ITZY, Espa, IVE, and "4th Generation Girl Group" became girl group"

Despite the continued trend of COVID-19 this year, ITZY, Espa, and Ive have become the representatives of the "fourth generation girl group" with brilliant performances in the K-pop girl group market. Industries are naturally paying keen attention to next year's performance.

ITZT achieved its first win as "GUESS WHO," released in April this year, ranked 148th on the Billboard main chart "Billboard 200." Since then, "CRAZY IN LOVE," which was released in September, has ranked 11th on "Billboard 200," and the music video of WANNABE has continued to be rosy, breaking its own record of surpassing 400 million views.

ITZY's popularity led to Japan. ITZY announced its official debut on the 22nd by releasing Japan's best album "IT'z ITZY." The pre-released title song "Wannabe Japanese Version" drew attention by ranking second on the Record Choke K-pop Daily Chart and Line Music Song K-pop Daily Top 100 Chart.

In addition, he won the Best Musician Award and the Artist of the Year at the Asian Artist Awards and The Fact Music Awards, respectively, strengthening his position as a "fourth generation representative girl group."

The girl group Espa, who made a debut in October last year with the concept of coexistence of avatars, also performed well enough to overshadow the title of "Rookie," which has just passed the first anniversary of its debut.

Starting with his debut song "Black Mamba," "Next Level," which was released in May and November this year, and his mini-album "Savage" were loved by many fans and succeeded in hitting consecutive at-bats.

In particular, "Next Level" topped Melon 24Hits. Espa is the first girl group song to topped the list since the Melon chart was reorganized.

In addition, it broke a new record of entering the Spotify Global Chart Top 200 among K-pop girl groups within the shortest period of time and ranked 20th on the Billboard Artist 100 chart. Leading foreign media also focused on Espa's rapid growth and expected future performance.

Espa won three grand prizes (hot trend award, rookie award, stage award of the year) including the grand prize at 2021 AAA, and continued to win various awards, including four gold medals in "MMA 2021" and two gold medals in "2021 MAMA."

The girl group "Ive" which debuted with a single "ELEVEN" on the 1st, is also drawing attention. Ive, who advocated a complete idol despite his less than a month of activities, received high attention from global fans even before his debut.

Thanks to this interest, IVE's "Show!" 7 days after its debut! With the No. 1 champion, she broke the record of No. 1 in the shortest period of time for a girl group. Also, IVE is "The Show", "Show! Champion, "Music Bank". He also won first place in a row in "Music Core" and won five awards in less than a month.

The point to note is the sales volume. Ive, which quickly captivated fans around the world based on Ahn Yoo-jin and Jang Won-young from IZ*ONE, recorded more than 150,000 initial sales, the highest initial sales among rookie groups that debuted in 2021.

The music source also continued to be popular, and it was listed on Spotify, China QQ Music, and Billboard Global 200 as well as domestic music sites.

[WikiLeaks Korea = Reporter Choi Moonsoo]