blacklisted from promoting on music shows has the highest amount of sales the group has ever gotten in the 1st week
I kind of agree with this! TripleS has felt kind of overwhelming for me personally to get into when I look at how many projects have been released so far 😭 I know a bulk of those releases are subunit projects, but it still all feels like so much
@@choujimii don't think the fact that they are subunit releases is relevant considering its still an album with 6-8 songs, 1-2 mvs, and promoted bsides. But at the end of the day releasing alot of music is helping triples rather than harming and its never overworking (kotone was literally just chilling in triples haus for many month's just filming TH-cam content until her debut with evolution)
I think it just gets so overwhelming, so many people come back im imo a rr short time. I think fans don’t realize how much a comeback takes and for a group to have even 2 a year is so much work. And w alot of young idols debuting it takes a toll on a adults body but for kids its sm harder.
I also think w groups having so much musical content it can feel rushed or not up to its full potential. Quantity over quality ngl. Ofc i applaud the groups like twice, ateez, skz, nct etc. I remember stayc having sm korea and Japanese cbs and then a world tour all in 2023, the girls are still pretty young so all i can think is how much theyre doing and i just feel bad 🤧.
I like to think it has gotten better like u said w aespa njs and twice and how slowed down comebacks ESPECIALLY twice.
With pre releases i just think they choose either the wrong song or they should have put a song as a pre release on a album that did have one.
I feel like It can be over powering and overshadowing to a lot of the groups releases but it can also be helpful in a way of profit for company and for the artist as if one song or comeback wasn’t that loved the other might regain their support like skz for eg they released s class people didn’t liked it redeemed with lalala
But i feel it might be better then less comebacks but for the artist’s relevance but not for the health
i also feel like the 4th gen might work for both consistency as they are promoting more but releasing less and profit margins for companies can still work and it can help fans digest the release and get there final thoughts
so my thoughts are still very much scattered and yeah that’s all i got 😅
I can understand why people felt desperate with long in-between comeback periods. If you were a JoJo Fan on Stone Ocean's """Emission""", you will remember we had to wait A YEAR AND A HALF TO GET 13 EPISODES OF AN ANIME THAT WASN'T EVEN ENDING IN THOSE NEW 13.
OMG I FELT THE STONE OCEAN PAIN. Even when the ending is very good and ofc sad I NEED MORE. Gimme my boys Johnny n Gyro right here right now i need em after all that waiting😔
also one more think regarding pre-releases, sometimes pre-release and album is just 2 or 3 weeks apart. and it seems funny to me. 😅if the group and company is confident about quality of the pre-release they are putting out, why don't they give fans at least one or two months to enjoy and basically divest it and be prepared for upcoming album? what is the point of releasing a pre-release just 2 or 3 weeks prior to the album? as a fan I can simply wait for 3 more weeks till the album, pre-release is not really necessary.
I know only Blackpink did that. and YG is doing it again with Babymonster by releasing pre-release in February and the album in April, taking 2 months between new music.
I think there’s pros and cons to both strategies. For blackpink, the long wait times between singles builds up a lot of anticipation, but for some other groups, waiting a month in between singles may kill the anticipation surrounding the album launch entirely - people may forget about it lol
@@choujimiyeah, you have a point. smaller groups with not very big and stable fanbases might not benefit from it.
I think the most important part is to watch and see if the idol is improving on every comeback. If they do, I think we should appreciate their effort and not criticize them.
To me, an idol group should be improving throughout their career, If the idol doesn't improve, I think I will lose interest, but I won't hate them, I just move on with my life, is not a big of a deal.
I glad that we are still getting albuns a not jumping to the only singles model.
Have some narrative between songs or some sonic similarity makes see the nuances and deep that they can get. Or unfortunally the lack of variety there is.
Last I ve and le sserafim realeases wasnt what I was expecting from them but unlike american pop I feel some safety that a next release May have what I like it better about them soon.
And the variety content is here to "hold hands" to keep me waiting until it comes. Somenthing interesting that other generes of music marketing dosent have the same retention.
I agree! I hope groups that are well-established don’t have to keep releasing digital singles - they deserve mini albums at the very least 😭
From my point of view(casual fan):
No, groups can't comeback too often. If a group has 3 or 4 releases per year with albums having at least one or two good songs, great, keep it coming. I also don't mind if a group has 2 releases per year either, but if an album is released that doesn't have a single song to my liking, then obviously I'd prefer a comeback sooner rather than later.
