Text|Zeng Yadan
On May 18, South Korean girl group GFRIEND announced that the contract with the company Source Music will not be renewed, and it is facing dissolution.
Source Music mentioned in the "GFRIEND Exclusive Contract Expiration Announcement" that the exclusive contract of GFRIEND ended on May 22. After a long period of thinking and in-depth discussions, the group and the company decided to show more on their own paths. good looks.
The news of the sudden disbandment made the public feel "to the extent of shock to fans", and GFRIEND members also published handwritten letters to express their apology to fans. Captain Jin Shaoqing said, "Although the official GFRIEND has been disbanded, the real GFRIEND has not been separated, so please don't be sad." Member Choi Yuna said, "I sincerely thank everyone who has cried and laughed together for the past six years. It's a great honor to sing and dance for the fans who love us."
GFRIEND's official Twitter update on May 22, with the caption "Thank you for being a Buddy that GFRIEND will never forget, the songs we sang together will continue to shine.
GFRIEND's disbandment saddened fan rapper Lil Uzi Vert, who even replaced his twitter avatar with GFRIEND to commemorate it.
GFRIEND is the first girl group from outside the top three to reach millions of album sales, and the song "Rough" won the second place on the annual chart of Melon . The dissolution of a girl group in such a position is usually accompanied by a farewell ceremony for the dissolution of the concert or the dissolution of the single.
On the day GFRIEDN broke the news of the disbandment, the group originally had a shooting schedule, and the members still left messages on the fan interaction platform the day before, everything was business as usual.
It was suddenly announced by the news that they would disband, and people began to speculate that it was related to the company's plan to launch a new girl group with HYBE (Big Hit) in the second half of this year.In the early morning, the company planned not to renew the contract and re-launch the new group.
According to Korean media heraldpop, Source Music applied for the trademark rights of the combination Korean name on January 23, 2015 and March 11 this year, respectively. Therefore, it is unknown whether the group can still function under the original group name after leaving the company.
After Source Music was acquired by HYBE, many people thought that GFRIEND, which was backed by a big company, would be better. Unexpectedly, the unexpectedly announced contract expired and not renewed. The company has not provided much personal development for the members until now, so the future of GFRIEND is not optimistic.
and GFRIEND disbanded on the same day, and YG will launch a new girl group. On May 18, Korean media OSEN learned through an interview with high-level people in the Korean music industry that YG plans to launch a new girl group in the second half of this year. This is the first time YG has launched a new girl group in five years.
The new girl group is selected from candidates from all over the world. The members have been training intensively since they were 10 years old, and spent an average of 4-5 years as a trainee in YG.
Compared with the average age of debut of 2NE1 and BlackPink, the average age of the new group is significantly lower, and it is mainly the middle age of the ten generations, which will be the youngest group in YG's previous idol groups.
The news released on the same day, one was revealed to be disbanded, and the other was revealed to be debuting. The completely different fates made Korean entertainment fans feel embarrassed about the survival status of the girl group.
1 The active period of girl groups is gradually shortening
In terms of the output of Korean girl groups, most of the first-tier girl groups come from the top three. However, with the different times, the three major girl groups have become more cautious.
S.M. In addition to Girls' Generation which debuted in 2007 and f(x) which debuted in 2009, only Red Velvet and last year's rookie group aespa have been launched in this decade.
Girls' Generation debuted in 2007,Two months after his debut, he won the No. 1 spot on the hit song program with his debut song "Into The New World". Since then, Girls' Generation has gained a lot of popularity under the blessing of popular works such as "Gee". It was not until the tenth anniversary commemorative album was released in 2017 that the membership contract expired one after another.
Two years after Girls' Generation's debut, S.M. launched f(x) in 2009. Unlike Girls' Generation, which won No. 1 on a songwriting show as soon as they debuted, f(x) won No. 1 with the song " Danger " after 1 year and 7 months of debut. The first concert of f(x) was held 7 years after their debut, and the group has no activities since the last album was released in 2015.
Red Velvet debuted in 2014, the group is the first girl group launched by the S.M. trainee program S.M. Rookies. Before the group debuted, members had been exposed through the program.
With "Ice Cream Cake" in 2015, the group won the first No. 1 on the hit song program. In 2019, the group released the album "'The ReVe Festival' Final" and no group album was released after that.
2007 JYP 's Wonder Girls debuted at the same time as Girls' Generation, and both fans competed fiercely. In 2008, Wonder Girls' "Nobody" became popular, and JYP took the opportunity to push Wonder Girls to the American market. During this period, the Korean local market of the group was gradually replaced by Girls' Generation.
