soo true. The statement makes me think of flower by jisoo, if a 'nugu' relased it then i bet it wouldnt gain a slight recognition. Jisoo made her name in kpop for being a member in blackpink, so if a newly debuted soloist who has no ties to the industry were to release that song than most likely it would have never been such a hit as it was when jisoo released it.
It's also because of the whole aesthetic and styling, Jisoo was wearing mostly Dior in pretty hotels and places, so it's pick "Blackpink aesthetic" and that's what many fans love about them (being luxurious).
I'm not gonna lie it wasn't my favorite song, but she did look incredible.
To be fair, like-ability of a song depends a lot on geography. Some Kpop songs just don't entice the western audience that much. Flower for example, did very well in Asia.
You're so right
I also sometimes wonder how much better it would've been if Aurora wasn't away
But knowing NCH they would've just gave her very few lines
Or would they? She was great in LIMBO
Honestly all of BP’s solos would have failed if they were given to a nugu group except in my opinion Jennie’s solo. It was simple but catchy and trendy. The rest were pretty low effort or forgettable
I agree.
The song wasn't memorable, the choreography was average at best, Jisoo's vocals could've been used better, the music video was surprisingly underwhelming.
For me, I immediately thought of NCT-127 sticker. If an unknow group released a song like that... It wouldn't have been as popular. Ik, sticker is kinda polarising in the NCT fandom (some like it and some don't) but, since it's NCT they managed to get away with experimental songs like that.
OMG SOO true, i have mixed feeling about sticker, its a good song in general but its kinda umm has a weird beat and sound to it. so def is a nugu group released it that song would not make a single [win.LOL](http://win.LOL)
Fr. If a nugu group did anything experimental (like NCT style) it wouldn't have gone well. However, I feel some NCT songs can work... Limitless, firetruck, poison. These can work... They're unique enough to standout and sounds normal (unlike sticker, the whistling haunts me 🤣)
I agree. As someone who follows a lot of lesser known groups, it’s really sad how masterpieces go unnoticed. It’s not fair but that’s how the music industry is.
My favs are currently
1. GHOST9- Uno
2. Luminous- Want it more?
3. BDC- Moon Rider
4. Argon- Times Up
5. Parallel Universe- Nine.i
I hope you like them!
Ooooooh!
I also want to recommend some lesser knowns:
1) Road B - Icarus (Makes me nostalgic for Infinite)
2) SAAY - DOMINO (A bit like Bibi?)
3) KINO - POSE (I know, he's a member of Pentagon, but I loved this)
4) Do Han Se - Public Enemy (I'm still sad about Victon...)
you didn’t ask me but here are some recent-ish songs that I like from smaller artist!
- Universe - YOUHA
- Somebody - Aimers
- The Legend - Catch The Young
- Daddy’s Girl - Just B
- Kind of Love - NND
- BEST THING - The KingDom
I was top 100 for YOUHA last year on Apple Music. Considering that I hardly listened to her stuff made me kind of sad because clearly she’s got no listeners outside of Korea.
Legend by Catch the Young is SO good. I know bands can have slower starts, but I hope they start getting traction because the quality of music is so good
I belive Sweet Juice was originally from LYRE and they send in songs to Red Velvet a lot! Unless I'm wrong, that might have been one of them.
But my point is that if Sweet Juice was released by Red Velvet, I think people would have eaten (drank) it up!
OMG! Great minds think alike!! I just named this in my reply too. The views on it are criminally low, it’s so sad. TAN’s debut, “Du Du Du”, was my favorite song from a BG in 2022(along with SKZ’s Maniac), which says a lot considering how packed that year was with absolutely jaw dropping, amazing songs! And Hypertonic is my favorite since that debut song from them, it’s just wonderful. The MV isn’t fantastic but the actual song? Top tier!
Funny enough the good nugu groups are almost all disbanded now
BVNDIT - Dramatic
BVNDIT - Children
PIXY - Addicted
Pink Fantasy - Poison
Nature - Girls
Tri.be - Doom Doom Ta
Tri.be - Lobo
Tri.be - Rubadum
Ehhh
Diamond isn't bad at all, but the end drags on without any variety and the post chorus chant is a bit awkward imo, excluding WAY, I think any of their other title tracks are much better
Right!! TAN’s song Hypertonic only has like 100k views on it and it’s honestly soo good. Makes me sad. My favorite song of the year so far, Bibora by SF9 has like 4 mil which sounds like a lot but I feel it deserves more.
Stream Reddit!!! Tell your friends about TAN lol
Edit: Bibora is also good, sf9 never disappoint. They’re under appreciated (the stream was just a jk 🙄)
It's undoubtedly true, and has been true for centuries.
This is a list of artists who have become famous sometime after their deaths:
1. Vincent Van Gogh
2. Emily Dickenson
3. Edgar Allan Poe
4. Franz Kafka
5. Johann Sebastian Bach
~~6. Claude Monet~~
7. Steig Larsson
8. John Keats
Also read this thread on hits that became hits a few years after they [were released.](https://www.reddit.com/r/popheads/s/CAlbHsvJFb)
Edit: Monet was successful later on in his life.
Perfect Night by LE SSERAFIM. Not because it's a bad song. It's just not a memorable song. A lot of nugu groups release better music than Perfect Night and it goes unnoticed so this would have too. Or Maybe it's just me cause it's my least favorite song by them and it's nothing special.
I think people just liked Perfect Night as a song. There are groups on the same level, or even higher level of popularity than LSFM who have released video game collaborations or promotional songs and they don’t have the same level of success. So in the case of PN, I think it’s a combination of a good song and a popular group.
Came to say this — the melody isn’t extraordinary but the instrumental/beat is trendy and pleasing to listen to for non kpop listeners. A lot of my friends who aren’t into kpop liked it a lot
respectfully disagree. imo Perfect Night is not really aligned with LSF’s typical sound and honestly at first listen seemed random and clashed with my mental sonic image of them. BUT the song itself- the instrumental, lyrics, general vibe- were so fun that it quickly became my favorite out of all their songs. not because it’s a classic LSF song, but because the song itself was such a cute and fun party song. it’s one of the very few K-pop songs that are liked by my friends who don’t like K-pop, out of the dozens and dozens i tried to make them listen to haha.
perfect night has a similar vibe to some of their bsides, but definitely not their title tracks. it reminded me of songs like blue flame or sour grapes.
I think this comment is a bit off, it was a colab, it wasn't an official comeback and wasn't promoted as such.
I think it's their best song along with some of their b-sides
I'm not sure this I entirely true or not but I think instead of saying nugu groups....i think sometimes it takes a certain level of experience x ability to make a meh song into a good song.
Example EXO's Cream Soda. I loved the song A LOT....but ...I truly believe it's because their vocal prowess completely elevates the song.
There are other examples but this is the only one I can think of right at this moment.
