Even though they are currently the most influential groups of the industry, they also had been through a long time of working hard to be able to reach the life-changing mark of their music career.
EXO – “Wolf”
Right at the very first debut teaser, EXO was the most anticipated boygroup at that time because of their SM’s origin. However, different from the public’s expectation, EXO’s “History” and “MAMA” was not as successful due to the not very catchy music and heavy concept. The boys had had to endure the title of “The worst failure of SM’s boygroup” for quite a long time.
After a long period of working hard, the first achievement finally came to the SM boys with the success of “Wolf”, With the fresh concept, catchy music and creative choreography, “Wolf” brought EXO their first win on weekly music stage one and a half year after their debut, opening up a whole new era for EXO and become the launcher for the next mega hit “Growl”. Those 2 tracks has brought EXO to the top and totally conquered the K-Pop market in 2013. At the moment, EXO still maintains their fame and won’t stop changing themselves each and every comeback. The guys from SM still prove their power 8 years after their debut.
BTS – “I Need U”
As the top boygroup with numerous records and impressive achievement at the moment, BTS’s road to their 1st success is not easy. Starting with “No More Dream”, they continued with a strings of omebacks with We Are Bulletproof Pt.2″ (Jul 16th 2013), “N.O” (Sep 11th 2013), “Boy In Luv” (Feb 12th 2014), “Danger” (Aug 20th 2014) and achieved a few achievements. However, their identity towards the public at that time was still close to nothing.
Not until when their 3rd mini album “The Most Beautiful Moment In Life, Part 1” got released on Apr 29th 2015 with the title song “I Need U”, did BTS officially became a famous name. With the theme talking about the bright and dark side of a beautiful youth, “I Need U” touched the hearts of many audiences. The songs wuickly reached #1 on many big charts in South Korea like Genie, Daum Music, Soribada…and even got into the top 10 real-time digital chart of Melon, Bugs and Naver Music.
“I Need U” also brought BTS their first win 2 years after debut, opening up a whole new era of BTS’s even stronger attack with albums like “The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Part 2”, “The Most Beautiful Moment in Life: Young Forever” and especially the most successful albums series “Wings” and “Love Yourself”.
TWICE – CHEER UP
Coming from the survival show called “SIXTEEN”, with the advantages of being a girlgroup from JYP and a stable fame after the survival show ended, TWICE was expected to have a extremely successful debut. But different from the expectation, TWICE’s debut with “Like OOH-AHH” was not that big of a success when the song couldn’t get into the top 50 of music charts. However, after their hardwork in promoting the song, they finally received some achievement but it wasn’t enough to push TWICE to the top.
Not standing still, after a whole year of practicing, the golden girls of JYP finally returned with “CHEER UP”. The catchy tunes, bright images, easy-to-remember choreography along with the 9 girls gorgeous appearance finally caught the eyes of the public and achieved impressive numbers such as 5 Perfect All-kill, 10 million views on the MV 4 days after the release. Especially, “CHEER UP” has brought TWICE the first Daesang of their career at MAMA 2016 with the prestigious award “Song of the Year”, created a stable launcher for TWICE to achieve their current position.
BLACK PINK – DDU-DU DDU-DU
Unlike the previous groups, BlackPink quickly “became popular” from the early days of debut because of its beautiful appearance, charismatic charisma and quality music.
Through “Boombaya”, “Whistle”, “Stay”, “Playing With Fire” and “As If Your Last”, BlackPink has set up a series of remarkable achievements such as reaching # 1 on the music show just after 13 days, achieving 5 rookie prizes at the awards ceremony at the end of the year, gaining a huge amount of view on youtube …
However, when “DDU-DU DDU-DU” was released, BlackPink was really “alive” when it created a big impression in the international music market. “DDU-DU DDU-DU” excelled as it landed at no.55 in the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making BlackPink become the first girl group to achieve the highest rank in this chart in Kpop history, creating a solid stepping stone for BlackPink’s American advancement in the future.
GFRIEND – “Me Gustas Tu”
Right before its debut, GRIEND was constantly “bashed” because the appearance was not outstanding and was said to be “media play” too much for members with the similar visual to Jessica’s (former SNSD member) SinB. Therefore, when debuting with the first song “Glass Bead”, GFRIEND is constantly being criticized and constantly being labeled as plagiarism of the concept and dance style of “Intro the new world” of SNSD.
It seems that girls from Source Music will quickly “sink into oblivion” because they do not possess the most important strength of idol groups as appearance, along with the lack of support from netizens. Only 6 months later, the girls quickly created their own style through the song “Me Gustas Tu” which was released on July 23, 2015. GFRIEND impressed the audience because of the contrast between concept and dance when building a light, clear image but the “Me Gustas Tu” choreography was as strong as the male group, which has become a special style for GFRIEND to the present time.
After its release, “Me Gustas Tu” quickly reached the top 10 of the big charts in Korea, and after 1 year, this song brought GFRIEND to become the first Kpop group to hit 100 million streams on Gaon chart. GFRIEND also started to receive a lot of public support for its special efforts and performance on stage. This is not easy to achieve with a girl group from a small company and does not own many advantages like GFRIEND.
EXID – Up & Down
It can be said “Up & Down” is the song that “saves” the whole music career of EXID.
Debuted in 2012 and having active music activities, but it seems that luck has not smiled at the girls when most the songs released do not leave any impression on the public. And EXID has released “Up & Down” in the sense that this may be the last song because the company’s budget is exhausted, potentially not enough to pay for promotional activities.
But suddenly one day, Hani’s fancam performing “Up & Down” at an event suddenly became “all the rage” on all online community sites, gaining over 20 million views on youtube and putting “Up & Down” from position 94 to first place on Gaon chart.
Not long after, “Up & Down” brought the first trophy for EXID on the music show in the astonishment of 5 girls. From a group that is on the verge of disbanding, through Hani’s “legendary” fancam along with EXID’s music quality, the girls maintain their popularity up to the present. “Up & Down” is undoubtedly the most important milestone in the music career of 5 EXID girls.
Source: kenh14