I don't like pre-releases. Just give me the MV for the main title track and then if the album is at least 5 tracks or more I would love to see another popular b-side get another MV like a month after it or so, to keep the hype for the album going or to still rake in people who missed the original release. If you hit me with 10+ promotional videos for the whole release you lose me due to it feeling like spam. Just have 1-2 MV teasers, then drop the main MV with the album and then drop the mv for a popular b-side a few weeks later. But that's me. To each their own of, course.
About the pre-release thing I dont think its bad but I do think it should be after the title track and the album is released
I’m confused because then it wouldn’t be a pre release because it’s not before the album releases …
Great video! I am loving where we are at with Kpop releases. I do think company’s need to take this fact into account whenever doing comebacks I feel like many of the comebacks are generic and boring which isn’t what you should do if you are having 1 release a year
I also would like to say that I think this model was likely influenced by the fact kpop is now more popular in west. Kpop companies might have noticed how western artists tend to only release one full project every 1-2 years and a bunch of singles (important note: 4-5 years ago western artists would release one album every 3-4 years but this has changed recently with tiktok and streaming culture where newer western artists tend to release one full project every 1-2 and a bunch of singles while older artist stick to the older formula due to the fact that they are already established and have a solid fanbase) and decided to adapt to that model since it would easier for international fans to follow kpop groups if they didn't release too many projects in the span of a couple months.
Plus international fans are already used to artists releasing multiple music videos so kpop groups releasing 2-3 mvs before the actual album sounds normal to them. I do admit that this model has it's flaws since sometimes the pre-releases tend to be more liked than the actual release (I personally prefer moonlight sunrise over set me free) and it also feels like you are getting less than before since back in 3rd gen kpop groups would just release the album without releasing any singles before and you would go in without expecting anything just to be blow away by how good the mini or full album was.
It also doesn't help that full albums in kpop are getting shorter and most "full" albums only have 8 songs and are barely 20 minutes long when a typical full album should be at least 30 minutes long and have 10 songs. Not only that but songs are getting shorter due to streaming culture.
LOL this was way longer than I expected it to be. Hope you don't mind me rambling haha.
I don’t mind it at all - I really appreciate comments like these haha!
I agree - the model seems to work quite well given that international fans are used to it, but it also suffers from the fact that everything is getting shorter. I really think pre-releases work best when they’re used ahead of *actual* full-length albums, and are less effective when promoting an EP with only 4-5 songs on it
Great topic! From what I’ve read and heard, as a 10+ yrs fan, the competition was intense to amass fans during the 2nd-3rd gen, so promoting constantly was seen as “needed” to help rookies from smaller companies gain traction. With the rise of sites like youtube and social media in the early 2010s international interest started to increase which could have also accelerated the urgency to gather bigger attention and sales. On top of that, Boy groups also had a race to get as much content out before military duty started for their members. These days, it feels like each big group has so many fans they really don’t need to comeback or urgently promote as many times a year.
Hmm, I think I have mixed feelings. I don't like pre-releases at all. A lot of times it seems like only the fanbase knows that a MV is a pre-release, or the pre-release arrives so closely to the title track that it becomes confusing. I much prefer post-releases to anything because then I can enjoy an album (or title) and there isn't pressure on the company to maintain my attention by releasing a song too quickly, they can drop a new MV and a special stage whenever they're ready. This can attract attention back to the album for fans who were on the fence, and makes a great treat to fans who already enjoyed the album. There haven't been too many post-album promotions or MVs in kpop, this mostly happens as special clips or for subunits.
The other thing I'm mixed on is just release frequency altogether. As someone who didn’t often bother with Japanese promotions (I got used to them being re-recordings of Korean singles) I did really like receiving two albums/EPs per year. I feel spoiled but unloved now xD However, when factoring in idols actually participating in Japanese promotions, not to mention they're recording new songs, sometimes entire EPs for Japan these days, these feelings are a bit unfair. I still feel like it's easy to forget about a group if you're just a casual listener, but for sure that's a me problem.