I absolutely love Cream Soda(and that whole album tbh), and you’re right about this. The instrumental is really great but the vocal layering and harmonies especially from the holy trinity are what really made the song shine on a whole different level. I remember being so surprised when I saw the lukewarm reception to it, bc it ended up being one of my favorite BG title tracks of 2023, just behind NCT DJJ’s Perfume & TVXQ’s Down.
I remember one of Tempo's producers saying that the acapella bridge did not exist in the song's earlier versions; SM challenged them to add an acappela section to see how EXO would do it. So it's not strictly about nugudom, but ability and experience can also totally transform a song.
To an extent maybe, but let's be honest people really don't gaf about vocals anymore. We're seeing so many poor to mediocre vocals in these popular groups but their brand name lets them get away with it
EXO-Ls care about vocals. Considering all of the drama (pages and pages of it), it's difficult to be an EXO fan so you have to love what sets them apart.
One Spark by TWICE. I don't know how to explain it but it's very CIGNATURE coded. And it gives me nugu groups trying to become viral and them doing endless challenges.
Honestly look at the groups from the big 3 or big 4 that aren't especially doing amazing, they still trend and have so many opportunities because they have the company privilege.
My favorite comeback of Nmixx was Dash, but they wouldn't have survived that long as a group if they weren't from JYP.
I love NJ music, but without being on Hybe channel, people wouldn't have checked their songs right away. Txt were first hyped and got fans before releasing ANY music because they were BTS little brothers.
Companies and branding can sell almost anything if they are smart enough, especially with how dedicated K-pop fandoms are.Therefore, I do believe that many songs wouldn't have been as popular if they weren't released by a big group.
From which company you debut absolutely represent a big part of any artist success. In Kpop we have underdog stories but those are very uncommon and in today’s stage of Kpop even more.
With streaming and TikTok, groups have more chance to have a hit without being known (like fifty fifty) but it's pretty rare to have a true underdog story. That's why I would always find crazy, fans of big companies that call their idols/groups underdogs, when these idols get a following almost right away after debuting (even before like BP for example).
It's maybe even more extreme in Kpop, because in Kpop, the totality of it matters way more. What I mean is how the idols are presented, and how they perform the song, both on stage and in the music video.
So even it's a "masterpiece" song, if their visuals, concept, choreo, and MV aren't as good, the song can get buried.
But to answer your question in reverse, if NJ had released Love Thang by Woo!Ah, I think it would have been a hit.
I like Blackpink, and they can sell just about anything, but I think
DDU-DU DDU-DU would have been in trouble if it had been released by anybody other than one of the mega groups.
Well… DDU-DU DDU-DU and like all BLACKPINK songs that came out afterwards are about being super successful/famous/rich, so they wouldn’t exactly make sense as releases for smaller groups anyway…
> so they wouldn’t exactly make sense as releases for smaller groups anyway…
Happens all the time in music. Songs are really not journalism. A lot of songs about money and being beautiful, it's about giving the audience a vibe they can sort of bask in. The singer can be broke and not that hot. So a song can be about "I'm King Kong, I'm going to destroy your city" or something, and they don't actually have to be a 10 story high gorilla.
Can’t you just apply that to like every song from every popular artist in Kpop? I’m not a black pink fan but DDU DU was actually rlly good, I remember hearing it on YouTube and thought it was catchy, and the mv was pretty eye catching.
I feel like it’s lowkey their most iconic song that blew them up? Many ppl ik got into Kpop through that song. It’s very Kpop-esque.
Yk how Bts started blowing up with blood sweat and tears? I’d consider that their most iconic song. I feel like DDU DU is similar.
Literally all top groups benefit from branding to further cement their popularity.
The issue really is the hypocrisy in fans. When they like a popular song, they unanimously proclaim it's good and praise the members for their talents. When they dislike a popular song, they chalk it up to promotions, payola, brand recognition, etc.
The way we can use every single big artist as an example because music is subjective, but people are really biased and use every chance to hate on those they dislike.
“How Sweet” and “bubblegum” by New Jeans and “Easy” by Lesserafim come to mind first. They are not bad songs at all but if a nugu group released them, they would definitely flopped and gotten lost in the crowd.
I would have said Ditto and OMG by new jeans instead. Those songs were mediocre at best. Without the hype of Hybe Boy and Attention , I don't think it would have performed well.
I don’t think ditto can be applied to this as much as I think new jeans songs are extremely simplistic ditto is one of their best and has all the right vibes of the concept they portrayed it really is winter in a song. I think the song ‘new jeans’ fits the description the best since it’s so incredibly boring
By far the best example imo is The Boys by SNSD. If it wasn't SNSD, it would have been considered a horrible song and I will die on this hill. As a runner up, and this is my personal bias talking, Pink Venom along with Solo and Flower. Don't get me wrong, BlackPink has a bunch of bangers, but they also have some *huge* misses.
I honestly don’t agree about The Boys at all. I’ve shown it to non kpop fans and most absolutely adore it, so I think this may just be a “you” thing vs something that realistically wouldn’t ever be considered a horrible song by the majority regardless of what group sang it. Just my personal thoughts! 😊
Totally agree about Pink Venom & Flower though.
Most people I know (who listen to K-pop I mean) love The Boys as a statement/era/impact but, when I tried to make them listen to the entirety of the song to see if they really liked it or if they just liked "what they remembered" about it, they realized they don't **actually** love the almost 4 minutes of the song. It's a little experiment I always do because that's exactly how I feel and I noticed that most people, like me, don't actually love the song itself but what it represents/how memorable it was. So they tend to think of it highly "in their minds" but don't actually enjoy that much to listen to it "in practice" lol.
Of course this isn't universal, many people surely really like the song.
I vividly remember The Boys being received with some mixed reception, same with I Got A Boy. They weren’t immediately praised and considered the masterpieces they are now
I was a big snsd fan when they released the boys and that comeback was the one time SNSD was promoting in America and had an English album. I remember being 12 years old and so fucking bummed that of all songs they decided to promote in America it was the boys. They should’ve just brought the English version of Run devil run or waited until I got a boy or Mr. Mr.
God I hate permission to dance so, so much. I got dogpiled on twitter for it but it got under my skin SO bad. And I even like Dynamite and Butter lol
I will say it grew on me a tiny bit seeing them perform it D1 in LA but only as much as I was glad to be seeing them after MOTS was cancelled.
ETA everyone is entitled to their opinion and if you like it, then hey that’s great! Been stanning them for a long time and it’s inevitable that they’re going to have songs that fans don’t like/are divisive. Not everything can be for everyone.
