The band BLACKPINK left their mark on the history of female K-pop bands.
With their second album “Born Pink” they topped both the US Billboard charts and the official UK charts, referred to as the two greatest mountains of pop music. BLACKPINK is the first female K-pop group to top both charts simultaneously. The first ever among female artists.
The first in K-pop to top the U.S. and U.K. album charts.
According to Billboard on the 25th (local time), BLACKPINK ‘s album, released on the 16th, sold 102,000 copies in the U.S. in one week.This is the first record of a female K-pop band to top Billboard’s major album chart. Original album sales totaled 75,500, and downloads converted into album sales via (TEA) totaled 1,500 units. In the official UK album chart, released two days earlier, BLACKPINK also climbed to the top. Until then, the only Korean artists to reach the top of this chart were members of the group BTS.
Through their agency YG Entertainment, BLACKPINK said, “This is a majestic moment created by fans. This is an album that many collaborators and we teamed up to work hard on. We are happy that this album has reached so many people.” The album sold about 1.54 million copies (based on the Hanteo chart) in one week in Korea alone. According to the Circle Chart (formerly Gaon Chart), which includes the export volume, it was sold over 2.13 million copies.
The path to a foreign market… How is BLACKPINK different?
The music industry has praised BLACKPINK as “a role model who has proven the potential for K-pop female group success in the global marketplace” (Jinwoo Kim, Senior Researcher Circle Chart). BLACKPINK debuted in 2016 and, starting with “DDU-DU DDU-DU” released in 2018, “Kill This Love,” “How You Like That,” “Love Sick Girls“) and more. They topped the Billboard Singles Chart and have also performed at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which is the largest music festival in the United States, and won an award at the MTV Video Music Awards, a prestigious awards ceremony.
Kim Do Hong, a popular music critic, said, “Unlike K-pop groups, which are dominated by fandom consumption, BLACKPINK has already been imprinted by local fans as a global group that has been focusing on overseas since early on.” In the case of K-pop artists formerly in the Billboard top 200, such as Seventeen, Stray Kids and Twice, streaming accounts for less than 10% of total album sales.On the other hand, for BLACKPINK, the amount of streaming converted into album sales accounts for about 25% of total album sales. Critic Kim noted, “This is an indicator of (public awareness) of BLACKPINK in the United States.” As if understanding the American market, BLACKPINK have created their 2nd album in line with the latest pop music trends. Most of the songs on the album, including the previously released “Pink Venom” and the title song “Shut Down“, have a high percentage of English lyrics.
Critic Kim said: “I got the strong impression that the album was put together according to global standards (international standards), such as the proportion of English lyrics and content, visuals and performance. The fact that they present an image of successful,beautiful and intelligent women fits the pop trend and for a while it was hard to find a popular female band in the global market, but BLACKPINK seems intent on taking that position,” he said.
translator: mevi
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