I agree! and that’s a good point that usually only the fanbase knows what songs are pre-releases, so non-fans probably feel even more overwhelmed by so many singles
Very off comment but I believe having these convos via notes app definitely feels more calming to me...idk why, guess it's cuz I get to revisit those thoughts and ideas whenever whereas if someone made a public comment thru yt twt of a video response, to me there's more of a pressure point for me to discuss it 😅
i feel like 1-2 comebacks is fine IF!!! the songs are good and are an adequate length (im looking at you, newjeans😒)
i honestly don't like the current pre-release strategy that kpop groups are implementing, specifically the ones with more than one single before the album. it was only fun when newjeans did it for their debut cause it was not common in kpop. once everyone hopped on the trend, it felt like we were being bombarded with content. some companies might see it as a way to prolong an era and milk one album for everything it has, but it kinda kills anticipation for the actual album release. and sometimes, the prereleases for one project feel so different from each-other that the concept gets lost. it's like they aren't culminating towards anything. the magic of Eras also gets lost when a group is trying to capture different audiences with different pre-releases instead of building the identity of one comeback. and most of all, the albums are SHORT.
i also don't think the groups are working less per say. now they have to learn multiple choreographies and shoot multiple MVs for one album. their promotion periods are also long and there's no time to breathe for a good while.
Riize.... I love them so much but i don't want them to be overworked😭😭
Same 😭 I’m afraid that SM is going to give them even more work in the wake of all the controversies going on in a similar way that they did with red velvet
Its for me a bit sad that the albums and eps are so short, sure there are many but there isnt a deep cut there, a bside that is a actual beide. And there is somethin mg a too much singles from an album. Not saying the western Business model is better. Promotion are still so much work, shooting more mvs, more choreo, more for each Song, sure they record more contest and less music but still. I hope this isnt a trend swinging from one extrem to the next
Great video. I think a huge part of the reason that many groups have stopped promoting one single per project/physical release is because of the impact COVID had on the ability to do a proper roll-out for a physical release (e.g. it took longer to get the albums pressed/ready to ship, pre-orders would take longer to fulfill, etc). Western artists who used to do months long roll-out campaigns and sold tons of physical albums didn't bother doing that in 2020 because it just would not be possible to release a physical album the way they did pre-COVID in 2020 (see: how Taylor Swift released Folklore). Kpop companies realized that it saved them money to promote more singles off of one physical release, and kept the practice rolling post-2020.
Given that people were speculating that kpop album sales were going to begin declining post-COVID, I wouldn't be surprised if companies kept that in mind when deciding to release fewer projects -- they could concentrate sales on a smaller number of projects, rather than face declining sales with each release if they decided that every promotional single needed its own dedicated project.
I've been a kpop fan for a long time, and I prefer when groups promote multiple singles off of one project. It results in better quality albums, because companies haven't stuck the promotional single onto a bunch of filler B-sides. It's less work for the idols. It's also better for the environment/fan's wallets (though obviously not the case if you're a bulk buyer).
In terms of whether groups can come back too often, I think that probably depends on who you ask. A group's fans will probably think that they can never come back too often, and that there is no such thing as too much content. IMO one of the reasons Twice has had such longevity is how consistent they've been with their releases. In contrast to that, I think SM REALLY fumbled by not capitalizing on the momentum aespa had coming out of 2021 by waiting until July 2022 to give them a comeback, and then waiting until May 2023 to follow that up.
Ahh I didn’t think of that! The pre-release model getting popular post-2020 makes so much sense with that in mind
I also heavily agree that aespa’s hiatuses in particular seemed to cause a lot of unrest in the fandom. I wonder if that was just a momentary problem, considering SM was going through a lot of management changes during that time? Drama came 6 months after Spicy, and it seems like they’ll have another comeback in April. It looks like 5-6 months in between albums is the goal
New jeans 👖 has kinda left my radar a little bit. I felt like they could have spread out there last comeback music videos out a little more so it seems like we are getting more stuff. JYP 😵💫 is doing way too much at one time. They were promoting ITZY, mini album from twice, VCHA debut and releasing a new song buy them this month, two groups currently having concerts, & it’s just now March. I can’t support the other groups cause they are all releasing stuff at the same time 😵💫😵💫😵💫
SM did that recently too 😭 aespa and Red Velvet released projects so close to each other at the end of 2023, I wonder if it’s just by coincidence or if there’s a strategy to releasing all of them at a similar time
Ep releases twice a year with solid comeback schedule or a once with a full album is totally fine by me. Otherwise, I would feel overloaded with too many content that I cannot keep the track of the group's concept anymore. It feels scammy when they are too much around. I want to miss them and get excited when I hear abt their cbs.