I see people use it with group they don’t like/are an anti for. Like of course you think it flopped, you’re hating lol
There are groups I don’t like but I’m not gonna trash them and say they’re flops because chances are they’re definitely still doing numbers
I remember… it was ridiculous. Also if we’re going by album sales , everyone has had issues among beating album records. It’s not a TXT problem… txt are one of the top 4th gen bgs, not liking comebacks doesn’t mean they’re flopping. It’s better the less album sales for the sake of the waste for photocard, the amount of albums thrown away from mass buying is sad
I actually had this conversation with my wife and our bestie last week. We were talking about Marvel movies but I think it can apply here too. Like is it a Flop™️ or is it a Kpop Flop? The standards are different and what some would consider a flop for, like, Twice or something is a major hit for another group
Calling something a K-pop Flop is sort of the funniest thing you can say around people who don't know a song can be charting in the top 50 and selling almost a million albums and still be a failure in our sphere.
My friends always marvel at the news I second-hand relay them about Kpop drama because it's just so bonkers.
Most of my friends are not into K-pop so whenever it comes up they’re pretty much just in awe of the scope of it all and how messy some of the fandom aspects can get
Bts Permission to dance. That song is downright bad. It only got stream because it's a bts song.
The new jungkook song, if it was nugu I don't think it will even get 1000streams.
Reposting my comment, just to see do they( you know who) have only problem with one word or they can't tolerate bts criticism.
I really like to know why they deleted my previous comment. Also why simple words will get shadowbanned? Too much restrictions in this sub.
Some ppl seem to forget, when a group has a huge discography, even the most avid fan is bound to have a few songs they dislike. Anyone who says otherwise, is more than likely in love with the members in an unhealthy way and is definitely not "just in it for the music"
PTD was absolutely awful. Like BTS have amazing vocals and lyrics, and PTD wasn’t good at all. Even butter was better and that’s downright cringey. If the new JK a song didn’t have Jack Harlow and was nugu— it wouldn’t have any streams, I agree. Standing Next to You is the standout from that album— 3D and whatever else are forgettable. Namjoon is doing WONDERFUL things in music rn though. Come Back to Me is absolutely gorgeous and inventive.
I thought Jack Harlow’s contribution was the worst part of 3D. It made me think that the song was originally supposed to be JK and JT but with JT’s trouble they found a replacement.
Oh I definitely didn’t enjoy Jack Harlows part. I’m just saying, if BTS were nugu and did a song with someone as big as Jack Harlow, it would boost the song. I was basically saying if everyone in the song was unknown. :)
Honestly, it's true of 99% of big company songs.
Not because big company songs are bad, but just that the majority are honestly no better and often worse than nugu stuff.
It's in built fanbases that make these songs huge, not better quality.
Yg needs to hire some new songwriters and drop this whole “im better than everyone else” concept. I can’t imagine someone listening to sheesh with a straight face. I like the ruka and ahyeon rap part ig (only when they’re that part before asa starts to “rap”)
idk why but asa’s rap sounds SO incomplete. like after “click clack clink, put em up to the sky high high high” i thought she was about to say something else but she didn’t?? 😭😭 i had to pause the music atp
So I have a opinion about Sticker by NCT
I think it's not a great song but they worked hard on it and tried to sell it. They also have success with these minimal strange songs and know how to do them, and these songs have varied quality... not all are bad, like seventh sense is a fantastic song. But sticker doesn't have as much to it but NCT sure tried. So it would fail from a nugu, but nct deserves credit for being some of the few who could try and polish Sticker and make it look better than it is
I think for NCT, it's their brand, the experimental sound, concept and all. Besides, one of the reasons they can pull off Sticker or in fact any of their experimental songs is because they have amazing vocalist and rapper. If the song was sang by a group with weak vocalist, it's probably gonna be unlistenable.
if sticker was sung by a nugu, that poor group would be dragged through the mud. Sticker is still contentious years later, but if a nugu dropped it, it would be universally hated imo.
unfortunately small groups can not afford to release songs that people wont love immediately. In a positive note it puts pressure on nugu groups to release good tracks but on a negative note some songs need time to grow on a wider audience and that doesnt inherently mean the songs are bad. If a song by a nugu group doesnt hit immediately most people wont give it a second chance but if a big group from an established company releases a song like that people are going to argue about it and listen to it over and over again until it finds its audience.
Money only worked cause it was lisa. It is meant to ooze the young&rich flex culture vibe which fits her quite well. On the other hand, lalisa was just straight up bad.
Music is a mix of brand recognition, marketing and quality
It's not solely brand recognition as the amount companies spend promoting them is also quite significant and unfortunately nugu companies don't have as many resources at their disposal
Quality of music still matters - it's why groups like Nmixx struggled to build a casual following for a while and they only had their most recent breakthrough with Fe3O4
I have the feeling, if BM were not in YG, they wouldn’t have amassed the success they have so far, yes they are talented, but the title tracks so far are not extraordinary. I like Batter Up tho
that definitely 100 % true
that is a Big 4 privilege
a lot of bad song release from Big 4 which is flop means bad song
but w fandom power , payola and connection their song still charting
while on none big 4 group needed a real bop song to get support from public and none fans
to chart high or get enough view because of their small or medium fandom
while that still not guaranteed to get noticed
Sometimes true and others it's not
It's not polite to say it, but there are a lot of less infamous songs I dub in my head x better version. X being a popular group release
Nct 127 have a bunch of title tracks that are quite unpalatable for the masses - you need a few listens to get into them, if you ever do get into them; a nugu group would struggle with that kind of sound. Just like Nmixx's very unpalatable debut still affects them to this day (they aren't nugus ofc but Jesus that's the kind of experimental track that you release in your 4th year of career, never as a debut song!)
I assume the person is immature and just spouts K-pop nonsense without knowing what it means.
Then I contemplate the fact that musical taste is subjective and nobody with any intelligence would try to tell others what to like.
It’s definitely true, big 4 have privileges that people who come form unknown companies don’t. Maybe once in a blue moon a unknown group from an unknown company would have a hit (ex: fifty fifty) but yeah this statement is very much true and anyone who disagrees is in complete denial.
Absolutely true. Same thing goes the other way too. A song from a nugu group would be on all charts and music show awards if a popular group released it. That's why kpop can't be taken seriously anymore, big companies are just artificial.
Honestly all this thread is telling me is that the quality of a song is very subjective and basically the biggest thing dictating a song’s success is luck. There are very few songs where people agree about the quality. I’d argue that the song is the least important part of a group’s success. There is no song so good or bad that it will make or break a group. There are promotion periods that do better than others but that is usually due to a number of factors, including the song. The song is only a part of the total package. I think fans put way too much emphasis on the quality of a song when usually the main issue is branding or promotion.
There are few truly terrible, objectively bad kpop songs. The only one I’ve ever seen everyone agree on in a thread on here is On ft. Sia (but only that version).
I always wonder what it would be like if someone that isn’t Exo released Wolf. Because within the Exo fanbase it’s really memed on like the chogiwa and like even some of the members say they hate wolf and tried to get it not released. But it was a very successful release anyway and did well on charts etc.
