2018 saw the fierce competition between girl groups, it’s hard to judge which one is the best.
TWICE – The “invincible” wall
In the year 2018, TWICE had 3 comebacks in Korea, released 2 singles and a full album in Japan. “What is Love?”, “Dance the Night Away” and “YES or YES” are all major hits, topping the charts, breaking many records. TWICE has had… 10 hits in their career. In 2018 alone, TWICE is expected to bring in nearly 30 big and small trophies. TWICE’s MV “TT” also reached 400 million mark in September, making it the first K-pop girl group to have this achievement.
TWICE is also the only girl group that can compete the male groups in terms of album sales. The album sales chart of Big 3 for 2018 shows that TWICE sold nearly 2 million copies, accounting for 63% of JYP’s sales. Only in Japan, TWICE has achieved the fifth Platinum certification. They not only get recognized by the public, other idols also have to admire TWICE’s achievements. Sunmi has admitted that TWICE is the artist who helped JYP to build a new office building.
BLACKPINK – The daughters of Midas
In Greek mythology, Midas has the ability to turn everything that he touches into gold. And BLACKPINK is like a “realistic version” of this legend. Compared to many other groups, BLACKPINK is not very active, but their comeback always has brilliant results.
“DDU-DU DDU-DU” reached over 36.2 million views in the first 24 hours. This hit alone brought 11 weekly trophies to the group. With “Square Up”, BLACKPINK is the Korean girl group with the highest ranking on the Billboard Hot 100 and the Billboard 200. The group also has 2 MV with 400 million views this year: “As if it’s your last” and “Boombayah”. Thanks to the collaboration song “Kiss and Make Up” with Dua Lipa, BLACKPINK also became the only K-Pop female group to make two appearances on the Billboard Hot 100 in a year.
In addition, the four girls have made many people to question: “Does BLACKPINK have miracle because it’s hot even when they just breathe?” Having just opened Instagram personally recently, the girls have hit a million followers. Having set up YouTube channel for two years, the group has reached Diamond Play Button thanks to over 11 million subscribers. With only 182 videos, the group garnered 3 billion views, the second highest in YG, losing only to BIGBANG. The profit from this YouTube channel in 2018 is $11 million.
Red Velvet – K-Pop’s new “Queen of the Summer”
In the beginning of 2018, Red Velvet had been extremely successful with the song “Bad Boy” leading the digital music charts. Next, the group was honored to be the first K-pop group to perform in North Korea. The biggest success of Red Velvet is the “Summer Magic” mini-album released in August. The title track “Power Up” achieved PAK (Perfect All-Kill) certification after a two-day release. This is the first PAK in Red Velvet’s career, which is also SM’s first PAK. “Summer Magic” also ranked #2 on iTunes Top Albums chart – the best achievement a K-pop girl group has ever achieved.
From “Red Flavor” to “Power Up”, the girls are claiming themselves perfectly worthy of replacing SISTAR to become the new “Queen of the Summer”. Also in 2018, Red Velvet had surpassed SNSD to become the girl group of SM with 5 MVs achieving more than 100 million views. With BTS, Red Velvet is a rare K-Pop representative to win at the Popular Culture and Arts Awards 2018.
MAMAMOO goes beyond the limits of idols
K-Pop fans jokingly said: “MAMAMOO’s fandom is the public.” Indeed, MAMAMOO comes from a small company, but thanks to the ability to sing live well, good rap techniques together with the talents of each member, the group always produces high quality music products. 2018 is a successful year for 4 girls with two mini albums. “Yellow Flower” and “Red Moon” are highly regarded in terms of expertise. The two title songs, “Starry Night” and “Egotistic”, all performed well in the digital music charts and remained stable for months. Even the B-side song “Rainy Season” without MV or promotion still ranked 2nd in the charts. With these two songs, the group won 11 weekly trophies on the music scene.
MAMAMOO also held a small-scale concert called “Season S/S” and tickets were sold out in just 2 minutes. Crossing the Korean border, the group won a lot of popularity from international fans. Typically, MAMAMOO won “Best K-pop Girl Group” at BreakTudo Awards, a Brazilian awards ceremony. The four members of the group have solo careers, including Hwasa with the song “Don’t Give It To Me” with Loco sweeping out many charts for months.
GFriend has their unique position
Although they are not as popular as in 2015 – 2016, it is not good to miss GFriend in top girl groups of the year. GFriend always has high quality music and top choreography combined with the absolute harmony among the members that few groups have. With “Time to the Moon”, GFriend has surpassed themselves in the #1 spot in Gaon’s Top Download, Album & Social. The track won 10 trophies, becoming the first song of 2018 to win in all 6 Korean music shows.
Among the third generation girl groups, GFRIEND’s album sales only lost to TWICE, BLACKPINK and Red Velvet. Following the summer hits like “Me Gustas Tu”, “Navillera”, “Love Whisper”, GFriend released “Sunny Summer” as a sweet ending for “Time to the Moon Night”. The group also successfully held their first Asian tour in the career, “Season of GFriends” with nearly 30,000 fans attending. GFriend also officially hit the Japanese market with their single album “Memoria / 夜 (Time for the moon night)” reaching No. 6 in Oricon Weekly Chart and No. 5 in the Billboard Japan.
Source: HHT