I think releasing singles before an album, as in studio album or one single before an EP with 7 songs is good. It gives people an idea what the album is going to be like and can offer some variety.
The problem though is, with how singles are being released or albums or more likely just EPs for that matter.
Cause the way Itzy's roll out for their album Born To Be was handled is still insane to me.
Cause you don‘t announce an album, drop the track list the same day or one day after. Then drop the first single within two weeks, the second single was dropped three weeks later and the last single one week after that, alongside the album. But then they also released motion videos/ music videos or whatever for Yeji, Ryujin , Chaeryeong and Yuna's solo tracks (excluding Lia here cause she was already on a hiatus). They all were dropped with 2 days distance between each other TWO days after the first single dropped. That's just too much. We basically got almost the entire album before it even dropped. Cause five solo songs and five groups tracks, two of these being released before the album as well as the solos. We got 7 out of 10 tracks before the album was released officially.
I personally like it when an artist is announcing and releasing the first single, after some weeks or a couple of months the second single. Between the third single or around the time they officially announce the album; its name and the date. Then they release another single perhaps and then they‘re dropping the track list and how many songs we’re getting. And then after some more months the album drops. But no, they don‘t just abandon it after two weeks. No, they might even drop another single months after the album. And then go on tour. Albums in the western music industry have a much longer life then any releases ever do in K-Pop.
I think the instances in which a pre-release can hurt the releasing of the tittle track is when there isn’t enough time in between them. We have gotten pre-releases from some groups and the tittle track not even 2 weeks later. Some of us multi-stans, and the general public, need a lil more than a week and a half to engage with the content and see how we feel about it. I think this type of pacing also kills proper anticipation for a tittle track and puts both songs in direct competition with each other (which is not always bad!). But since it does look like more and more companies are adopting the 2 albums a year concept to hopefully they’ll figure out a pacing that works better for the group/soloist and the consumer.
I would be happy with just 1 album a year, just make it a full length album with songs over 3/3.5 minutes with bridges (please do a bridge, they're going extint)
Now that I think 🤔 about I wonder if they do this to get on charts and make headlines. Twices You-th album is already at the end of promotions 😢. Like put out the pre release to get hype up for the album, then bombard all the promoting, performances, fan meets, and more music videos in a short amount of time just to get on sale charts. Once’s that’s done they move on to the next project. I would focus on selling the album as long as I can by stretching out the promotions over months.
I’ve been into Kpop since 2017 and Tbh the pre-release model seems super risky. In some cases, though, I think it can be really good for exposure/promotion. I recently changed my perception on this when ARTMS (my ult group) announced that they’re debuting with 4 prerelease singles followed by a regular tt + album release. I was able to come to terms with this schedule knowing that they’re releasing an ACTUAL full length album. So, If it has at least 10 tracks, fans and casual listeners will get a taste of their music without being completely spoiled. They’re under a relatively small company though, so the whole thing is extremely ambitious lol…
I personally like the old way better. When a group has too many pre-releases, it just gets confusing for me. For example, for Itzy's recent comeback, I saw Born to Be and I was like "oh, that's the title track, cool". Then later I saw Mr. Vampire and was like "Ooooh ok Born to Be was a pre-release and this is the title track", and then I was reading the comments and someone said like "can't wait for the title track" and at that point I was just like "What the heck?". I just honestly loose engagement in a comeback when it has too many songs, and I loose engagement in an artist when they only comeback once a year. Twice a year is fine with me.
The way I would count mainline title tracks, I feel like 3 per year used to be the norm. Now we're at 1.5 comebacks per year with the number of mainline title tracks varying from group to group with 2 title tracks be comeback being the median by my guess. I feel like peak TWICE and I've Mine's 3 title tracks did push too far though. I feel like if too many songs are being released, people are less willing to pay as much attention to each. That definitely happened to Off The Record. It's not a matter of buying albums, but rather getting casual listeners to feel like they have to listen to be a part of the culture.
Imo, I think here’s the plan:
Debut year: 3 Korean albums
2nd year and onwards: 2 Korean albums per year (2 singles per album, so either pre-release + title track or title track + follow-up track)
When they become an A tier or above group like Twice, BTS or even newjeans: 1 Korean album per year + special singles/ solo projects + use that time for touring
That being said, a group can have 1-2 jpn releases each year along with their Korean albums
The prerelease trend is like a two edged sword. One one hand, it’s a great way to introduce an album to your audience, to get them intrigued enough to want to check out the other songs. On the other hand, if you abuse this formula, you might get your audience overwhelmed to the point of them having second thoughts about wanting to check it out at all.