Wonder Girls members have their own life plans, and the group members are unstable. In 2016, after Wonder Girls returned in the form of Band, in 2017 JYP announced the disbandment of the group and released the tenth anniversary single "Draw Me" as the last gift to fans.
In 2010, JYP launched the group Miss A, which consists of two Chinese members and two Korean members. Miss A 's debut single " Bad Girl Good Girl " won the first place on Melon's annual chart.However, because the group focuses on promoting member Suzy, other members are not highly recognizable, and the group's influence is limited. The group released its last album in 2015 and has no activities since then, and in 2017 the group announced its disbandment.
In 2015, JYP launched TWICE, a combination that JYP and Mnet jointly produced the talent show " SIXTEEN ". In 2016, the group song "Cheer Up" became a hit in South Korea and won the first place on the Melon annual chart. Since then, TWICE has made continuous efforts, and has performed outstandingly in terms of sound source and sales, and has gradually become the most popular girl group in South Korea. The combination has also performed well in the Japanese market, and has been on the red and white song festival for three consecutive years.
Unlike S.M. and JYP, YG has only launched two girl groups 2NE1 and BLACKPINK since 2007. In 2009, 2NE1 debuted with the title of the female version of BigBang and attracted much attention, but in the Kpop industry that emphasizes visual beauty, 2NE1 members have been criticized for their shapes and their poor ability to attract fans. In 2016, YG announced the disbandment of the group. In the same year, BLACKPINK made their debut and released their first official album last year.
After YG announced that it will launch a new girl group within half a year after get off work, it is estimated that BLACKPINK's follow-up group activities will gradually decrease.
It can be seen that major Korean companies will launch new groups in the early 2-3 years, but when the company manages two girl groups at the same time, another girl group will be in a state of ineffective operation. The inability to fully bloom also led to the situation in which Korean companies generally disbanded the old people and made their debut.
The girl groups that debuted in 2014-2016 are usually classified as the fourth generation by Kpop fans. With the disbandment of GFRIEND, the public can't help but sigh that the four generations of girl groups are also heading for the countdown.
Red Velvet's contract will expire in August this year, Mamamoo 's member contracts will expire one after another this year, and one member has not renewed their contract. Next year, TWICE, OHMYGIRL and other groups will also have their contracts expire.
has only been active for four or five years, and the group is in crisis of disbanding, which makes many fans lament the cruelty of Kpop.
With the debut of CUBE's (G)I-DLE in 2018, JYP launched ITZY in 2019, and S.M. launched aespa in 2020, five generations of girl groups began to emerge in the Korean music scene. In the second half of the year, both YG and HYBE will launch new girl groups, and the competition in the five-generation girl group market will be more intense.
2 The company is more willing to continue operating a boy group than a girl group
Compared with a boy group, a girl group group has a shorter continuous operation. Girls' Generation and Super Junior debuted two years apart. Super Junior released the group's tenth album "The Renaissance-The 10th Album" in March this year, while Girls' Generation released a mini-album with five members in 2018 and has no group activities since then. .
Compared with the second-generation men's group that is still releasing albums, the second-generation girl group has basically disappeared.
f(x) member Amber said in an interview that in the Korean entertainment industry, the aesthetic standards of boys and girls are very unfair. The Korean entertainment industry emphasizes that girls must look beautiful, such as "how they look", "the right length of hair", "whether the legs are in the right shape", "whether they look slim enough" or "whether they look too thin".
Girls need to pursue too many aesthetic standards, but boys will not be treated so strictly. And girls are told that they have to be popular with the masses, while boys just have to win the love of their fan base.
The boy group that only needs to win the love of fans is indeed higher than the girl group in terms of return on album sales. Among the girl groups that debuted after 2012, TWICE topped the list with a cumulative album sales of over 10 million. And BTS, which also has the highest cumulative album sales, reached more than 9 million last year.
Picture source network
In addition, the sales of men's groups have generally soared in the past two years. TWICE released an album with an initial sales volume of more than 100,000, while ASTRO , a well-known men's group without TWICE , could reach 200,000 sales at the beginning.
The market's tolerance for men's teams and the fact that both men's and women's teams are equally recognized but the returns are not unequal have resulted in Korean companies more willing to continue to operate men's teams, while women's teams can only continue to work hard in the constantly squeezed living space to get started.
Although the five-generation men's group has also debuted, it is still being suppressed by the third and fourth-generation men's groups. The dazzling performance of the five generations of women's groups has made the public begin to bet on who will become the next top women's team, and the constant pressure of competition has made the performance of the current women's teams even better.
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