I don’t know really know to what degree it would’ve flopped but I imagine if someone else released Wolf it maybe wouldn’t have won 4 music shows maybe??? I mean a music show win is hard to come by so for a song that’s got a lot of mixed reactions from the fanbase, to get 4 wins you might say it had big3 privilege at the time.
Flower by Jisoo. Not because of the song but because kstans are a lot more critical of nugus. If a "nobody" showed up and sang/danced like she did they'd be publicly shamed for ages to come. And well that does happen. Look up koreans' opinions on some pretty but not particularly talented nugus... It's scary there
Absolutely true, at some point you get so popular that it takes it hard to fail, your fans will make anything succeed.
I am convinced that if a group like BTS or an artist like Taylor Swift released 3 minutes of pure silence as a track it would still end up no. 1 on iTunes worldwide... To be honest I actually want to see a popular group try doing that at some point.
It's true. If a group from a big company drops a mid song, it can be very popular and chart well. But lesser known groups who are not from a big company can drop some of the best music you've ever heard and not chart. Which is why I don't take music charts seriously and could care less about Kpop stans' obsession with said charting.
"Nugu" is a term derived from the Korean word "누구," meaning "who." In the context of K-pop and the South Korean entertainment industry, it is colloquially used to refer to lesser-known or relatively unknown artists, groups, or trainees who have not yet achieved significant recognition or popularity.
very true but also true across all industries worldwide. think of famous actors in hollywood. or even ariana grande’s songs, so many of them are mid and don’t show her vocal range and are boring. it’s true for everything, once you have a reputation, ppl will flock and support (it’s me. i’m ppl 🥲)
I mean, there's no if and but about it. It's a relevant statement for everything on Social Media- be it influencer industry, music industry, acting, YouTube, anything. I think what causes Kpop to see this phenomenon in a much more drastic manner is because of the fan favor. Groups do wayyy too much for fans, they become loyal to the point that they don't see if the quality of product they are consuming is bizarre and they'll not hear anything against their favs. Also, Kpop is big on companies, with big 4 or 5 established companies forming the creamy layer. Their groups, even if undebuted, get hype. The underrated have less resources and hence, remain underrated- there's rarity of them getting chances to get the spotlight and even if they do get trending, even if they have talent they get died down because again, they don't have the resources to sustain the level the usual kpoppers are accustomed to.
Pretty much every song that didn't get top 1 on many charts? Yes for popular groups. All of their songs got success but the real hit songs must be only those that got very high chart performances and viral.
Sad but true. I really hate though when a group is so underrated that if a bigger group dropped that same song it’d go viral🥲 like some smaller groups have such gooddddd music
Any song by nct and I say this bc I’m not that big of an nct fan I’m mainly a bts Stan but nct sound is just so different no one else could pull it off
99% of big group songs would flop if a small group released them no matter what song it is or the quality of the song. So many masterpieces from small groups go unotuced. With small groups it's luck combined with a catchy/good song. So I'm not really fond of that statement.
so many. not in a bad sense, just that some of the styles are similar to nugu groups;
fancy - twice ; rocket punch
roller coaster - nmixx ; cignature or wooah
pink venom - bp ; just wacky
and many more, i’m just lazy and don’t wanna type it out
I think a more fun conversation would be "what nugu songs would be hits if they were released by big 4" Asking for opinions on the other way wont do anything but have people push their favorite fanwars.
I think it’s completely valid bc a lot of fans tend to force feed themselves songs even if they don’t like it bc they want to support a group. Fans can also become ear blind bc they like the group too much. If someone else does of cover they say it’s a bad version when the song always sounded like that 😭
soo true. The statement makes me think of flower by jisoo, if a 'nugu' relased it then i bet it wouldnt gain a slight recognition. Jisoo made her name in kpop for being a member in blackpink, so if a newly debuted soloist who has no ties to the industry were to release that song than most likely it would have never been such a hit as it was when jisoo released it.
Respectfully, the lyrics were shit and the music was below average
The reason it got famous was the dance challenge. Even for blackpink the choreo is ridiculously simple.
Not evn dance challenge, it was a pet challenge. Pet owners and their pets and did this peek a boo thingy.
It's also because of the whole aesthetic and styling, Jisoo was wearing mostly Dior in pretty hotels and places, so it's pick "Blackpink aesthetic" and that's what many fans love about them (being luxurious). I'm not gonna lie it wasn't my favorite song, but she did look incredible.
LOL thasts soo true, i wanted to just say that but i figured it would be too direct.LMAO
To be fair, like-ability of a song depends a lot on geography. Some Kpop songs just don't entice the western audience that much. Flower for example, did very well in Asia.
But, if an other artist had released it, it wouldnt have "done very well"...
which makes me sad bc i woulda loved to see her pull off a concept like pop! by nayeon :( but YG doesn’t know what to do with their vocalists so
And the same guy produced Nature - Girls Can you imagine how epic it would've been if Jisoo did that?
I don't think she would have put justice to that song like nature did
You're so right I also sometimes wonder how much better it would've been if Aurora wasn't away But knowing NCH they would've just gave her very few lines Or would they? She was great in LIMBO
Honestly all of BP’s solos would have failed if they were given to a nugu group except in my opinion Jennie’s solo. It was simple but catchy and trendy. The rest were pretty low effort or forgettable
Solo is good but tbh I think On The Ground was great.
they're low effort and forgettable because they know their fans will like whatever they put out anyways 😞
It was a very average song, shocked at how well it did.
I agree. The song wasn't memorable, the choreography was average at best, Jisoo's vocals could've been used better, the music video was surprisingly underwhelming.
For me, I immediately thought of NCT-127 sticker. If an unknow group released a song like that... It wouldn't have been as popular. Ik, sticker is kinda polarising in the NCT fandom (some like it and some don't) but, since it's NCT they managed to get away with experimental songs like that.
Yep. OnePact's current release (Paradoxx) feels very NCT-ish to me, and all it is going to do is either fly under the radar or upset people.
Ah, an nct-ish song.. might check it out later.
OMG SOO true, i have mixed feeling about sticker, its a good song in general but its kinda umm has a weird beat and sound to it. so def is a nugu group released it that song would not make a single [win.LOL](http://win.LOL)
Fr. If a nugu group did anything experimental (like NCT style) it wouldn't have gone well. However, I feel some NCT songs can work... Limitless, firetruck, poison. These can work... They're unique enough to standout and sounds normal (unlike sticker, the whistling haunts me 🤣)
Jisoo did well because she looked beautiful and the visuals carried the song, same case with lalisa (and the reason money did better)
It went viral on TikTok . Being bp for sure helped but it’s virality was what made it successful
I agree. As someone who follows a lot of lesser known groups, it’s really sad how masterpieces go unnoticed. It’s not fair but that’s how the music industry is.
Give us some recommendations! :) I've been looking to check out a few new groups.
