Will do! By the way, how do you feel about aespa prereleasing track videos (like the ones for my world) for seemingly the entire album 😬😭 they did one for long chat and now licorice…I believe it’s a pattern
@@skittychuu hi! i don't know if you knew this, but nct (all units) released track videos continuously for their comebacks from 2020 to 2021, and then again in 2023. those ended up being very popular and even made some b-sides well known (lemonade, misfit etc.) so i think that's the reason it was carried on to aespa, to boost the popularity! imo they're better than pre-releases because you don't hear the full song, so you still look forward to hearing the actual album when it drops!
@@diana913 Thank you for informing me, I didn’t know that. My problem with the pre releases track videos is that you get to hear pretty good chunks of each song on the album before it drops, making the album listening experience much less fresh and new (I still love the songs, it’s just the album experience). I lPre released content typically gets a lot of engagement, so I’m not surprised those songs became popular.
@@skittychuu yeah, i understand. i agree in a sense because i'd rather listen to the song fresh but i still think it's better than pre-releases. nct used to do track videos for almost every song off their albums but in 2021 and 2023, they would only have 1 or 2. i think it's better that way idk why aespa's was literally the entire album
K-POP feels more and more like the music version of fast fashion recently with the way these companies are pumping out artists and music. They just can’t let anything cook.
I think this is because music globally is getting pumped fatser and faster. More artists are making tiktok music not in kpop, but because kpop already pumps out so much this tiktok fast fashioned type of rollouts are just so much more draining.
People have been saying this since years, especially older kpop singers from 1st gen said that the pace of hits now (at the time) is crazy fast and the notion of a hit compared to before is completely different.
this has always been a common thing in kpop but after the debut of newjeans becoming a hit , companies began attempting to recreate the success newjeans had with lackluster / incomplete songs being released this idea of following trends has always been around unlike in the west where celebrities released just one but full-length album once a year or every other year contrasting with kpop groups who released singles and mini-albums every couple of months 🤍🤍🤍
Also, pre-releases can DESTROY a rollout 😭. As AMAZING as Untouchable by Itzy was and as great as BTB/Mr. Vampire are, literally no one had any idea what the title track was, even actualy Midzy’s were confused. Same with the KMD album & Cake. Companies need to think them through because with a group like Itzy that is very prone to being dragged constantly, a comeback can be shut down before the title even drops with a pre-release, no matter how good the songs are.
The problem is the time, these companies can’t even think about an era A good example for it is blackpink 2020 the album, they dropped HYLT 2 months before the album so people have time to have a whole era with that single and then can enjoy the whole album(even when they dropped ice cream a month before, it didn’t affect bc they never promoted it)
@@afeliz2642 I agree with your opinion. Pre-release singles should be treated as an era and it has to be far enough from album or the next single. So that fans can enjoy it properly and by the time passes they will be ready to the next thing a group put out. But I think putting out a single from an album 2 months before does not work for every group. It works for big names for sure, but it might not work for smaller groups, hype may die in a short time.
I agree with your opinion too. I think it's important to stick to ONE image/ era with each concept switch up, and make it last a while. HYLT was and is still remembered very well because it lasted like a couple months, and there were so many TikToks using the song and i remember SO MANY girlies were doing the famous blonde black hair. The fashion also had a huge impact on HYLT's success. Same with Fancy by TWICE. it wasn't just unexpectedly released and the concept stayed with the girls for a good while, so there were no quick random concept switch ups/ new eras. It's very important that companies give time for fans rather than unexpectedly dropping new songs and concept switch ups with NO warning whatsoever.
I don't necessarily feel like pre-releases are the problem you're highlighting. The issue is really that Kpop doesn't really prioritize the album experience. To stay in the topic of aespa, I think Welcome To My World is an example of an excellent pre-release that introduced the real world concept of the EP. When you have a good lead track, it'll make for a good pre-release. If your EP or album is a collection of songs, then whether or not there's a pre-release or it's all dropped at once, the album experience is going to be kind of underwhelming. At the end of the day I don't think many people actually listen to Kpop albums all the way through while listening to the lyrics for thematic content, so it's rarely worth the effort to make a cohesive album and I don't think the audience is ever going to change listening habits. Maybe Kpop branded cd players becoming cool could do that, Idk.
I feel Blackpink, (G)i-dle and Aespa do prereleases the best. (G)i-dle and Aespa uses prereleases that are connected to their main tracks. Like (G)i-dle Allergy mv is connected to Queencard mv. Aespa Welcome to my World showed their storyline and is where they go to the real world for the first time with Naevis. Blackpink treats their prereleases as main tracks and promote them, and there is a distance between the releases, so no track gets overshadowed.
Completely agree. The first step in creating a good comeback itself is making a good album and one that is centered around the title track itself and not a compilation of jumbled songs. Then you can choose the pre release as a song that best opens the album. For reference, some of my favorite cohesive albums are MY WORLD by aespa (as you said), Reve Festival 2022 by Red Velvet, Formula of Love, Taste of Love (both by TWICE), Dark Blood by Enhypen, etc. I also agree that many of the albums now are losing consistency in overall theme, which we need to have.
I like prereleases when they add to the overall project, but as you said, I think the core of the problem is that most projects in kpop nowadays don’t really have much intention to them outside of mass marketing. I believe pre-releases work best when they represent or introduce an idea behind a body of work, so when the album in question is just a collection of random songs for different marketing purposes, I think that’s why it stings so much in retrospect
it seems like you might be more frustrated with general over saturation/exposure. i personally tend not to consume pre-releases or trailers for music, tv shows, or movies i’m really looking forward to. but something i’ve noticed since i got into kpop is that the genre tends to get overwhelming quickly due to such large amounts of content coming out at once. with this current era of pre releases and more frequent comebacks (in all music industries honestly), over saturation has become more of an issue.
I couldn't agree more! I'm also like you, I don't like spoiling anything or overwhelming myself but bc of this I can't keep up and I missed multiple releases. Whenever I try to dedicate some time for consuming said releases, the groups I listen to already have other comebacks lined up it's insane 😭
pre-release is just another word for dropping singles before an album, which is the norm for pop music. so i dont really get the whole convo about that like if it was something new? we're all already familiar with "pre-releases", it's just that no one uses that term outside of the kpop industy
Good point but that's because in k-pop compared to basically any other industry, title tracks and b-sides are very specific while those terms are not used outside k-pop. There are just lead singles, albums and more singles. The concept of a "title track" being the only promoted song of the album is absurd in pop music. But in kpop it's the norm, which puts everything to a different position. So any song that comes before the album is either a title track or a b-side. That's when those terms become very annoying, because in kpop the whole point of the derived term of b-side is that it's a song that is not promoted or at least doesn't have an MV. So you see with pre-releases it's all about deciding if the song is worth being called a title track or not, how much promo it's going to get, etc. It can never just be a "single" and that's it. But I agree it would simplify things but the system in k-pop is so different and rigid for songs promotions.
