Netizens debate why BLACKPINK caused disappointment on Billboard Hot 100: ‘Lovesick Girls’ is a step back, collab song with Cardi B debut at the bottom

 Netizens are arguing whether BLACKPINK’s performance on Billboard Hot 100 is ‘okay’ or ‘too low compared to expectations’.

 On October 12 (US time), Billboard announced the rankings of the Billboard Hot 100 chart of the week ending October 17 – the chart that ranks the most popular songs in the US across all music genres and based on stream, radio broadcasts and digital sales.  Contrary to fans’ expectations, BLACKPINK with their latest comeback and new songs in ‘THE ALBUM’ were unable to achieve outstanding ranks.

 First, the title song ‘Lovesick Girls’ is confirmed to be No. 59 on this week’s Billboard Hot 100. In addition, the songs that many people are also looking forward to because of the collaboration with the popular female rapper Cardi B, ‘Bet You Wanna’ as well as another critically acclaimed song ‘Pretty Savage’ also debuted at the bottom of this chart. Specifically, the aforementioned two b-side songs only entered the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 – ‘Bet You Wanna’ at No. 1 and ‘Pretty Savage’ at No. 21.

 Because ‘Lovesick Girls’ is the title track, this achievement of BLACKPINK is being laughed at by many netizens.  Accordingly, the previous songs of BLACKPINK have all had a stable debut on ​​the charts and gradually increased. ‘DDU-DU DDU-DU’ debuted No.55, ‘Kill This Love’ debuted at No.41, ‘How You Like That’’s debut rank was No.33 and most recently ‘Ice Cream’ (with Selena Gomez) debuted at No.13. Thus, ‘Lovesick Girls’’s modest rank (59th place) is a significant step back in the recent series of groundbreaking achievements of the YG girl group.

However, many BLACKPINK fans still think that this is a pretty good achievement for Lovesick Girls. Some BLINKs explained on Twitter: ‘The ranking is fine. It’s a Korean song, no promotions, no radio play, no playlists, no remix, and it wasn’t sold as a single’. According to these BLINKs, YG and Instercope did not do any promotions for BLACKPINK, and because the fandom focuses on the overall performance of ‘THE ALBUM’ rather than any song separately, lower rankings are normal.

 These explanations by BLACKPINK fans made many other Kpop fans disagree, BTS fans especially feel ‘offended’ because ‘Dynamite’ is a single, an English song and has many remixes.  Accordingly, BTS fans pointed out many evidences such as the boygroup’s title song ‘ON’ is also in the album ‘Map of the Soul: 7’, which is also in Korean and did not release a remix but could debut at No.4 on Billboard Hot 100. Thereby, more and more people think that some BLACKPINK fans should stop justifying the group’s ‘setback’ because ‘Lovesick Girls’ in fact has no outstanding achievements in either Korea or America.