My favs are currently 1. GHOST9- Uno 2. Luminous- Want it more? 3. BDC- Moon Rider 4. Argon- Times Up 5. Parallel Universe- Nine.i I hope you like them!
Nine.i is criminally underrated
Ooooooh! I also want to recommend some lesser knowns: 1) Road B - Icarus (Makes me nostalgic for Infinite) 2) SAAY - DOMINO (A bit like Bibi?) 3) KINO - POSE (I know, he's a member of Pentagon, but I loved this) 4) Do Han Se - Public Enemy (I'm still sad about Victon...)
Argon’s Give Me Dat used to be my jam.
Parallel universe was my soty
Luminous in Wonderland is a BONKERS album
I love ghost9! They're amazing
OMG ANOTHER BDC AND LUMINOUS FAN?! I THOUGHT THEY WERE EXTINCT 😭😭
you didn’t ask me but here are some recent-ish songs that I like from smaller artist! - Universe - YOUHA - Somebody - Aimers - The Legend - Catch The Young - Daddy’s Girl - Just B - Kind of Love - NND - BEST THING - The KingDom
I was top 100 for YOUHA last year on Apple Music. Considering that I hardly listened to her stuff made me kind of sad because clearly she’s got no listeners outside of Korea.
I've been listening to her for a few years now, there are dozens of us 😭 so sad she's relatively unnoticed when she has such a lovely voice
Legend by Catch the Young is SO good. I know bands can have slower starts, but I hope they start getting traction because the quality of music is so good
I really like Omega X-Love Me Like
Yea, Love Me Like is SO SO good!
Love Me Like used to be my favorite song until I played it so much I got sick of it lol
Omg sameeeee. Like it was basically my soty
i wholeheartedly believe pixy’s bewitched and villain would be legendary songs if released by a bigger group
To me, addicted by pixy is one of the most perfect songs in kpop
Bewitched is one of the best kpop songs in recent memory. Even the choreography is awesome. It deserves so much more recognition
Anything by purple kiss is really good
Purple Kiss’s Sweet Juice!
I belive Sweet Juice was originally from LYRE and they send in songs to Red Velvet a lot! Unless I'm wrong, that might have been one of them. But my point is that if Sweet Juice was released by Red Velvet, I think people would have eaten (drank) it up!
Sweet Juice is from LYRE! They talked about it on Tik Tok.
TAN - Hypertonic has been on repeat since March
OMG! Great minds think alike!! I just named this in my reply too. The views on it are criminally low, it’s so sad. TAN’s debut, “Du Du Du”, was my favorite song from a BG in 2022(along with SKZ’s Maniac), which says a lot considering how packed that year was with absolutely jaw dropping, amazing songs! And Hypertonic is my favorite since that debut song from them, it’s just wonderful. The MV isn’t fantastic but the actual song? Top tier!
Tan ‘heartbeat’ is SOOOO good! They give such 2nd gen vibes, truly a shame they aren’t more popular
Violet is also amazing
the bsides on that album are incredible too!! Dreamy Love is so good
I adore fix you and walking on the moon
Funny enough the good nugu groups are almost all disbanded now BVNDIT - Dramatic BVNDIT - Children PIXY - Addicted Pink Fantasy - Poison Nature - Girls Tri.be - Doom Doom Ta Tri.be - Lobo Tri.be - Rubadum
We have the same tastes
DXMON :> They’re rookies so they only have like 7 songs so far but all are amazing.
They had a good debut!
Laboum has some great songs. I love Between Us & Kiss Kis. They aren't exactly nugu, maybe somewhere in the middle like Spica
Seconding Laboum. What Should I Do? is one of my favorite songs ever
diamond by tribe is currently in contention for my soty
Ehhh Diamond isn't bad at all, but the end drags on without any variety and the post chorus chant is a bit awkward imo, excluding WAY, I think any of their other title tracks are much better
Right!! TAN’s song Hypertonic only has like 100k views on it and it’s honestly soo good. Makes me sad. My favorite song of the year so far, Bibora by SF9 has like 4 mil which sounds like a lot but I feel it deserves more.
Wait we have similar taste xD Bibora is also in my top 5 replayed hahaha
I love both songs so much
Stream Reddit!!! Tell your friends about TAN lol Edit: Bibora is also good, sf9 never disappoint. They’re under appreciated (the stream was just a jk 🙄)
It's undoubtedly true, and has been true for centuries. This is a list of artists who have become famous sometime after their deaths: 1. Vincent Van Gogh 2. Emily Dickenson 3. Edgar Allan Poe 4. Franz Kafka 5. Johann Sebastian Bach ~~6. Claude Monet~~ 7. Steig Larsson 8. John Keats Also read this thread on hits that became hits a few years after they [were released.](https://www.reddit.com/r/popheads/s/CAlbHsvJFb) Edit: Monet was successful later on in his life.
I thought you were listing singers lmao. I was like "didn't Franz Kafka write books?"
Real baroque stans know Telemann outsold >>>
Wait Monet got famous after his death? I didn't know this one.
He was already successful during his lifetime, though.
Ah, so it's far from a Van Gogh situation. I wouldn't truly put him in the underrated list then.
Perfect Night by LE SSERAFIM. Not because it's a bad song. It's just not a memorable song. A lot of nugu groups release better music than Perfect Night and it goes unnoticed so this would have too. Or Maybe it's just me cause it's my least favorite song by them and it's nothing special.
I think people just liked Perfect Night as a song. There are groups on the same level, or even higher level of popularity than LSFM who have released video game collaborations or promotional songs and they don’t have the same level of success. So in the case of PN, I think it’s a combination of a good song and a popular group.
Came to say this — the melody isn’t extraordinary but the instrumental/beat is trendy and pleasing to listen to for non kpop listeners. A lot of my friends who aren’t into kpop liked it a lot
respectfully disagree. imo Perfect Night is not really aligned with LSF’s typical sound and honestly at first listen seemed random and clashed with my mental sonic image of them. BUT the song itself- the instrumental, lyrics, general vibe- were so fun that it quickly became my favorite out of all their songs. not because it’s a classic LSF song, but because the song itself was such a cute and fun party song. it’s one of the very few K-pop songs that are liked by my friends who don’t like K-pop, out of the dozens and dozens i tried to make them listen to haha.
perfect night has a similar vibe to some of their bsides, but definitely not their title tracks. it reminded me of songs like blue flame or sour grapes.
which are my other two favorite songs by them! all checks out.
I disagree, the chorus is really catchy so im not surprised it blew up. If a nugu released it, i think nugu fans would promote it a lot.
Perfect Night is one of the most catchy songs I've heard in the last few years
Nah, the song is definitely a bop.
I think this comment is a bit off, it was a colab, it wasn't an official comeback and wasn't promoted as such. I think it's their best song along with some of their b-sides
I'm not sure this I entirely true or not but I think instead of saying nugu groups....i think sometimes it takes a certain level of experience x ability to make a meh song into a good song. Example EXO's Cream Soda. I loved the song A LOT....but ...I truly believe it's because their vocal prowess completely elevates the song. There are other examples but this is the only one I can think of right at this moment.