What made me dislike pre-releases, or at least poorly planned pre-releases was ITZY's Born to Be era. They had 2 main prereleases: Born to Be and Mr. Vampire. A comeback: Untouchable. And they did pre-releases of all of the member's solos (granted 4/5 were only have the song). And let me tell you as a casual ITZY enjoyer i was SO over saturated and overall ended up turning away from the final project. And they made music videos for ALL of the prereleases. Thats SIX music videos BEFORE the comeback. And to make matters worse, their actual comeback was in january. And to put it into perspective, during January, JYPE had ITZY, NMIXX, VCHA, and TWICE all promoting at the SAME time. And Stray Kidz had just had their comeback with LALALALA only a few months prior. So, money was being *spent* at JYPE during this time. And unfortunately with ITZY you can tell. All seven of ITZY's music videos from this area are massively subpar compared to their typical music videos. Born To Be was an elabroate performance video, Untouchable was very bland and Mr. Vampire....dont even get me started. And dont ask me about the solo music videos bc i only watched them once and dont remember anything (which goes to show you how excellent this marketing decision was). Despite the fact that i actually LIKED the music from this era, im not going to remember it for anything good. Im only going to thing of it as that time ITZY released way to many underfunded mediocre MV's
It's funny because born to be era made me like pre releases even more, since my memory is trash, having mvs for the bsides helped me remember the songs, the only songs i don't remember are the ones without a mv, and one of the few albums i remember every song is kiss of life's debut album, because every song have a mv
I think that's a you problem. I'd rather like the entire album to have MVs so I can listen to it on RUclips. K-pop comeback aren't just the title tracks and the other songs should algo get the spotlight
@@ignaciotorovillacura6342oh it's definitely a me problem. And to me, this era was messy. If other fans like you enjoy the extra mvs then I'm happy for you! Truly! It just didnt work for me.
this is something i’ve been WAITING for someone to bring up because it’s been one of my gripes too. mine is ESPECIALLY with the teasers for most kpop groups right now which spoil the ENTIRE chorus of the song. i’m just like you in the sense that i want to be completely surprised by the songs that i’m hearing when they drop. it gives me an all-new listening experience, allowing me to engage with the music more and have a more genuine reaction to it, honestly just making it more fun. i understand the point behind pre-releasing from a marketing standpoint but as a listener, this trend with pre-releases and teasers takes away some of my favorite pieces of the listening experience 😞.
what i love for a prerelease was ChungHa for Querencia. Like it felt like the american album release schedule, like 4 lead singles on a 20 track (but 5 are interludes) spread out over like 6 months. I love that project and I agree that the issue with the prereleases is that there isn't enough musical content in the album itself. After college I found myself watching the music show stages less and less, like I have a job-even in my senior year I had like all intensive projects for my major-so I'm less interested in a project that just feels like the 2 best songs are on repeat constantly too. Like I've been a fan since SNSD prime days, its like back then kpop artists would do max 2 releases a year because it was whole albums, not mini albums as much, and they were bodies of work. I still listen to Holiday Night, Reboot, Pink Tape, Twicetagram, Lion Heart, and all those, because it felt like there is so much there.
I agree with your concerns about how companies are obsessed with releasing music and touring their artists. Some groups just tour non stop, like they drop an album, start touring right away, and drop some kind of EP in the middle of the tour and continue. once a tour finishes, another full album then what? tour again!
Selling merch through tours makes the most money for musicians, so it makes sense. For bigger groups, touring is likely one of the biggest revenue streams.
I'm not sure what's the problem. How do you expect them to make money when touring (and brand ambassadors) makes up the biggest artist revenue. It's why you see old kpop groups like 2nd gen often didn't receive their first paycheck even after a major hit and took some more time because Koreans (unlike Japanese) don't have concert culture and it's worse bcos they had to divide the few coins they got with other members. It's also why any idol attractive enough to do acting even in unknown dramas will pursue it bcos it pays better. Kpop groups hit a jackpot if they're big in Japan bcos they can tour with less logistic cost than touring in the US and Europe.
I actually quite like how LeSserafim does this, giving a B-side an mv and promotion after the title track and album release. I agree that with EP&tBW they went overboard with it, but in general this tactic gives releases longevity.
Yes i remember how happy i was that Smart, my favourite song on the Easy ep got a music video. I wonder if they already plan on which bside to give a mv or if they wait and see which is most popular and well reseved?
I just like getting more MVs for more songs lol. But what I /don't/ like is prereleases dropping SEVERAL weeks before the album, like what ARTMS is doing
Pre release singles are usually supposed to be released months before an album gets their full released. It just that K-pop relies so much on frequent comeback that these pre release singles don’t have enough time to soak in
@@bop4158 It‘s because these labels and promo teams don‘t know how to promote shit.. they probably wouldn't be able to promote even a studio album for over a year and would rather have the group release an EP immediately after
In the west pre-releases are done to emphasise the beginning of a new era for the artist. Sometimes they are done a year before the actual album, usually they are done months before the album or a month before it. For example, The Weeknd's "After Hours" album shows how it's done. There are four singles on the album that transform the whole album into an experience which leads the viewer to see the new era. The problem with Kpop is that usually pre-releases have nothing to do with the actual album and are done too close to its release - two weeks are too little time between a pre-release and an actual title track. Blackpink's pre-releases are done the best way in my opinion. The group has less music so they can drop their pre-release two or three months before the actual album's title track and at the end we can see how both songs are extremely popular. Another example is G-idle's pre-release "Allergy" which presented a perfect storyline for the entire album and "Queencard" as a title track received the needed attention.
Yeah, Kpop is sorta mimicking how Western albums are released. One or two singles released before the album(and some times, non-singles are also release too). But of course, the main difference is that it's actual albums with like 12-20 songs, not mini albums/EP's. Also, these artists usually take a 2-3 year break(some exceptions of course), so when they do come back, they promote the album with multiple singles. Kpop don't take that much time off unless they're a veteran act or a group that's been put on the backburner.
As someone who doesn't closely follow NewJeans I was so confused during the Get Up era seeing all those MV releases before ETA. Naturally their songs would be used everywhere on social media so I was wondering which was meant to be a title track. Now I had no idea that Supernova was just a pre-release.
Your perspective is tinged by being so entrenched in K-pop, these aren’t even noticeable issues for most listeners/fans. These tactics are what works best for the majority of the customer base, but I do agree with you about the overall decline in quality
The prerelease choices of girls era was so weird?? Like honey if you wanted the American market Illusion was right there, we would have eaten that shit UP 😂
I've always been pushing that same thought, Illusion would have been an absolute banger here, in the UK. ...I listened to it just before watching this video. lol
personally i think pre-release is just an affect of the western market. normally american artist will have 1 or 2 singles before they drop the album, i think the only issue is that the kpop industry has groomed their audience to constantly want thing’s immediately, which makes the preleases a little closer to the main release, ruining the point of the roll out.
As a multistan having multiple groups with comebacks and having prereleases is honestly getting to an overwhelming point. I do like when groups drop like a medley of the album just to get a taste of the album itself. Although rn I am taking more of a step back with kpop as issues continue to occur and boycotting is taking place
With pre releases it means more mvs, with more mvs it means that I'll remember at least 2 songs on the album, so i like them very much. Yes, my memory is horrible like that, i listened to piwon's new album 3 or 4 times and i only remember late night call, and all ive albums, only 2 songs without mv maximum, and the only songs i don't remember on BTB by Itzy are the ones without mv, so if you give me more songs to remember, im happy
I think the problem is, K-pop doesn't have time to slow down and allow for this long drawn out artistry to actually happen. The industry is so oversaturated now, unlike it was 10 or even 8 years ago. Companies can't afford to have their idols disappear for 7-8 months because a new, shiny group (or 5) will come along and steal the attention or their fans. K-pop fans (especially internationally) are fickle. They're quick to run to the next new thing that one of the big 4 pump out (and god are they pumping them out....especially HYBE), so even though i have the same sentiments about pre-releases (and the lack of long albums...god I wish tripleS had had a few more songs on their newest joint even though it's still fantastic), I understand why they're done. It's even harder for non-big 4 companies to keep audiences when the giants are taking up all the spotlight. Unfortunately I don't think this will stop any time soon. There's apparently the new sm girl group this year, a british boy group from them too, some hybe groups debuting, new jyp gg and bg on the horizon and despite only just debuting, it seems like babymonster will be getting an official rival group with the arrival of the new black label gg. This not even counting the smaller/medium sized companies that will be debuting new groups and the survival show groups (don't even get me started on how much survival shows have ruined k-Pop). It's a shame but unless there's a massive shift and no demand, then there will always be supply.
Agree with all your points. The market is OVERSATURATED to a point that I think it'll damage the chance of K-pop to go global cause there is to many group
@@Yoongi10269 K-pop is already global but what's probably going to happen is its growth is going to slow down. It's not going to go away but eventually start to recede a bit.