A lot of people don’t like the pre-release model, but me personally I really like it. I always hated the way groups would just promote a single song which is the title track and left another amazing songs on the album on the dust, so i like the idea of having more than one song promoted and having their moment to shine. Releasing a MV for a bside after the album is also a good idea, but kpop groups rarely do that anymore so I’m glad atleast like that we can have more promoted songs than just one
I agree they have too many comebacks but at the same time the company gives them like 2-5 songs each “Album” & it’s really an ep. If they give them atleast 8-10 songs per album, they wouldn’t have to cb so many times
quality over quantity is always a good ideia imo
also
is the audio volume suuuper low for anyone else?
Is it the audio for the whole video? I recorded a section in the middle at midnight and it sounds really quiet compared to the rest of the video 😭
the whole video bestie :(
I feel like the western expansion of kpop has also had an effect on the release cadence of idol groups. Domestic releases almost required the frequent comebacks lest a group be swallowed in the endless sea of competition. There was hardly any real level of attention paid to the western market outside of BTS in the third gen, and now post-BTS kicking in the door I feel like the larger entertainment companies who can afford to promote in the west are trying to play their hand at it. They’re competing for Billboard 200 album chart positions, pushing songs for longer to hopefully get on Billboard Hot 100 (which is FAR harder than BB 200). These are long held desires for K-pop entertainment companies that go back further than BTS’ existence and now they see a real path to it other than the one off moments. Over-saturating comebacks weakens a group’s identity in an unfamiliar market with different demands where now all these other groups are also competing against them for name recognition. Too much too soon can have the unintended consequence of diluting their own work and self-cannibalizing any brand-building momentum they’ve gained. It’s a game of “don’t be gone too long, but don’t come back too soon”.
Idk tho, just my two cents!
Seems like companies are taking a page out of yg's book for bp's marketing lol. But jokes aside, I also feel like 2 comebacks a year is the best for both artists and fans. Although I'd like to be a lil greedy and also like a summer single in between.
The point you made about groups risking alienation of fans, I think it would urge companies to make better music *cough* unlike yg *cough* which is just another win overall
It mostly worked for me with NewJeans debut, they released the pre-release tracks and MVs, and then "Cookie" which was the title (which I can't listen to but that's another conversation) and it was all a surprise, and it was their debut.
Even having multiple different versions of MVs. It was cool.
While it worked for their debut, it's felt a little bit unnecessary, for me, since. Having MVs for everything, and multiple versions of MVs, I don't think it's necessary.
With NewJeans, it's at least been a consistent thing since debut. It's still confusing, though. A lot of people are confused about what their actual debut was.
Having multiple pre-releases makes things more confusing, especially for a debut.
Generally I think one pre-release before the title track/MV are released makes the most sense. But I don't think it should be a given. I think sometimes dropping the title and then following it up with B sides would be more impactful. I think it depends on the release. I don't think it should be bound by a formula.
There's been a couple of groups who've dropped several pre-releases, with MVs, before the "actual" comeback, and I've ended up being confused and/or felt like it dampened the comeback to some degree. I've also seen a few where the pre-release made sense before the TT, for whatever reason.
Blackpink impact….. we are in the trenches with this current release style 😭 front load content then extended wait periods for any new content… not to mention these songs are hardly passing the two minute mark these days 😭💀 someone save us
literally newjeans cuz they haven’t had a comeback in nine months😭😭
Promo-SM
why is everything about this video related to ggs I mean all examples of it were ggs and so is the thumbnail, but the video is only visually showing skz and svt…?
I didn’t really put much thought into the background videos for this discussion. I mentioned ATEEZ/SKZ in the multiple comebacks part, but I definitely should’ve brought up more boy groups in this discussion. I believe the boyz in particular got close to having 5 comebacks in a year
💀💀
@@nuages8915 ?
and some people still say blackpink wasn't a revolution.
pre-release singles weren't even a big thing before How You Like That - Ice Cream - Lovesick Girls, and now everyone is releasing at least one of them. plus, every group nowadays is trying to widen the gap between comebacks as much as they can, just like blackpink has always done.