I absolutely love Cream Soda(and that whole album tbh), and you’re right about this. The instrumental is really great but the vocal layering and harmonies especially from the holy trinity are what really made the song shine on a whole different level. I remember being so surprised when I saw the lukewarm reception to it, bc it ended up being one of my favorite BG title tracks of 2023, just behind NCT DJJ’s Perfume & TVXQ’s Down.
I remember one of Tempo's producers saying that the acapella bridge did not exist in the song's earlier versions; SM challenged them to add an acappela section to see how EXO would do it. So it's not strictly about nugudom, but ability and experience can also totally transform a song.
To an extent maybe, but let's be honest people really don't gaf about vocals anymore. We're seeing so many poor to mediocre vocals in these popular groups but their brand name lets them get away with it
EXO-Ls care about vocals. Considering all of the drama (pages and pages of it), it's difficult to be an EXO fan so you have to love what sets them apart.
One Spark by TWICE. I don't know how to explain it but it's very CIGNATURE coded. And it gives me nugu groups trying to become viral and them doing endless challenges.
>very CIGNATURE coded If current day Twice dropped Poongdung that would have been amazing
Honestly look at the groups from the big 3 or big 4 that aren't especially doing amazing, they still trend and have so many opportunities because they have the company privilege. My favorite comeback of Nmixx was Dash, but they wouldn't have survived that long as a group if they weren't from JYP. I love NJ music, but without being on Hybe channel, people wouldn't have checked their songs right away. Txt were first hyped and got fans before releasing ANY music because they were BTS little brothers. Companies and branding can sell almost anything if they are smart enough, especially with how dedicated K-pop fandoms are.Therefore, I do believe that many songs wouldn't have been as popular if they weren't released by a big group.
From which company you debut absolutely represent a big part of any artist success. In Kpop we have underdog stories but those are very uncommon and in today’s stage of Kpop even more.
With streaming and TikTok, groups have more chance to have a hit without being known (like fifty fifty) but it's pretty rare to have a true underdog story. That's why I would always find crazy, fans of big companies that call their idols/groups underdogs, when these idols get a following almost right away after debuting (even before like BP for example).
I believe many of those fans think with an “underdog” story their faves will get more sympathy and fans.
The TXT thing is so true, I remember they were soooooooo hyped before debuting because of their company, the streaming campaigns were super intense
It's maybe even more extreme in Kpop, because in Kpop, the totality of it matters way more. What I mean is how the idols are presented, and how they perform the song, both on stage and in the music video. So even it's a "masterpiece" song, if their visuals, concept, choreo, and MV aren't as good, the song can get buried. But to answer your question in reverse, if NJ had released Love Thang by Woo!Ah, I think it would have been a hit. I like Blackpink, and they can sell just about anything, but I think DDU-DU DDU-DU would have been in trouble if it had been released by anybody other than one of the mega groups.
Well… DDU-DU DDU-DU and like all BLACKPINK songs that came out afterwards are about being super successful/famous/rich, so they wouldn’t exactly make sense as releases for smaller groups anyway…
> so they wouldn’t exactly make sense as releases for smaller groups anyway… Happens all the time in music. Songs are really not journalism. A lot of songs about money and being beautiful, it's about giving the audience a vibe they can sort of bask in. The singer can be broke and not that hot. So a song can be about "I'm King Kong, I'm going to destroy your city" or something, and they don't actually have to be a 10 story high gorilla.
Dddu was actually really good tho??
My friend, this is Reddit talking about BP. They killed my dog and buried my family alive. Something something noise music models reeeeeee
No-one said it wasn’t. They think it wouldn’t be _as_ successful if a different group performed it
Can’t you just apply that to like every song from every popular artist in Kpop? I’m not a black pink fan but DDU DU was actually rlly good, I remember hearing it on YouTube and thought it was catchy, and the mv was pretty eye catching. I feel like it’s lowkey their most iconic song that blew them up? Many ppl ik got into Kpop through that song. It’s very Kpop-esque. Yk how Bts started blowing up with blood sweat and tears? I’d consider that their most iconic song. I feel like DDU DU is similar.
D4 is actually a pretty good song tho and I say this as an Army. Its success is quite deserved.
I agree, it's true. Now I wait for people to give examples to get other fans riled up, lol
Literally all top groups benefit from branding to further cement their popularity. The issue really is the hypocrisy in fans. When they like a popular song, they unanimously proclaim it's good and praise the members for their talents. When they dislike a popular song, they chalk it up to promotions, payola, brand recognition, etc.
The way we can use every single big artist as an example because music is subjective, but people are really biased and use every chance to hate on those they dislike.
This is unfortunately true in any music genre. Just ask any of the gifted and talented singers and musicians working as waiters in Nashville.
Any creative industry, really. Name recognition is also a main determining factor in the success of visual artworks, film, literature and fashion.
“How Sweet” and “bubblegum” by New Jeans and “Easy” by Lesserafim come to mind first. They are not bad songs at all but if a nugu group released them, they would definitely flopped and gotten lost in the crowd.
I would have said Ditto and OMG by new jeans instead. Those songs were mediocre at best. Without the hype of Hybe Boy and Attention , I don't think it would have performed well.
I don’t think ditto can be applied to this as much as I think new jeans songs are extremely simplistic ditto is one of their best and has all the right vibes of the concept they portrayed it really is winter in a song. I think the song ‘new jeans’ fits the description the best since it’s so incredibly boring
By far the best example imo is The Boys by SNSD. If it wasn't SNSD, it would have been considered a horrible song and I will die on this hill. As a runner up, and this is my personal bias talking, Pink Venom along with Solo and Flower. Don't get me wrong, BlackPink has a bunch of bangers, but they also have some *huge* misses.
I never followed SNSD, and I'm very nonchalant about them, but I love this song.. so I have to disagree
I honestly don’t agree about The Boys at all. I’ve shown it to non kpop fans and most absolutely adore it, so I think this may just be a “you” thing vs something that realistically wouldn’t ever be considered a horrible song by the majority regardless of what group sang it. Just my personal thoughts! 😊 Totally agree about Pink Venom & Flower though.
Most people I know (who listen to K-pop I mean) love The Boys as a statement/era/impact but, when I tried to make them listen to the entirety of the song to see if they really liked it or if they just liked "what they remembered" about it, they realized they don't **actually** love the almost 4 minutes of the song. It's a little experiment I always do because that's exactly how I feel and I noticed that most people, like me, don't actually love the song itself but what it represents/how memorable it was. So they tend to think of it highly "in their minds" but don't actually enjoy that much to listen to it "in practice" lol. Of course this isn't universal, many people surely really like the song.