@@MrSuperjam789 I know but by global I mean "general public" like for BTS and bp. I really think that too many bands will "pull back" the general public from abroad and contribute to driving them away from the industry. That a band has a fanbase abroad is fine, but what I mean by global is the general public: they're the ones who helped both BTS and Blackpink, and I don't see that helping with the new bands apart from Stray Kids, before Itzy and at the moment a bit of New Jeans
I think they’re trying to follow the western style, where people put out releases before the album. The thing is these kpop “Albums” are less than 5 songs so it’s so what’s the point? I was genuinely pissed with how JYP let all the mvs out before the album dropped. What’s the point of waiting on the album to drop if you’re giving it to us all now? At least wait til a few days after release. I usually don’t like the pre releases, with an exception of a few.
i feel like it's just so an album can get some traction, and also so fans know what concept/sound is coming to decide whether they want to preorder the album/presave it? the promotion... well that's just how groups work? marketing is how kpop groups become known, so if they need to mass promote a song on tiktok or instagram, let it be. kpop groups and idols want to be successful, so why wouldn't they "mass market' a song they put effort into making, even if the song's purpose was to only mass promote? yes, it does kinda suck knowing some songs are clearly just for cash grabs or whatever, but i don't think it's ever that serious. it's just a song. in reality, we just have to understand that this is what kpop is right now, bc it's what works best. but that's just me, everyone has different opinions. i just don't think pre-releases really are that serious that we need a whole convo about it.
Supernova isn't a pre-release though, I mean it is in the sense that it's out before the album but it IS a title track as well. But it doesn't really bother me generally. It's like singles with western releases so I don't see why they wouldn't do it too, for full albums especially where there are still enough new songs to discover. I understand better for mini albums tho, it's frustrating when you see you don't have much brand new songs to listen to
this is worded a bit strangely in my opinion, as if prereleases are something unique to kpop when its the opposite, dropping an album and the single / title track at the same time is something only kpop artists do (for the most part, i guess taylor swift has started doing it too). wish you would have mentioned artms, their prerelease concept for their first album DALL is pretty interesting and it's going to be interesting to see how their prerelease singles affect the flow of the album
Pre-releases in K-Pop are only a problem because they only really release EPs/mini-albums with like max. 8 songs, so having multiple singles/songs being released before an EP with like 6-8 songs is not a smart move necessarily. 12:02 NO CAUSE THIS IS SO TRUE. They‘re putting EP out after EP. No time for the group to involve artistically and also get a rest. And some EPs by some groups could be very well one studio album instead of two-three EPs. Also, this is also my problem, the songs are short asf, the EPs in results are also then so short.
i think loona's XX and BTS's wings album had perfect album rollouts. well thought out artistic trailers that connect to the album concept and tease the title track, no pre-release, a clear separation from their last comeback thanks to the time gap and the change in visuals. the rollout doesn't feel like it dragged because the trailers were spaced apart well and had substance to theorize and mull over, and MOST of all, the title tracks did not disappoint, and neither did the b-sides. i find that with a lot of the current releases, even when the pre-album rollout is nice, the actual title track and the b-sides end up being so much less interesting than the teasers because the group is tryna be radio friendly.
as a long time kpop listener , pre release is like a appetizer, it really shows if the company have emphasize on the groups concept or its just a blatant money grabbing release.
I’ve never had a ‘problem’ with pre releases but it’s because I grew up used to western artists. There was always a lead single released before the album, and subsequent singles were called 2nd single, 3rd single and so forth. The issue with kpop is that it wasn’t like this when I started listening to it so the industry as a whole is still working out the process. I mean, most kpop groups back then always had the title track come out with the album on the same day and that was it. Promoting a b side along with the title was also very rare unlike these days where top groups are expected to do so. The positive thing is that I do feel like overall albums have improved in quality (labels adding in more songs to appeal to more potential listeners) instead of packing albums with fillers like back then coz albums being purchased had a lottt to do with titles. In fact, a group’s current cb depended a lot on their previous one. However now that streaming defeats the point of purchasing physical albums, enjoying an album no longer hinges on the title. Pre-releases kind of try hyping up the album for more people. But I do think most kpop agencies are still not fantastic with this approach, after all, this wasn’t how they marketed albums before.
For me more MVs and more songs being promoted are better than having just one MV for the title track. I like my world more than drama bc they made videos for almost every song. I think its good when before an album release you can check how its gonna be so if you don't like it then don't buy it. Idk I don't have a problem with over consuming a song that I like or having new tracks every week from a group I like
12:54 I think we have a very similar viewpoint with a lot of this stuff. I feel acknowledged with this video lol. I don't mind too much of waiting for release schedules either, but I think a lot of the consumers do. Others may just want a lot to consume and want to see frequent consistent drops even if the album/style isn't their cup of tea, at least they're active. I think all of this goes hand and hand with songs becoming shorter too (in terms of themes in albums as I remember them) it's way easier to do that in a 3-4 min track, but not so much in a 2-2:20 length song.
The change I had to adapt to the most when I started consuming Kpop was how frequent comeback periods are, and how much a group I stan will drop music. Being a fan of Vince Staples, Kendrick, Tyler the Creator, etc. I had to wait extensive periods of time for new music to drop, but I didn't mind because the quality was always there, typically with a well formed narrative. In Kpop a lot of these companies aim for profits, and just churn out comebacks like a bakery does with it's daily special. Thanks for commenting! You're one of the few reaction based channels I actually watch so your support is appreciated! Keep up the great work! :)
I think (G)I-DLE is a good example too. Allergy was a perfect appetizer for the Queencard comeback’s main course (sonically, thematically, narratively, etc.) What exactly did Wife add to the Super Lady comeback artistically? (Other than being an iconic flash in the pan, of course.) Maaaaaybe something specific I missed, but casual fans like me will miss it. Sometimes it adds to the art moment, sometimes it takes me out of it.
I've never understood the whole general concept for pre-releases. Even if it's a 10 track album and they only shared just one song prior. I'm exactly the same like you. I really need to get the whole album as one whole package fresh in the moment. So I can digest it all at once together, like it's meant to be. I fully agree with the argument that usually in kpop songs don't even relate as one similar cohesive story. So what is even the point of a pre-release? I think ColoRise by Weeekly came close enough to it. Or Last Sequence by WJSN. Or Unlock My World by aespa. I would recommend those for a cohesive album in sound and lyric theme.
Imo, I'm not against pre-releases (if they serve their purpose right) but I wish companies would change their approach to it. Singles/lead singles have been a common practice in western music for a long time & I think kpop is trying to emulate it. The difference however is that singles are is more spaced out (2-4 months between), the tracks are chosen deliberately (fan favourite, gives broad idea of what to expect, etc), & they often match the length of the album. Plus considering how short kpop albums can be, they should be more conscious of how many songs they release before & figure out the intent (why this song? what's the purpose?). I also feel like the need to put out as much music as possible tends to kill hype for the album very quickly. For example, SM released 2 other tracks for the upcoming aespa album within 24 hours of Supernova's release but what purpose do they serve? Do they give us an idea of what to expect of the album? Why weren't they just released later on? Why not make a lyric video instead? I think one way companies can resolve this would be to have a slower album roll-out (having the releases take places within a couple months) & consider putting out singles after the album is released (i.e seeing which songs are fan favourites & then promoting them). One group who did a pretty good job at this was Blackpink for their first album. Not only were the tracks deliberately chosen (give listeners an idea of what to expect) the releases were spaced out so the songs wouldn't outshine the other or overwhelm fans. Also thank you for mentioning the whole touring & back-to-back release approach in kpop. I feel like the industry struggles with differentiating relevance & overexposure but that's a topic for another time.
I feel like you summarized how I feel about pre-releases too. I also rather listen to a whole album together for my first listen. Whenever there are pre-releases, I usually skip over them when I listen to the album since I’m already familiar with the song at that point and just want to hear the new songs.
A Jack In the Box mention!! That album was absolute excellence. The fact that he could craft a Lollapalooza set into an entire thematic experience shows how incredible J-hope is as an artist. It’s been almost 2 years, and I haven’t moved on. I’ve never been so in awe. J-Hope and Agust D have that spark that gets me so excited for their work as soloist.
