BTS topped the chart with a big difference. Meanwhile, TWICE and ITZY are the only 2 female representatives in the top with male colleagues.
In recent years, the sales of K-pop artists’ albums have improved. Reaching a million copies in each comeback is no longer a rare thing, female idols even “disperse” hard disks on par with their male counterparts. To summarize 2021, Gaon chart has announced the total album sales of Korean male and female idols. The data is from week 1 to week 50/2021, including all new and used products they sell.
Male Idols
BTS is dubbed the “album king”, and they fully deserve this title when topping the top male artists with the highest album sales on Gaon in 2021. “Global group” sold a total of 7,208 9,20 copies, including about 3 million Butter singles.
Notably, this year BTS only released Butter, the rest comes from the old album sales of 7 boys. This shows that BTS still has great charm after 8 years of debut, not releasing a full album, but they are still able to dominate the chart and far ahead of their competitors.
Following BTS is NCT 127 with 4,045,684 copies. NCT Dream – its subgroup ranked 3rd thanks to 3,887,751 hard disks sold in 2021. The entire NCT system ranked 13th, showing the amazing growth of SM‘s boygroup as well as affiliated sub-units.
There is only one solo artist who entered the male idol total album sales chart in 2021, and that person is Baekhyun. The EXO member “dispersed” to 1,043,992 discs, showing that he has a large number of hardcore fans and a successful solo career as well as his group activities.
Female idols
Although TWICE has recently gone downhill, the group’s ability to sell albums is still very impressive. 9 JYP girls achieved total sales of 1,599,635 copies in 2021 – topping the entire female idol chart on Gaon.
Following TWICE, ITZY excellently won 2nd place with 920,891 copies. This year, ITZY made two comebacks with the albums GUESS WHO and Crazy In Love. Although the group’s digital music ranking was not as expected, the runner-up position of the female group showed the potential of the 5 girls.
BLACKPINK did not come back in 2021, but the album sales were still enough for them to rank 8th in the top 10. Notably, 2 members Rosé and Lisa also achieved great sales. With the single album LALISA, Lisa ranked 3rd (766,486 copies), while Rosé was only slightly behind her teammates when she won #4 with 622,624 hard disks -R- sold.
General chart
Considering the total album sales of male and female idols, it can be seen that the chart is dominated by male artists. With over 7 million copies of old and new albums sold on Gaon in 2021, it’s no surprise that BTS still holds the top spot. However, many people argued about the 2nd best boy group position. Between the two candidates, NCT and SEVENTEEN, the SM boys only won 200 votes, while the boy group from Pledis received 255 votes.
The surprise happened when TWICE won 9th place in the general chart, and ITZY excellently ranked 13th. They are the only 2 female representatives on this list, demonstrating the charm of JYP girl groups. With TWICE topping the female chart and being one of only two girl groups in the general chart, it’s easy to understand why Korean netizens have praised the 9 girls and said that they are still the number one female group of Kpop Gen 3.
Netizens’ comments:
- NCT vs SEVENTEEN, who is the current 2nd male idol group? NCT voteup / SEVENTEEN votedown
- BTS is seriously legendary
- #1 male idol is BTS, #1 female idol is TWICE
- Female idols ranked 1st, 2nd is TWICE and ITZYㄷㄷ As expected from JYP girl groups
- Baekhyun’s solo album hits 1 million copiesㄷㄷ Daebak
