Discussions Over K-pop Album Sales Arose After Min Hee-jin’s Remarks At Press Conference

At her emergency press conference on April 25th, CEO Min Hee-jin not only refuted all the allegations in her conflict with HYBE but also pointed out the problems of the K-pop music market. In particular, she drew keen attention from K-pop fans by commenting, “I hope idol companies don’t make random photocards to increase album sales”.

As many K-pop fans agreed with this remark, it proves that they are also tired of being excessively manipulated by idol agencies. 

Choi Kwang-ho, secretary-general of the Korea Music Content Association, said, “As the industrialization of the K-pop industry and competition intensify, side effects have occurred”, adding “It’s time to think about how to create a healthy music marketing culture and change gradually”.

K-pop agencies’ methods to increase album sales, “I know, everyone does it”

K-pop agencies put random photocards into idol albums to induce fans to purchase a lot of albums so that they can obtain the photocards of their favorite members. This is the main cause of the phenomenon of fans keeping only photocards and discarding the albums. 

“Pushing albums” is another method in which album retailers pull in quantities of albums to be sold in the first week of release through discussion with agencies and push out these albums through events such as fansigns later on. Also known as “advance shipments” or “MG (minimal guarantee)”, this is a method that appeared during the Covid-19 pandemic. In particular, “pushing albums” has been conducted secretly as new album retailers tried to establish their presence in the industry and agencies wanted to achieve higher results for the first-week sales competition. 

At her press conference, Min Hee-jin pointed out, “I know those methods so well, everyone does it. But it causes the market to become so weird and affects the stock market. Eventually, fans not only feel burdened about buying albums but idols also struggle because they have to keep doing fansigning events”. She added, “As fans are worried about their idols getting discouraged, they would buy albums again and idols have to do fansigns again…What is this all about?”.

Furthermore, Min Hee-jin also criticized HYBE’s plan to encourage recycling by replacing album components with sustainable materials. She said, “Using melting paper? Is that a joke?”, adding “Paper melts, then I’d rather make less album”.

K-pop fans’ complaints urge the need for improvement

Recently, some idols’ first-week sales figures have declined significantly, leading to concerns that the album explosion may be over. Experts in the industry also analyzed that K-pop fans have become so tired because of the intense album competition. 

As photocards have consistently been pointed out as the problem, the Fair Trade Commission launched an investigation into major agencies last year. Issues related to album sales have become hot topics recently and they are gaining much more attention as the CEO of an agency mentioned it by herself.

However, some people reacted negatively to Min Hee-jin’s remarks. In this case, a K-pop industry insider said, “From the perspective of small and medium-sized agencies that lack capital, they have no choice but to rely on album sales to gain money for the next production. As marketing techniques using albums and fansigning events have been the driving force behind the growth of the K-pop industry, criticism from all aspects may be excessive”.

Source: daum