Sometimes I also feel like pre-releases end up ruining the title track for me (or at least making me enjoy it less), because there have been cases where I enjoyed the pre-release so much that I felt like it should've been the title track instead (for example, I loved illusion by aespa, but i was extremely underwhelmed with the girls, or i loooooved sweat by zerobaseone, and i did like feel the pop but it felt "weaker" in comparison)
finally someone talking about zb1 😭 they're so slept on... the members definitely requested for sweat to be a pre-release for a reason. sweat relatively made more sense as a pre-release to separate it from the album since the album isn't sonically coherent and it's really tt material, and i agree that it's stronger than ftp. it's unfortunate that out of the album i only really love sweat and dear eclipse, which made listening to the album for the first time quite underwhelming, in comparison to melting point, even though technically i should prefer yhmah because it has more songs that i really love
I'm so glad I've found someone else as frustrated with pre-releases as I am lol. Pre-releases can be done well; I think BTS honestly pulls them off the best, especially back during the Love Yourself and Map of the Soul series where the members' solo intros would be released two weeks before the album in order to set the tone for the upcoming era. But so many companies manage pre-releases absolutely horribly. Newjeans' method of pre-releases genuinely pisses me off lmao. I tolerated it at debut when they put all of the songs on RUclips before eventually putting them on Spotify; I thought, "Okay, this is just a cute experiment they're trying for their debut. No harm in that." But when they repeated that same method for the Get Up album? Oh I hated that so much. There is no point in listening to an album in full when I've already heard the entire album on RUclips or via TikTok teasers, especially an album as criminally short as Get Up. I was praying to every god out there that Min Heejin wouldn't take the same route for Layover's release when she worked with Taehyung. I am begging companies to stop making pre-releases and instead go back to the era of promoting b-sides as secondary title tracks after the album has been released (akin to what BTS did with Mic Drop after DNA's promotions had finished).
We’re getting in an era of Fast Kpop, honestly... Also, I’ve noticed that there’s really not that many people that listen to albums anymore... unless it’s from their faves
Pre-releases are fine as long as the title track is something bigger or more impactful for the group and their discography. I think a great example of this would be IVE's Kitsch and I AM. Kitsch was a great pre-release track because the album had eleven tracks on it so we still had ten new tracks to look forward to (unless if you keep up with their concert clips where they performed Blue Blood and Not Your Girl, in which case it would've been eight new tracks) and Kitsch was a bit different from what we were used to seeing with IVE. Don't get me wrong, it's got that IVE sound and feeling, but it was still different. It kept people engaged, it smashed the charts and did it's job of hyping people up for their album or at the very least, it made people interested to see what they would do next. Then I AM dropped and it felt so much bigger than Kitsch. It's the most posh and elegant we've ever seen IVE be, it sold incredibly well, it charted well and everything about the release felt big. Bigger than your usual album drop. It genuinely felt like an event and I think that was partially due to the success of Kitsch and how it made people want to listen to the album.
@@hitmanbangsyellowcrocs4213 well yeah that’s kind of obvious. I will say, I don’t think the pre-release strategy worked as well for the IVE MINE album as that was 1/3 of the album that got spoiled and we technically only got four brand new never heard before tracks. Pre-releases work better after a groups taken a long break or if it’s for a full album.
There is literally no reason for a group to go on tour every year. Touring is supposed to be a treat! It's a novel experience. Fans should not come to expect a tour from any of the big companies every year. It isn't healthy, for neither the immature, expectant fans, nor the idol who runs themselves into exhaustion.
In Itzy‘s case. It‘s more standard in the western pop industry to release a handful of singles and accompanying MVs before an album drops. However, they plan it out more carefully and with more space in between the releases, not everything at once. I mean it didn't help their case that the album was announced one month before its release and dropping all the singles and MVs before the entire thing drops. Cause there‘s nothing bad with announcing an album one-two months before release but that only works if some singles have been already dropped. Not if nothing is known about it, whatsoever. And in my opinion, the solos didn't need a video, track-motion video or whatever they‘re called, cause those weren’t even like actual MVs cause it‘s not even the entire song for each one. (This still bugs me so hard) Again, in the pop industry releasing some singles before and even after the album drops/dropped is the norm but they don‘t release everything all at once
Wouldn’t that mean life’s too short and illusion were also singles? I’m pretty sure pre-releases can be singles they aren’t mutually exclusive, maybe I’m wrong though.
@@TaejiuI think the original comment means…even though we all know all these songs are singles, supernova is a title track before the album, and for example welcome to my world or LTS are single pre release that will not have the support of a TT
@@afeliz2642 I think when it comes down to it, whether or not it's a TT, it's still a pre-release by definition. It is being released before the album's release, making it a pre-release, which then feeds into how horrible Kpop semantics are. By pre-release standards, Supernova, WTMY, and Illusion are all technically pre-releases.
I personally love when we get videos for other songs AFTER the title track/album release. But for my favorite groups I just want as many things as I can get from them. I liked what Ateez did with their solo/duo MVs coming after the title instead of Itzy’s pre-release solos that seemed like too much before the full release.
I feel basically the opposite way. I prefer everything to be slowly rolled out little by little. I like to devote all my time and attention to each thing/song separately. I often get overwhelmed with too much at once. If I could have one song a day until the whole album has been revealed, I'd take that. Too often I don't fully appreciate a bside until months later because it was buried within all the other songs. So pre- releases are a big positive for me personally. Also, I tend to view them as an additional song that wasn't meant to be on the album anyway. Like the ones that don't fit the vibe (ie Wife, Life's Too Short) they are basically just bonus songs for me. Also, pre-releases provide another "first time" MV experience. I know bsides get MVs sometimes but you already know the song when they are released after the album. With pre-releases, you get to hear a song for the first time with the visual element of the MV as well. I really enjoy hearing a song for the first time while watching the MV. This way not only do you get this experience with the title track but also with any pre-releases.
Very good points. I'm curious about your thoughts on how NewJeans approach their releases for their upcoming double single albums with them literally dropping big chunks of their songs on commercials. While I was open to their approach at first, but it turns out I personally found that the impact for Bubblegum wasn't as exciting because I heard like 70% of the song already on the shampoo ad. And I really like Bubblegum, but add to the fact that they haven't dropped the song on streaming platforms while the whole MV is out on RUclips for weeks, personally is kinda irritating to me.
for me using it on ad didn't do anything bad, I was equally curious for the song, but I believe that it should have been put on streaming platforms. I really want the listening experience, watching the MV on youtube is not always good experience. and here they are using Right Now on another ad campaign. :grinning_face_with_sweat:
I feel the I feel album properly used the pre release concept. As ans when the concept of pre release was getting popular, gidle used a non messy and clear way to use the trend. They started it off as an episode series, with a story in Allergy and the climax in queencard, with the songs and messages also being very clearly. People dont talk about how planned this was. Same with wife and super lady, wife was a completely diff vibe but gave the perfect vibes ans message of a pre release, calling attention to the bold message and corny, fun lyrics before coming back with a mega scale powerful and fearless concept, with Super Lady.
pre releases are great. i love knowing 1-2 songs from a project, it creates a sense of familiarity when i get to listen to the full project. way less overwhelming for sure. have u ever heard of western artists dropping singles??? this is such a nitpicky take. soooo many double standers with kpop and western artists. if u don't like pre-releases just DON'T LISTEN TO THEM. yes it's that easy, i know. i think the actual problem is when kpop artist's pre-releases don't immediately go on streaming alongside the music video.