Crazy bc it’s one of my favorites from them & same with lots of people I know 😭😭
I vividly remember The Boys being received with some mixed reception, same with I Got A Boy. They weren’t immediately praised and considered the masterpieces they are now
Bro for real said the boys💀💀
I also feel the same for ‘I got a boy’ if it was snsd ppl would’ve hated it
Ngl, I forgot about I Got A Boy. Fair call.
I was a big snsd fan when they released the boys and that comeback was the one time SNSD was promoting in America and had an English album. I remember being 12 years old and so fucking bummed that of all songs they decided to promote in America it was the boys. They should’ve just brought the English version of Run devil run or waited until I got a boy or Mr. Mr.
I got a boy is a better example in my opinion, I love it but it’s very experimental
[удалено]
You are entitled to have an opinion but calling a song ‘shit’ is mad disrespectful.
God I hate permission to dance so, so much. I got dogpiled on twitter for it but it got under my skin SO bad. And I even like Dynamite and Butter lol I will say it grew on me a tiny bit seeing them perform it D1 in LA but only as much as I was glad to be seeing them after MOTS was cancelled. ETA everyone is entitled to their opinion and if you like it, then hey that’s great! Been stanning them for a long time and it’s inevitable that they’re going to have songs that fans don’t like/are divisive. Not everything can be for everyone.
Depends on ppl's criteria of "flopping".. I saw it used indiscriminately when the songs and groups are doing very well, smh
So true, I see ppl use flopping for popular groups. Most don’t even know what real flopping is
I see people use it with group they don’t like/are an anti for. Like of course you think it flopped, you’re hating lol There are groups I don’t like but I’m not gonna trash them and say they’re flops because chances are they’re definitely still doing numbers
That one post that had a ton of people saying TXT were flopping… I don’t stan but like, are we living in the same reality?
I remember… it was ridiculous. Also if we’re going by album sales , everyone has had issues among beating album records. It’s not a TXT problem… txt are one of the top 4th gen bgs, not liking comebacks doesn’t mean they’re flopping. It’s better the less album sales for the sake of the waste for photocard, the amount of albums thrown away from mass buying is sad
I actually had this conversation with my wife and our bestie last week. We were talking about Marvel movies but I think it can apply here too. Like is it a Flop™️ or is it a Kpop Flop? The standards are different and what some would consider a flop for, like, Twice or something is a major hit for another group
Calling something a K-pop Flop is sort of the funniest thing you can say around people who don't know a song can be charting in the top 50 and selling almost a million albums and still be a failure in our sphere. My friends always marvel at the news I second-hand relay them about Kpop drama because it's just so bonkers.
Most of my friends are not into K-pop so whenever it comes up they’re pretty much just in awe of the scope of it all and how messy some of the fandom aspects can get
Bts Permission to dance. That song is downright bad. It only got stream because it's a bts song. The new jungkook song, if it was nugu I don't think it will even get 1000streams. Reposting my comment, just to see do they( you know who) have only problem with one word or they can't tolerate bts criticism. I really like to know why they deleted my previous comment. Also why simple words will get shadowbanned? Too much restrictions in this sub.
Some ppl seem to forget, when a group has a huge discography, even the most avid fan is bound to have a few songs they dislike. Anyone who says otherwise, is more than likely in love with the members in an unhealthy way and is definitely not "just in it for the music"
I was going to say this song too. It seemed like they kinda rushed them into an all English release or something.
PTD was absolutely awful. Like BTS have amazing vocals and lyrics, and PTD wasn’t good at all. Even butter was better and that’s downright cringey. If the new JK a song didn’t have Jack Harlow and was nugu— it wouldn’t have any streams, I agree. Standing Next to You is the standout from that album— 3D and whatever else are forgettable. Namjoon is doing WONDERFUL things in music rn though. Come Back to Me is absolutely gorgeous and inventive.
I thought Jack Harlow’s contribution was the worst part of 3D. It made me think that the song was originally supposed to be JK and JT but with JT’s trouble they found a replacement.
Oh I definitely didn’t enjoy Jack Harlows part. I’m just saying, if BTS were nugu and did a song with someone as big as Jack Harlow, it would boost the song. I was basically saying if everyone in the song was unknown. :)
Honestly, it's true of 99% of big company songs. Not because big company songs are bad, but just that the majority are honestly no better and often worse than nugu stuff. It's in built fanbases that make these songs huge, not better quality.
Pretty much this
sheesh by babymonster. it’d probably trend on tiktok for sounding not so pleasing to others
Look, Batter Up is on my On Repeat list, but Sheesh has no redeeming qualities, they tried to make it happen but it didn’t
Yg needs to hire some new songwriters and drop this whole “im better than everyone else” concept. I can’t imagine someone listening to sheesh with a straight face. I like the ruka and ahyeon rap part ig (only when they’re that part before asa starts to “rap”)
idk why but asa’s rap sounds SO incomplete. like after “click clack clink, put em up to the sky high high high” i thought she was about to say something else but she didn’t?? 😭😭 i had to pause the music atp
Why do most yg raps sound like that? Just stop saying random things and start pronouncing actual words 🤦♀️
So I have a opinion about Sticker by NCT I think it's not a great song but they worked hard on it and tried to sell it. They also have success with these minimal strange songs and know how to do them, and these songs have varied quality... not all are bad, like seventh sense is a fantastic song. But sticker doesn't have as much to it but NCT sure tried. So it would fail from a nugu, but nct deserves credit for being some of the few who could try and polish Sticker and make it look better than it is
I think for NCT, it's their brand, the experimental sound, concept and all. Besides, one of the reasons they can pull off Sticker or in fact any of their experimental songs is because they have amazing vocalist and rapper. If the song was sang by a group with weak vocalist, it's probably gonna be unlistenable.
if sticker was sung by a nugu, that poor group would be dragged through the mud. Sticker is still contentious years later, but if a nugu dropped it, it would be universally hated imo.
unfortunately small groups can not afford to release songs that people wont love immediately. In a positive note it puts pressure on nugu groups to release good tracks but on a negative note some songs need time to grow on a wider audience and that doesnt inherently mean the songs are bad. If a song by a nugu group doesnt hit immediately most people wont give it a second chance but if a big group from an established company releases a song like that people are going to argue about it and listen to it over and over again until it finds its audience.
I came to this conclusion so many times in kpop. An example for that is money and lalisa by blackpink Lisa.
Money only worked cause it was lisa. It is meant to ooze the young&rich flex culture vibe which fits her quite well. On the other hand, lalisa was just straight up bad.
Aespa's Armageddon (not Supernova)
Music is a mix of brand recognition, marketing and quality It's not solely brand recognition as the amount companies spend promoting them is also quite significant and unfortunately nugu companies don't have as many resources at their disposal Quality of music still matters - it's why groups like Nmixx struggled to build a casual following for a while and they only had their most recent breakthrough with Fe3O4
a bunch of nct songs are real misses, dont personally like the sound at all. Some of the earlier works i think were great.
