Eternium

They literally broke that ground and appeared on multiple American showS (I was at GMA and Sunny waved to me). They also performed two sold-out concerts and had to book the Best Buy Theater just to do an encore fanmeeting that was sold out AND had a huge line outside. After SNSD broke through in the U.S., did we start to see U.S. distribution for K-pop albums? Yes. After SNSD made multiple television appearances in the U.S., did we start to see more K-pop groups promoting on U.S. television? Yes. After SNSD created photocards did we see a boom in overall Korean album sales reliant on photocard-selling tactics? Yes. Your faves literally owe EVERYTHING to them. As to your other points, I'm an Ayumi Hamasaki stan who collected her entire discography. I've followed Hikki almost all of my life and I followed Tomochin, Aachan and Yuko Oshima since their very early days. I'm aware of what's popular in Japan. SNSD had their digital numbers split between Korean and Japanese releases and they were STILL pulling Million certifications regularly and they're still getting new streaming certifications (despite that split) in 2026, signifying that their hits are still remembered. Ayu hasn't had an album outsell SNSD's 2011 peak since 2006. Hikki's last time was 2004 (2008 if you exclude global sales of Japanese albums). And AKB's only managed to outsell SNSD's peak twice in their career with endless handshake and high-five events. BTS has never outsold GG 2011 with a studio album And V very clearly went to SNSD's creative director and specifically asked for her help with his solo debut. There's no way around that. Two of the 7 even stated that their first albums ever were SNSD albums. The generation talk is getting muddled, tbh. DBSK started second gen. f(x) is the start of 2.5 gen. EXO is the start of third gen. I-DLE is the start of fourth gen. ILLIT is the start of fifth gen (BabyMonster and RIIZE, you will never be fifth gen no matter how hard your fans want to pretend). The only Gen up for debate is first gen between Seo Taji & The Boys and H.O.T. depending on whether you start with the first idol group or first major Korean pop group (excluding the Kim Sisters).

I find it so funny how K-pop idols will end up being friends with each other or fans of each other meanwhile the companies and stans are fighting to the death Girl, HYBE wouldn't exist the way it does today without SNSD and your faves would have never even have attempted to target our market. Claiming that pulling historic 15k+ attendance concerts and breaking the barrier for K-pop television promo performances in the U.S. isn't impact is a choice. On top of that, SNSD took the import market to a whole new level and took YesAsia and KTown4U to new levels. My genuine question is this: When did you get into K-Pop? Anyone who started stanning before 2009 can tell you how impossible it was to get Asian albums here, even when J-Pop had its first real surge in popularity in the late 90s through mid 00s. We vastly overrate success today because the market has been shifted due to ease and availability. Changes in production, inflation in touring and streaming numbers and social media number tracking deludes you all into thinking that K-pop had no success pre-2016. I think it's more that certain fans of male artists don't recognize their misogyny and so they feel comfortable downplaying the success of women. HYBE literally decided to cosplay as SM by hiring SNSD's creative director, Min Heejin, and even V asked her to personally direct his work. Imagine watching your fave reheat SNSD's nachos 16 years later (V with Layover, personally asking for SNSD's creative director) and then claiming SNSD had no impact.

Toxic - 1,986,856,207 Toxic Pony - 140,772,463 Toxic - Y2K & Alexander Lewis Remix - 29,973,519 Toxic Armand Van Helden Remix - 1,303,680 Toxic Lenny Bertoldo Radio Edit - 1,240,243 Toxic Peter Rauhofer Reconstruction Mix (Edit) - 1,204,060 Toxic - Bloodshy & Avant's Intoxicated Remix - 767,869 Etc. Took me less than two seconds to find out Toxic's above 2.18B streams on Spotify and will hit 2.2B before the end of the month. I know you girlies didn't grow up with computers, but please learn to work them if you're going to plague this forum with shitty takes.

They're third gen. They debuted in 2014, TWICE debuted in 2015 and BlackPink debuted in 2016. That is the same generation. Nobody's saying that BTS haven't been successful, but they have had well-documented payola and so it's hard to respect any of their numbers or achievements. There's a reason they weren't big until HYBE could get them autoplay and botted streams on Spotify. Please tell me how they paved the way. Not only did BoA, SES and TVXQ already breakthrough in Japan and SEA, but 2nd gen groups like SNSD and 2NE1 had large followings in the West. I literally followed SNSD around New York City with hundreds of other people in 2011. The real statistic that made K-pop look big here in the late 2010s and on was the rise of streaming and variant production, not BTS.

Anyways, let's celebrate ORGANIC success. It's nice to see people rewarding idols for their hard work.

This is correct. Boa and Rain had somewhat small followings here in the U.S., but SNSD's breakthrough literally gave us K-pop on online forums and websites dedicated to covering K-pop news. Would HYBE have even laundered all that money to fraudulently launch BTS's career if not for SNSD's domination? No. Yeah, by the time BTS even became a thing, TWICE already had a storied career and were huge in Japan. It's clear that Jihyo's just saying whatever because she knows how toxic that nasty fandom is. BTS's success is always vastly overrated thanks to HYBE paying for streams and album purchases. At the same point in their careers, SKZ has outsold and outstreamed BTS by a wide margin.

X (formerly Twitter)aespa pics (@aespapic) on XNINGNING PLAYED ONE OF THE NEW SONGS SHE MADE ON LIVE!! THIS IS SO GOODWhy are the women so good at creating their own music while male K-pop artists can't create a good song to save their lives? QueenQueen, we LOVE you!

Britney was in the midst of a radio ban which hurt MATM in the U.S. greatly. It was still a global smash. Unfortunately, this means that no effort has been put into its recurrent streams in either playlisting or high placements on Madonna's or Britney's essentials list. "Scream" is kinda bad, though the "Stip pressuring me" bit is a gag and will make an incredible sample one day.

You asked for quality MPG albums from 2016 and then omitted the top 2. Maybe turn that focus inward. Girl, we already know you don't care for any album where the B-sides aren't pure ****.

You can tell HYBE paid for it. But based on those latest earnings, they could only afford to get BTS to #10 while dragging Aespa to #11.

Confessions II being the best of these albums is kind of a kii.

Glory + Dangerous Woman > ANTi > Lemonade > Toucanne ANTi is Rihanna's best, but even her best has some unlistenable filler (Sex With Me). Lemonade was great for its time and has some truly great moments (Formation, All Night) and some truly abysmal moments (Hold Up). Joanne could've been an email.

The way you're all having a competition over who has the worst taste and you're somehow all winning

I had never heard of "Dai Dai" but just listened to it. Not a hit, truly horrendous and one of the most offensive music videos I've ever seen. Shakira is serving looks for the gods and the choreo is good (in some spots), but whomever did the visual effects and threw in all that AI needs to be publicly flogged.

They literally just announced a new Best Japanese album for 8/26 They're definitely gonna keep going for a few years.