I kind of feel that way with new jeans’ bubblegum. Like I adore the song, but I believe there’s only gonna be that song, and one more on the EP? , so they’re releasing it so early (only on yt, not even to stream like almost three weeks in advance?? it’s kind of like… why though. Same with the teaser for right now and supernatural, like they release that I think a week ago, and we’re getting the right now + supernatural album in like MID June.
to a certain extent, I don't mind pre-release tracks? but it definitely feels more exciting when they take the route of a promoted b-side. i also feel like it extends the promotion era and work and becomes more exhausting for idols. instead of 1.5 months of promotion, it's extended out to 2 or 3 months because they are promoting this pre-release for several weeks before the comeback. i agree that it's easier to tire of the songs and whole album as a result too. it also kills the momentum sometimes. thankfully, dash did really well despite soñar breaker AND run for roses being such extended pre-releases. but i feel like basically every song on born to be being a pre-release (including the solos!) killed some of the hype especially with the high standard set by born to be. (and i LOVED untouchable!) overall i think it works amazing for the most popular of groups but is it a bit detrimental for less popular ones
I like it how le sserafim and illit does extra mvs (there are for shure more but i dont know right now) But they drop the ep/album and then after 1 or 2 weeks they drop an mv for an bside i like that much much more ( that way the album stays relevant for a bit more too😅😅)
Completely understand what you mean, and unfortunately, I personally tend to mindlessly say "YEAH YEAH!!! I love more music from my favorite idols," but sadly there is a lack of craft and artistry in much of the media our favorites have put out recently. I know Itzy can have better quality products for their Midzys, although I still support them all the way no matter what. I just love hearing from my favorite groups, but I do agree that time and effort has a role in MUCH better quality results. 👍🏻
I remember New Jeans' debut was kinda wild to me bc it has 4 songs and they pre released 2 of them which is half of the ep. Although they didn't put them on streaming services yet so like I guess you still had to wait to stream them legitimately but like??? That's also kinda strange to make fans wait weeks to listen to a non mv version of these songs. Obviously it worked out for them though and honestly the fact that there was literally no lead up to the attention mv dropping might have made it seem less strange.
Personally, I am happy with prerelease. Prior to prerelease era, most of the public attention would be on title track that’s heavily promoted in music shows. To me, if we can give the love and attention to prerelease song, that would be great too.
oh frrrr i think we need to have conversations that capitalism is degrading artistry. like the companies are just looking out for their year end revenue when instead they should be spending money on crafting an album that leaves an impact. its saddening because personally if i had big 4 resources i would be working with the most forward thinking song writers, producers and creative directors to make something that leaves an impression not just an earworm that will be forgotten (dont get me wrong i love kpop but its also good to critique it as well)
I've been listening to kpop consistently since 2015 but fell out of my fav group's activities for a few years. So, when I came back I was baffled by the amount of pre-releases comebacks were having. I was used to the main single then new single for repackaged album format so I was at first confused by all the pre-releases and not only did it make the final single underwhelming, it confused me as for WHICH single was the main one since pre-releases aren't yet a uniform format that all companies are doing for comebacks. When I heard Supernova I thought it was the main single, especially with those teasers :')
Finally someone agrees with me. Pre releases, for me are just spoilers of the comeback. Cuz it just destroys that excitement and anticipation of a proper comeback. I personally try to avoid pre-releases completely until the full comeback. That's also the reason the song just becomes stale for me. When skz had a cb last year I COMPLETELY avoided the two performance videos of Megaverse and Leave it would've killed that excitement and joy of listening to your favorite group's new song after like a 7/8 months hiatus
Just fyi Supernova is a Title track, in this album they have 2 TT 😞 I actually like the pre releases, they can be confusing but in groups like aespa they make like cute little mvs for their b-sides and it’s fun
Part of my issue with prereleases too is that it gives the company the opportunity to have the group promoting and on music shows for literally months. I LOVE NMixx's fe:304 like it's my album of the year so far, but from the time they first performed/released Soñar and Run for Roses to the end of Dash promotions was a HUGE span of time. Don't get me wrong, I ate it up and loved all of the songs, but those girls were WORKING
pre-releases are just an excuse for kpop companies to hype up a group's comeback whilst gaining money and in theory the idea should work but as you pointed out if a company chooses the wrong song to pre-release for its group's album most people wouldnt bother listening to the actual drop if they didn't like it. i personally think that some groups pull off the whole pre-release thing well like aespa, i think welcome to my world and supernova are both solid pre-releases and i like it more than some other tracks on the following album my world. i really think it depends on how much effort was put into the pre-release because its obvious when a company just wants money from it.
I completely agree. Even if companies don’t approach their music content differently and just simply give us time to breathe in between a group’s comeback, it will do wonders for the group.
You literally just said what I think haha This is the reason why it's so hard for me to completely stan others kpop groups (bg and gg) I have only had a few on my radar for a long time and with these groups they are the ones that I always follow absolutely everything they release when they make a comeback, the groups are BTS, ITZY and TWICE. The rest of the groups that interest me (aespa for example, I like them) I only follow them a little bit just to see what they do and now, I don't see anything more about them But I really feel that in K-pop they don't care about quality, they don't take the time to create incredible things, they just release and release content. Pre-releases is an example of this, I don't see the need for them to do that, they damage the experience of listening to a new album and enjoying the new thing. It is something very strange but companies do this more and more, it is a saturation of content. And no, it doesn't feel like they're taking a break because after the comeback they continue to take them to promotions, whether doing concerts, interviews, shows, whatever. They don't let the idols rest and much less allow the creative team to think properly before releasing something new. You can see that companies are only interested in generating the most money and they compete among themselves for that, they only care if they achieve something on the charts or not. Kpop has become very boring lately.
I love pre-releases. It draws out the comeback to a several week event, rather than one big "dump" at once. Also allows the groups to promote one song at a time. More live stages, more MVs, more fun. 😊
Its not just prereleases but for Mini albums every song having a music Video or Performance Video. For me its kind of weird to not have a deepcut b side anymore. For example songs like the bsides from ives full Album that are just that. Songs without and visuals or Video that have been performed live a couple of times and thats it. As if idols dont have enough to do with the mv and choreo, now you have so much more for them to do. Oversaturation is a thing already without prereleases
the whole prerelease cadence we are experiencing in kpop could work if it didn’t feel as overly meticulous and disingenuous. singles are something that works, right? quite literally most artists in the west drop at least a single or two before their full length project to garner buzz, and it works. in an industry like kpop, where things are so fast paced and the business practices feel as if they’re being sold to you as much as the music is, people can’t help but feel overwhelmed and turned away by the mass amount of product. overconsumption has always been an issue, but with the climate of the world currently, it all feels to be too much and hold little to no value other than short gratification. i love kpop so much, really, but the turnover rate and lack of intention (outside of monetary gain) will be it’s detriment :/
The problem I have with pre-releases is that I often don't know that they're pre-releases and then mistake them for the title tracks. And this then ruins the whole comeback for me, because I'm juct confused and can't enjoy the music completely. I only know of pre-releases if I follow the groups youtube channel and see the community posts on there, but I only do that for a few groups and not for every artist I listen to. So I wish they would either make it more obvious or just do fewer pre-releases and then promote these songs either with or after the title track.
the thing is everyone is looking for their How You Like That - Ice Cream - Lovesick Girls moment nowadays. they just don't notice that it worked for BP because 1. they were away for more than a year and 2. the songs had months between them. pre-releases nowadays are just "here's a song that does NOT necessarily fit into the album but we still think it has potential to get somewhat popular so we'll give it a cheap music video and hope it makes you interested in the actual project coming out 2 weeks later".
I feel like one piece of it is the more we already know prior to comeback, fans will spend more time to stream the title track so they get more views/streams for award shows
the only this pre release system works is for the full length albums (12-15 track album) with a very wide and complex worldview in it and a long time frame. and as someone also said they can do this to introduce a new era for a group. a single or two release will do before the album d day just to build the anticipation without actually ruining the experience. for example with beyonce's cowboy carter, a 27 track album, there are 2 singles that were released before the album dday to introduce how the album is gonna sound and look like.
since you mentioned tripleS and had some loossemble clips in this video, i was certainly expecting you to touch on artms' debut full length album and how it has 4 pre-release singles. i was also thinking about this recently and how we are really only getting 6 new songs when the album officially drops (7 if you want to count the intro). i would love to hear your opinions on these 4 pre-releases: did you think they were cool or totally unnecessary?
I didn’t really follow their release mainly due to the AI art thing putting me off so I didn’t have the knowledge to properly speak on it. Dropping 4 pre-releases feels very unnecessary.
@@Taejiu jaden jeong said those Ai teasers were for commentary on how bad ai art is and when the prereleases actually dropped, they posted teasers with actual artists credited for "comparison." honestly orbits are divided on whether to believe if thats what he actually planned or not but eitherway, Ai hasn't been part of the album rollout since the 4 initial teasers.
@@Callisto_52Hz To be frank I don't really trust Jaden Jeong, nor do I ever support the use of AI art even to show how "bad" it is. It's defeating the entire purpose.
