Will the golden age of boy bands return after BTS’ hiatus?

Since BTS’s hiatus, other boy bands have been criticized by Korean media for not finding success in K-pop.

BTS has been the main driving force behind the global expansion of the K-pop market in recent years, achieving unprecedented success in the global pop music market.

So it’s not surprising that there are fears that their hiatus could result in less global attention for K-pop.

Girl groups are the ones filling the void left by BTS. According to the Circle Chart, total sales of the top 400 physical albums last year totaled 80.74 million, surpassing annual album sales of 80 million for the first time.

The significant increase in physical album sales is mainly due to the success of girl groups such as ITZY, NewJeans, aespa and STAYC.

While the number of male artists with cumulative sales of over one million copies fell from 12 to 11 last year, the number of female artists rose significantly from one group to 10.

In 2023, however, many forecasts indicate that the growth of boy bands will increase visibly.

While the industry feared that growth in the physical album market would only be focused on girl groups, it is expected that there will be auditions for select boy groups this year.

In addition, further efforts are expected to expand the fandom of existing boy bands.

Amidst this atmosphere, there is also a desire to turn the void left by BTS into an “opportunity” rather than a “crisis” in the K-pop industry. A music industry representative said: “As BTS has increased its global status, other idol groups have steadily increased their stock prices, but admittedly they haven’t received as much attention comparatively. »

The manager continued: “BTS’ hiatus will be an opportunity for the next generation of idol groups to gain exposure. The competition between boy bands to fill this gap is intensifying.”

In fact, major groups like SEVENTEEN, TOMORROW X TOGETHER, ENHYPEN, NCT and Stray Kids have recently increased their share prices and attention to BTS is expected to be spread across different groups.

In addition, there are more than 10 rookie groups with major music agency projects in Korea, including more than 7 boy bands.

BTS agency Big Hit Music announced the “Big Hit Music New Boy Group Audition” and Pledis Entertainment will present a boy band under HYBE this year, eight years after SEVENTEEN debuted.

JYP announced plans to debut a select boys’ group in the second quarter of this year under the SBS audition program “LOUD,” while Chinese group Project C and popular Japanese girl group NiziU will debut a boys’ version group.

SM Entertainment will also be releasing three new teams this year, including two boy bands – an NCT unit and a regular boy band.

Many audition programs are also designed to focus on groups of boys. Mnet recently started airing “Boys Planet” and “Boy Fantasy” on MBC.

Why is NewJeans so successful?

Some media believe that BTS pause will be a chance for new generation of kpop