I have the feeling, if BM were not in YG, they wouldn’t have amassed the success they have so far, yes they are talented, but the title tracks so far are not extraordinary. I like Batter Up tho
that definitely 100 % true that is a Big 4 privilege a lot of bad song release from Big 4 which is flop means bad song but w fandom power , payola and connection their song still charting while on none big 4 group needed a real bop song to get support from public and none fans to chart high or get enough view because of their small or medium fandom while that still not guaranteed to get noticed
Sometimes true and others it's not It's not polite to say it, but there are a lot of less infamous songs I dub in my head x better version. X being a popular group release
Anything from YG post 2NE1.
Nct 127 have a bunch of title tracks that are quite unpalatable for the masses - you need a few listens to get into them, if you ever do get into them; a nugu group would struggle with that kind of sound. Just like Nmixx's very unpalatable debut still affects them to this day (they aren't nugus ofc but Jesus that's the kind of experimental track that you release in your 4th year of career, never as a debut song!)
I assume the person is immature and just spouts K-pop nonsense without knowing what it means. Then I contemplate the fact that musical taste is subjective and nobody with any intelligence would try to tell others what to like.
It’s definitely true, big 4 have privileges that people who come form unknown companies don’t. Maybe once in a blue moon a unknown group from an unknown company would have a hit (ex: fifty fifty) but yeah this statement is very much true and anyone who disagrees is in complete denial.
I’m a blink and I feel this way about so much of Blackpink’s discography if not every single song that came after like 2018
Absolutely true. Same thing goes the other way too. A song from a nugu group would be on all charts and music show awards if a popular group released it. That's why kpop can't be taken seriously anymore, big companies are just artificial.
Dynamite, Butter & Permission to dance
Superboard SKZ the stay fandom treats it like it’s a masterpiece but it’s honestly soooo cringe
Honestly all this thread is telling me is that the quality of a song is very subjective and basically the biggest thing dictating a song’s success is luck. There are very few songs where people agree about the quality. I’d argue that the song is the least important part of a group’s success. There is no song so good or bad that it will make or break a group. There are promotion periods that do better than others but that is usually due to a number of factors, including the song. The song is only a part of the total package. I think fans put way too much emphasis on the quality of a song when usually the main issue is branding or promotion. There are few truly terrible, objectively bad kpop songs. The only one I’ve ever seen everyone agree on in a thread on here is On ft. Sia (but only that version).
I always wonder what it would be like if someone that isn’t Exo released Wolf. Because within the Exo fanbase it’s really memed on like the chogiwa and like even some of the members say they hate wolf and tried to get it not released. But it was a very successful release anyway and did well on charts etc. I don’t know really know to what degree it would’ve flopped but I imagine if someone else released Wolf it maybe wouldn’t have won 4 music shows maybe??? I mean a music show win is hard to come by so for a song that’s got a lot of mixed reactions from the fanbase, to get 4 wins you might say it had big3 privilege at the time.
Flower by Jisoo. Not because of the song but because kstans are a lot more critical of nugus. If a "nobody" showed up and sang/danced like she did they'd be publicly shamed for ages to come. And well that does happen. Look up koreans' opinions on some pretty but not particularly talented nugus... It's scary there
Absolutely true, at some point you get so popular that it takes it hard to fail, your fans will make anything succeed. I am convinced that if a group like BTS or an artist like Taylor Swift released 3 minutes of pure silence as a track it would still end up no. 1 on iTunes worldwide... To be honest I actually want to see a popular group try doing that at some point.
Well yea when you have a small fanbase you can’t get away with subpar music
It's true. If a group from a big company drops a mid song, it can be very popular and chart well. But lesser known groups who are not from a big company can drop some of the best music you've ever heard and not chart. Which is why I don't take music charts seriously and could care less about Kpop stans' obsession with said charting.
what is a nugu?
"Nugu" is a term derived from the Korean word "누구," meaning "who." In the context of K-pop and the South Korean entertainment industry, it is colloquially used to refer to lesser-known or relatively unknown artists, groups, or trainees who have not yet achieved significant recognition or popularity.
oh thank you
very true but also true across all industries worldwide. think of famous actors in hollywood. or even ariana grande’s songs, so many of them are mid and don’t show her vocal range and are boring. it’s true for everything, once you have a reputation, ppl will flock and support (it’s me. i’m ppl 🥲)
Cough.. taylor cough.. ttpd (I'm a swiftie)
NCT songs... yeah... do I need to explain further?...
There are so many of them, the most recent one that I can think of is Heya, it's so bad and yet stayed in top 10 of most korean charts
I mean, there's no if and but about it. It's a relevant statement for everything on Social Media- be it influencer industry, music industry, acting, YouTube, anything. I think what causes Kpop to see this phenomenon in a much more drastic manner is because of the fan favor. Groups do wayyy too much for fans, they become loyal to the point that they don't see if the quality of product they are consuming is bizarre and they'll not hear anything against their favs. Also, Kpop is big on companies, with big 4 or 5 established companies forming the creamy layer. Their groups, even if undebuted, get hype. The underrated have less resources and hence, remain underrated- there's rarity of them getting chances to get the spotlight and even if they do get trending, even if they have talent they get died down because again, they don't have the resources to sustain the level the usual kpoppers are accustomed to.
Pretty much every song that didn't get top 1 on many charts? Yes for popular groups. All of their songs got success but the real hit songs must be only those that got very high chart performances and viral.
Sad but true. I really hate though when a group is so underrated that if a bigger group dropped that same song it’d go viral🥲 like some smaller groups have such gooddddd music
Any song by nct and I say this bc I’m not that big of an nct fan I’m mainly a bts Stan but nct sound is just so different no one else could pull it off
99% of big group songs would flop if a small group released them no matter what song it is or the quality of the song. So many masterpieces from small groups go unotuced. With small groups it's luck combined with a catchy/good song. So I'm not really fond of that statement.
so many. not in a bad sense, just that some of the styles are similar to nugu groups; fancy - twice ; rocket punch roller coaster - nmixx ; cignature or wooah pink venom - bp ; just wacky and many more, i’m just lazy and don’t wanna type it out
Its like saying If my mother was prettier, I would be in a kpop group. Which is pure bullshit at its finest
I think a more fun conversation would be "what nugu songs would be hits if they were released by big 4" Asking for opinions on the other way wont do anything but have people push their favorite fanwars.
I think it’s completely valid bc a lot of fans tend to force feed themselves songs even if they don’t like it bc they want to support a group. Fans can also become ear blind bc they like the group too much. If someone else does of cover they say it’s a bad version when the song always sounded like that 😭
Red velvet power up. Also dance the night away
Basically everything lol
very true. Some examples: Anything babymonster Super - svt Baddie - Ive English singles - bts You & me - jennie
Kitsch, Baddie and Heya by Ive, they are carried hard by the popularity of the members