@@Taejiu i honestly agree with your point. however, i think its great that he addressed the complaints directly saying that he's gonna scrap the initial rollout plan because we didn't like the way he handled his "commentary" on ai, and that he explicitly opposed Ai usage. now, if he ever tries to incorporate ai into artms' future content, we have his own words to use against him and he knows that we will boycott. considering that other companies are also slowly tryna incorporate Ai into their content, i think its good that modhaus got called out sooner rather than later.
ok but all artists outside of kpop release singles before they release their albums/eps/mixtapes. it’s a normal thing to do, i don’t get why it bothers people that kpop groups have started doing it now. i feel like the problem is just that most kpop projects are random songs thrown together just to be released
#1. I bring up that Kpop does a lot of pre-releases, that is not me saying other industries don't. #2. As someone who listens to multiple industries worth of music simultaneously, Kpop promotes and releases these pre-releases the most by far.
honestly i agree with you, when u listen to most of the album, it just kills of the suspense of the album,however as someone who has a short attention span, i find it helpful dor me listen to the song before the full album drops. but as time passed by i started appreciating companies who didnt do prelreleases (which lets br honest is very rare now. i do really like suspense. i remeber aespa literally released their whole. my world album as pre releases, each day we got a new single like...... theyre doing the same thing now ok edit me: i actually completely agree with you that pre releases and all the content filmed doent make it ssem like they there was a 7 month gap between their previous and lastest album. i still am really excited for an aespa comeback however naeyeon also just annouced hers too and soojin. ive gotten more excited for those and ig that has to do with the time difference. a problem for me is also that this compromises their quality in making albums. not neccessarilly the songs are bad but the albums themselves are not cohesive and that just makes me think will they just stick any song in an album and release. i want the cohesivity too. take drama album as an example. drama was areally good title, the next songs which were dont blink and trick or trick were good follow up songs, and then we get to hot air balloon 🙄, i actually like that song but it just doesnt make sense in that album. i heard the highlight melody for the armagedon and i hope i like it more than what they put out tbh. jhopes and sugas, although i will admit not my favourite cuz the songs arent really my taste, were albums, there was cohesivity and can clearly tell that they were from the same album. knowing kpop and their money grabbing tactics, i just fear these prereleases arent going anywhere anytime soon
I find pre-releases really frustrating since I'm a MAJOR multistan and generally don't keep track of when albums come out, so I'll see these drops and be like "Oh! The comeback is out!" Nope, wrong. And they'll smack you in the head with it two, three or however many ARTMS has dropped, which makes it EVEN MORE confusing. ("Born To Be" almost felt intentionally confusing, because it's LITERALLY THE NAME OF THE ALBUM.) It's gotten to the point that I'm pretty sure pre-releases make me FORGET that a comeback is happening because my fish brain thinks it already happened and when the actual, full comeback drops, I think it's ANOTHER comeback. Anyways, regardless, Supernova was a fun surprise for my disorganized fish brain. I'll definitely be on a lookout for when the ~actual~ comeback comes out, let's just hope I don't forget lol
I totally agree. If kpop dropped 12-16 track projects I think pre releases would be more acceptable but with the limited track count it just kind of is almost disappointing.
I hear you about crafting albums that are cohesive and all but that won't really happen with the way the Kpop industry is currently structured. Also, Kpop groups can't really take the same kind of breaks like western artists can because too many groups are debuting and people tend to move on to the new thing. For example, when news came out that HYBE is allegedly going to put NewJeans on a 1 1/2 year break after their Tokyo Dome performance, I chuckled a little bit because for most western artists, 2-3 year break is the norm, so them being put on that long a break would be considered quick in any other industry. But of course, this is Kpop, so being on a break that long would kill their momentum. It's not really going to change unless companies stop pumping out so many groups and making so many frequent comebacks, but they're not going to do that.
Western artists do that all the time so i'm used to it and pre-releases were made popular in kpop bcs of Newjeans since they dropped Attention I'm not saying some groups did not do that before but since Newjeans it became like an epidemic in kpop.I really don't have a problem with pre-releases i kinda love them it makes me excited for the album
Interesting take. Just some context tho pre-releases are the norm for the majority of music industry around the world. Releasing a whole album without any singles beforehand is usually unheard of - that’s why when Beyoncé released an album with no single it was a massive shake-up. Also majority of people don’t listen to albums but they will give a single a listen so a company would want to release as many singles to entice new fans as possible. Also the trend of releasing the full chorus on social media before the actual full song is just by-product of tiktok. Plenty of songs become huge after a snippet of it is released on social media and so it garners more attention. Ya most of it sounds like “marketing” vs “artistry” but it’s k-pop, emphasis on pop. It’s meant for mass market appeal with as much up to date marketing techniques. Interesting to note tho that there is a growing trend with western artists to drop whole albums with very few or no singles now - this might translate back to the kpop industry in a couple years or so. (Especially for the biggest established groups - e.g Blackpink could announce a new album in the next month with lo pre-releases and it would outsell everything)
I think pre-releases are fine, as long as they aren't too long before the actual release of the album or more than one pre-release at a time. I think it helps bring hype, but everything has ups and downs. For example, I did not enjoy ITZY's Born to Be or Kill My Doubt, (the songs) and it deterred me from listening to the actual title tracks, Cake and Untouchable. Later on, I decided to check them out and they're some of my favorite ITZY songs. I think Aespa will be a decent example of how to do pre-releases right (sometimes) WTMW and Illusion were top-tier pre-releases and did well, including the track videos. I do think that the main title tracks of those albums weren't the best they could've offered, but those pre-releases made me very excited. Now with Supernova, which is also a title track and now my 4th most streamed song of the month, I cannot wait for more Aespa content! I think pre-releases aren't needed for every comeback and I honestly liked 'Drama' for that reason.
The reason why J-Hope, Suga and recently RM dropped an album and it "feel" like an album is bc they are at a state where they can do their own music and concept without much interfering of the company. They had earn the company wealth and fame(ofc for themselves too) so they have more "freedom" in music. With other groups like aespa, ive or even G-idle (Soyeon even being the main producer). They still have to follow the company plans so the company can make the most profitable comback as much as they can. They will have to agree with the company, 1st is I think terms and conditions like that were written in the contract that they signed in early their carrer. 2nd I think the idols wanted to make money as well so make the album with pre-release is good for marketing. It makes people take about them before the album is even release. Shorter songs(under 3mins will make more views on RUclips and streams on other plattform.
I honestly would prefer it if they released extra MV's after the album got released. Highlight medley's have become kinda obsolete when they release everything in advance and comebacks don't feel like comebacks when they already had several pre-releases leading up to it. It also gets a bit confusing when groups release a pre-release and you can't find it ony any music apps to listen to sometimes, because not everyone keeps up with every group and their actual comeback dates. For me it's a bit messy, but i can see why other would love their pre-releases.
My problem is that some pre-releases aren’t up to what I expected after many months of waiting so I’m disappointed in the group and don’t expect much from the album until I see the title track. For instance, I was disappointed in Either way by IVE but I thought that the title track wouldn’t be a ballad so it was fine. But typically, Supernova isn’t really my cup of tea so I really hope Armageddon is good :(
All my faves mostly self produce their stuff. Obviously the company still has their roles. When you start to get away from the super manufactured groups it gets a lotttt nicer. (im a bg stan)
you pretty much laid it out already - dropping teasers of teasers for teasers gets the community talking and engaged. you literally made a 15 min video talking about aespa's comeback 2 weeks in advance so it's working. the agencies envision fans with short-term memory who might hop on or follow a different group if they don't continuously pump out content for their artists. you might be fine with kendrick every few years (same here) but you know the idol industry is a different beast. unless they're at the top like blackpink or BTS, most artists aren't given the leeway to just rest of their laurels to create every few years. if they're not in a comeback cycle, then they can be seen as irrelevant. you even hear things fromis_9 being sad that they're not being focused on and their comebacks keep getting pushed back. not saying i necessarily agree with any of this, but it's how the industry seems to operate right now. anyway, i don't mind pre-releases as I can just ignore them if I want to and it gives other fans content to digest if they want to. everybody can win? sounds like you're just exhausted with the never-ending cycle. you're allowed to take a page out of kendrick's book and just step away for a bit. don't feel the need to make videos and go listen to some other stuff or focus on other hobbies or school. or i could be misreading your situation entirely. either way hope you good and don't go on aespa's YT to listen to "long chat" or "licorice" or who knows what else they'll release in the next few weeks so that the album is more enjoyable to you when it comes out.
