Blackpink: The Group That Deserves So Much Better

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    On August 8, 2016, K-pop girl group Blackpink debuted their first single album titled “Square One”. What followed was almost four years of monumental success and world-renown fame. At a glance, that is all you’d see. Anyone that takes a minute to look at their history would tell you a different story. K-pop has a reputation of putting their artists through grueling training just to debut and Blackpink, of course, are no stranger to this. Where they differ to their other counterparts is the fact that their debut was delayed for four years. Main rapper and lead vocalist Jennie Kim auditioned first in August of 2010. Then came the main dancer and lead rapper Lisa Manoban in April of 2011. Lead vocalist and visual, Jisoo Kim was next a few months later in July and lastly, main vocalist and lead dancer Rosé Park in May of 2012. The quartet faced weekly and monthly evaluations and training for singing, dancing, rapping and more and were even graded. Every week, they’d watch other trainees leave with their dreams crushed. In 2011, YG released statements about debuting a new girl group that was rumored to have had more members and was going to be called “Pink Punk”. Their debut was pushed back and delayed until their debut showcase in 2016.

    “Square One” was a monumental success with singles “Whistle” and “Boombayah” breaking records such as charting at number one and two on the Billboard World Digital Songs chart, becoming the fastest act to do so and only the third Korean artist or group to hold the top two positions. “Whistle” topped the digital, download, streaming, and mobile charts on Gaon in August of 2016. They also reached number one on the weekly, popularity, music video, and K-pop music video charts of China's biggest music-streaming website QQ Music. Blackpink's first music show performance aired on August 14, 2016, on SBS' Inkigayo. They won first place 13 days after their debut and broke the record for the shortest time for a girl group to win on a music program after debuting.

    On the first of November 2016, Blackpink released their second singles album titled “Square Two” which included singles “Playing with Fire” and “Stay”. Their success in the first few months after debuting earned them Korean year-end music awards from the Asia Artist Awards, the Melon Music Awards, the Golden Disc Awards, the Seoul Music Awards, and the Gaon Chart Music Awards. Billboard named them one of the best new K-pop groups of 2016. Blackpink would not release any new music until nearly 8 months later when “As If It’s Your Last” was released on June 22nd of 2017. It debuted at number one on Billboard's World Digital Song chart after only one day of tracking, making it their third number one hit on the chart. The music video went on to break the record for the most liked music video by a Korean girl group on YouTube. On July 20th Blackpink had their showcase in Tokyo with more than 14,000 in attendance. Reportedly, more than 200,000 people tried to get tickets.

    With all of this success and momentum, one would think their company, YG, would push them to the front of their label and give them more releases and promo. The opposite occurred. It would take a year (358 days, to be exact) for Blackpink to release another album. On June 15, 2018, they released their first-ever EP by the name of “Square Up”. The lead track was “Ddu-Du Ddu-Du”.The release shattered records worldwide, debuting at number 17 on the Official Trending Chart in the UK, making them the first female K-pop group to enter the chart since its launch in 2016. The single also debuted as the highest-charting Hot 100 hit ever by an all-female K-pop act, opening at number 55 with 12.4 million U.S. streams in the tracking week ending on June 21, 2018. “Square Up” also brought the group their first entry and the highest-charting to date (2018) by an all-female K-pop group on the US Billboard 200, debuting at number 40. The EP topped the Billboard World Albums chart. In South Korea, “Square Up” debuted at number one on the Gaon Albums Chart. "Ddu-Du Ddu-Du" peaked at number one on the Digital, Download, Streaming and Mobile charts on Gaon in its second week. "Ddu-Du Ddu-Du" gained a total of 36.2 million views within 24 hours after its release on Youtube and became the most viewed online video in the first 24 hours by a Korean act and the second most-watched music video of all time on June of 2018. "Ddu-Du Ddu-Du” went on to become the first K-pop group music video to reach one billion views and only the second K-pop act to ever achieve this.

    It would be, yet again, another 10 months before Blackpink would release more music. On April 15, 2019, Blackpink released their second EP titled “Kill This Love”. It debuted on number 24 on the Billboard 200, and number 41 on the Billboard 100. Blackpink went on to perform at Coachella in 2019, becoming the first-ever K-pop girl group to do so. With all of this success, you would expect to see that this group would be at the top of its company’s priority list, but the facts show otherwise. Below is a chart showing the three current main groups in YG entertainment and how many songs each group released per year. 

    The difference is astounding. The two all-male groups have around 50 songs each while Blackpink has 14 in total. When we look into the numbers even more, we see Blackpink makes up for most of the revenue at YGE and that they lead in virtually every category for the company.

    Numbers don’t lie. Blackpink is objectively YGE’s most successful act by far. The question that fans have is simply…..why? Why is it that Blackpink has made YGE all of this revenue and yet they are the most mistreated group in the company? Why do the male groups get at least two comebacks per year when Blackpink gets one? Why is it that Blackpink has been a group for close to four years now and they still don’t have a full-length album? As of January of 2020, YGE has given iKON, Winner, Sechskies and rookie group Treasure comebacks, comeback dates, tours, and promotion. They have yet to officially announce any music-related plans for their most successful group, Blackpink. It will be yet another year between comebacks for the group and fans have gotten fed up with the clear mistreatment of the group. They have organized protests, boycotted, wrote to the company and have done just about anything to get YGE to make a change. Nothing has worked. This is disheartening not just for Blackpink fans but music fans in general. In a genre and industry that is still battling sexism and double standards, YGE should be the leader in change, not the ones holding us all back. Will this get them to finally act? Time will tell. Blackpink deserves better.