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
Anyway stream Aespa's new comeback :D
Will do! By the way, how do you feel about aespa prereleasing track videos (like the ones for my world) for seemingly the entire album 😬😭 they did one for long chat and now licorice…I believe it’s a pattern
@@skittychuu hi! i don't know if you knew this, but nct (all units) released track videos continuously for their comebacks from 2020 to 2021, and then again in 2023. those ended up being very popular and even made some b-sides well known (lemonade, misfit etc.) so i think that's the reason it was carried on to aespa, to boost the popularity! imo they're better than pre-releases because you don't hear the full song, so you still look forward to hearing the actual album when it drops!
@@diana913 Thank you for informing me, I didn’t know that. My problem with the pre releases track videos is that you get to hear pretty good chunks of each song on the album before it drops, making the album listening experience much less fresh and new (I still love the songs, it’s just the album experience). I lPre released content typically gets a lot of engagement, so I’m not surprised those songs became popular.
@@skittychuu yeah, i understand. i agree in a sense because i'd rather listen to the song fresh but i still think it's better than pre-releases. nct used to do track videos for almost every song off their albums but in 2021 and 2023, they would only have 1 or 2. i think it's better that way idk why aespa's was literally the entire album
@@diana913 ah yeah I agree 100% definitely better than pre releasing songs, just don’t do it for the whole album.
K-POP feels more and more like the music version of fast fashion recently with the way these companies are pumping out artists and music. They just can’t let anything cook.
this analogy works so well omg
I think this is because music globally is getting pumped fatser and faster. More artists are making tiktok music not in kpop, but because kpop already pumps out so much this tiktok fast fashioned type of rollouts are just so much more draining.
People have been saying this since years, especially older kpop singers from 1st gen said that the pace of hits now (at the time) is crazy fast and the notion of a hit compared to before is completely different.
this has always been a common thing in kpop but after the debut of newjeans becoming a hit , companies began attempting to recreate the success newjeans had with lackluster / incomplete songs being released
this idea of following trends has always been around unlike in the west where celebrities released just one but full-length album once a year or every other year contrasting with kpop groups who released singles and mini-albums every couple of months 🤍🤍🤍
Ikrrr
Also, pre-releases can DESTROY a rollout 😭. As AMAZING as Untouchable by Itzy was and as great as BTB/Mr. Vampire are, literally no one had any idea what the title track was, even actualy Midzy’s were confused. Same with the KMD album & Cake. Companies need to think them through because with a group like Itzy that is very prone to being dragged constantly, a comeback can be shut down before the title even drops with a pre-release, no matter how good the songs are.
The problem is the time, these companies can’t even think about an era
A good example for it is blackpink 2020 the album, they dropped HYLT 2 months before the album so people have time to have a whole era with that single and then can enjoy the whole album(even when they dropped ice cream a month before, it didn’t affect bc they never promoted it)
@@afeliz2642 I agree with your opinion. Pre-release singles should be treated as an era and it has to be far enough from album or the next single. So that fans can enjoy it properly and by the time passes they will be ready to the next thing a group put out.
But I think putting out a single from an album 2 months before does not work for every group. It works for big names for sure, but it might not work for smaller groups, hype may die in a short time.
I agree with your opinion too. I think it's important to stick to ONE image/ era with each concept switch up, and make it last a while. HYLT was and is still remembered very well because it lasted like a couple months, and there were so many TikToks using the song and i remember SO MANY girlies were doing the famous blonde black hair. The fashion also had a huge impact on HYLT's success. Same with Fancy by TWICE. it wasn't just unexpectedly released and the concept stayed with the girls for a good while, so there were no quick random concept switch ups/ new eras. It's very important that companies give time for fans rather than unexpectedly dropping new songs and concept switch ups with NO warning whatsoever.
@@nonamenosurname6127 yeah, agree, it’s difficult to many groups to have the attention of general public if they drop with this long time distance
Well no this super nova is breaking some records lol
I don't necessarily feel like pre-releases are the problem you're highlighting. The issue is really that Kpop doesn't really prioritize the album experience.
To stay in the topic of aespa, I think Welcome To My World is an example of an excellent pre-release that introduced the real world concept of the EP. When you have a good lead track, it'll make for a good pre-release.
If your EP or album is a collection of songs, then whether or not there's a pre-release or it's all dropped at once, the album experience is going to be kind of underwhelming.
At the end of the day I don't think many people actually listen to Kpop albums all the way through while listening to the lyrics for thematic content, so it's rarely worth the effort to make a cohesive album and I don't think the audience is ever going to change listening habits. Maybe Kpop branded cd players becoming cool could do that, Idk.
I feel Blackpink, (G)i-dle and Aespa do prereleases the best. (G)i-dle and Aespa uses prereleases that are connected to their main tracks. Like (G)i-dle Allergy mv is connected to Queencard mv. Aespa Welcome to my World showed their storyline and is where they go to the real world for the first time with Naevis. Blackpink treats their prereleases as main tracks and promote them, and there is a distance between the releases, so no track gets overshadowed.
Completely agree. The first step in creating a good comeback itself is making a good album and one that is centered around the title track itself and not a compilation of jumbled songs. Then you can choose the pre release as a song that best opens the album. For reference, some of my favorite cohesive albums are MY WORLD by aespa (as you said), Reve Festival 2022 by Red Velvet, Formula of Love, Taste of Love (both by TWICE), Dark Blood by Enhypen, etc. I also agree that many of the albums now are losing consistency in overall theme, which we need to have.
YESSSSS
I like prereleases when they add to the overall project, but as you said, I think the core of the problem is that most projects in kpop nowadays don’t really have much intention to them outside of mass marketing. I believe pre-releases work best when they represent or introduce an idea behind a body of work, so when the album in question is just a collection of random songs for different marketing purposes, I think that’s why it stings so much in retrospect
it seems like you might be more frustrated with general over saturation/exposure. i personally tend not to consume pre-releases or trailers for music, tv shows, or movies i’m really looking forward to. but something i’ve noticed since i got into kpop is that the genre tends to get overwhelming quickly due to such large amounts of content coming out at once. with this current era of pre releases and more frequent comebacks (in all music industries honestly), over saturation has become more of an issue.
I couldn't agree more! I'm also like you, I don't like spoiling anything or overwhelming myself but bc of this I can't keep up and I missed multiple releases. Whenever I try to dedicate some time for consuming said releases, the groups I listen to already have other comebacks lined up it's insane 😭
pre-release is just another word for dropping singles before an album, which is the norm for pop music. so i dont really get the whole convo about that like if it was something new? we're all already familiar with "pre-releases", it's just that no one uses that term outside of the kpop industy
Good point but that's because in k-pop compared to basically any other industry, title tracks and b-sides are very specific while those terms are not used outside k-pop.
There are just lead singles, albums and more singles.
The concept of a "title track" being the only promoted song of the album is absurd in pop music.
But in kpop it's the norm, which puts everything to a different position. So any song that comes before the album is either a title track or a b-side. That's when those terms become very annoying, because in kpop the whole point of the derived term of b-side is that it's a song that is not promoted or at least doesn't have an MV.
So you see with pre-releases it's all about deciding if the song is worth being called a title track or not, how much promo it's going to get, etc. It can never just be a "single" and that's it. But I agree it would simplify things but the system in k-pop is so different and rigid for songs promotions.
What made me dislike pre-releases, or at least poorly planned pre-releases was ITZY's Born to Be era. They had 2 main prereleases: Born to Be and Mr. Vampire. A comeback: Untouchable. And they did pre-releases of all of the member's solos (granted 4/5 were only have the song). And let me tell you as a casual ITZY enjoyer i was SO over saturated and overall ended up turning away from the final project.
And they made music videos for ALL of the prereleases. Thats SIX music videos BEFORE the comeback. And to make matters worse, their actual comeback was in january. And to put it into perspective, during January, JYPE had ITZY, NMIXX, VCHA, and TWICE all promoting at the SAME time. And Stray Kidz had just had their comeback with LALALALA only a few months prior. So, money was being *spent* at JYPE during this time. And unfortunately with ITZY you can tell.
All seven of ITZY's music videos from this area are massively subpar compared to their typical music videos. Born To Be was an elabroate performance video, Untouchable was very bland and Mr. Vampire....dont even get me started. And dont ask me about the solo music videos bc i only watched them once and dont remember anything (which goes to show you how excellent this marketing decision was).
Despite the fact that i actually LIKED the music from this era, im not going to remember it for anything good. Im only going to thing of it as that time ITZY released way to many underfunded mediocre MV's
It's funny because born to be era made me like pre releases even more, since my memory is trash, having mvs for the bsides helped me remember the songs, the only songs i don't remember are the ones without a mv, and one of the few albums i remember every song is kiss of life's debut album, because every song have a mv
I think that's a you problem. I'd rather like the entire album to have MVs so I can listen to it on RUclips. K-pop comeback aren't just the title tracks and the other songs should algo get the spotlight
@@ignaciotorovillacura6342oh it's definitely a me problem. And to me, this era was messy. If other fans like you enjoy the extra mvs then I'm happy for you! Truly! It just didnt work for me.
the untouchable mv actually had great editing and vfx but most ppl were upset at the lack of sets ig
i soo agree with this. and at the same time, i had no idea what the title track was going to be 😭
this is something i’ve been WAITING for someone to bring up because it’s been one of my gripes too. mine is ESPECIALLY with the teasers for most kpop groups right now which spoil the ENTIRE chorus of the song. i’m just like you in the sense that i want to be completely surprised by the songs that i’m hearing when they drop. it gives me an all-new listening experience, allowing me to engage with the music more and have a more genuine reaction to it, honestly just making it more fun. i understand the point behind pre-releasing from a marketing standpoint but as a listener, this trend with pre-releases and teasers takes away some of my favorite pieces of the listening experience 😞.
what i love for a prerelease was ChungHa for Querencia. Like it felt like the american album release schedule, like 4 lead singles on a 20 track (but 5 are interludes) spread out over like 6 months. I love that project and I agree that the issue with the prereleases is that there isn't enough musical content in the album itself.
After college I found myself watching the music show stages less and less, like I have a job-even in my senior year I had like all intensive projects for my major-so I'm less interested in a project that just feels like the 2 best songs are on repeat constantly too.
Like I've been a fan since SNSD prime days, its like back then kpop artists would do max 2 releases a year because it was whole albums, not mini albums as much, and they were bodies of work. I still listen to Holiday Night, Reboot, Pink Tape, Twicetagram, Lion Heart, and all those, because it felt like there is so much there.
I agree with your concerns about how companies are obsessed with releasing music and touring their artists. Some groups just tour non stop, like they drop an album, start touring right away, and drop some kind of EP in the middle of the tour and continue. once a tour finishes, another full album then what? tour again!
Twice 😭
Selling merch through tours makes the most money for musicians, so it makes sense. For bigger groups, touring is likely one of the biggest revenue streams.
I'm not sure what's the problem. How do you expect them to make money when touring (and brand ambassadors) makes up the biggest artist revenue. It's why you see old kpop groups like 2nd gen often didn't receive their first paycheck even after a major hit and took some more time because Koreans (unlike Japanese) don't have concert culture and it's worse bcos they had to divide the few coins they got with other members. It's also why any idol attractive enough to do acting even in unknown dramas will pursue it bcos it pays better. Kpop groups hit a jackpot if they're big in Japan bcos they can tour with less logistic cost than touring in the US and Europe.
I actually quite like how LeSserafim does this, giving a B-side an mv and promotion after the title track and album release. I agree that with EP&tBW they went overboard with it, but in general this tactic gives releases longevity.
I also believe it's the best strategy for most kpop artists. Do a grand title track rollout and THEN promote some good bsides from the album.
Yes i remember how happy i was that Smart, my favourite song on the Easy ep got a music video. I wonder if they already plan on which bside to give a mv or if they wait and see which is most popular and well reseved?
I just like getting more MVs for more songs lol. But what I /don't/ like is prereleases dropping SEVERAL weeks before the album, like what ARTMS is doing
I thought artms album was releasing in April and completely forgot abt them after a while cause who wants to wait that long for a long rollout?
@@jinpaperrwell if it‘s done properly, people will wait around for the EP or album to drop
No cuz that’s how you’re supposed to do it
Pre release singles are usually supposed to be released months before an album gets their full released. It just that K-pop relies so much on frequent comeback that these pre release singles don’t have enough time to soak in
@@bop4158 It‘s because these labels and promo teams don‘t know how to promote shit.. they probably wouldn't be able to promote even a studio album for over a year and would rather have the group release an EP immediately after
In the west pre-releases are done to emphasise the beginning of a new era for the artist. Sometimes they are done a year before the actual album, usually they are done months before the album or a month before it. For example, The Weeknd's "After Hours" album shows how it's done. There are four singles on the album that transform the whole album into an experience which leads the viewer to see the new era. The problem with Kpop is that usually pre-releases have nothing to do with the actual album and are done too close to its release - two weeks are too little time between a pre-release and an actual title track. Blackpink's pre-releases are done the best way in my opinion. The group has less music so they can drop their pre-release two or three months before the actual album's title track and at the end we can see how both songs are extremely popular. Another example is G-idle's pre-release "Allergy" which presented a perfect storyline for the entire album and "Queencard" as a title track received the needed attention.
Yeah, Kpop is sorta mimicking how Western albums are released. One or two singles released before the album(and some times, non-singles are also release too). But of course, the main difference is that it's actual albums with like 12-20 songs, not mini albums/EP's. Also, these artists usually take a 2-3 year break(some exceptions of course), so when they do come back, they promote the album with multiple singles. Kpop don't take that much time off unless they're a veteran act or a group that's been put on the backburner.
As someone who doesn't closely follow NewJeans I was so confused during the Get Up era seeing all those MV releases before ETA. Naturally their songs would be used everywhere on social media so I was wondering which was meant to be a title track. Now I had no idea that Supernova was just a pre-release.
Super Nova is a title track with amagedon
I also do not like how companies spoil choruses before song is actually released. I honestly hate it.
Your perspective is tinged by being so entrenched in K-pop, these aren’t even noticeable issues for most listeners/fans. These tactics are what works best for the majority of the customer base, but I do agree with you about the overall decline in quality
The prerelease choices of girls era was so weird?? Like honey if you wanted the American market Illusion was right there, we would have eaten that shit UP 😂
I've always been pushing that same thought, Illusion would have been an absolute banger here, in the UK. ...I listened to it just before watching this video. lol
personally i think pre-release is just an affect of the western market. normally american artist will have 1 or 2 singles before they drop the album, i think the only issue is that the kpop industry has groomed their audience to constantly want thing’s immediately, which makes the preleases a little closer to the main release, ruining the point of the roll out.
As a multistan having multiple groups with comebacks and having prereleases is honestly getting to an overwhelming point. I do like when groups drop like a medley of the album just to get a taste of the album itself. Although rn I am taking more of a step back with kpop as issues continue to occur and boycotting is taking place
idc i like what SM is doing with aespa every day we get a track now (b-sides) i just feel so excited for the TT now
With pre releases it means more mvs, with more mvs it means that I'll remember at least 2 songs on the album, so i like them very much. Yes, my memory is horrible like that, i listened to piwon's new album 3 or 4 times and i only remember late night call, and all ive albums, only 2 songs without mv maximum, and the only songs i don't remember on BTB by Itzy are the ones without mv, so if you give me more songs to remember, im happy
Honestly, I would trade some pre-releases to make them post-releases instead (think Puma with TXT or what Stray Kids usually does)
I think the problem is, K-pop doesn't have time to slow down and allow for this long drawn out artistry to actually happen. The industry is so oversaturated now, unlike it was 10 or even 8 years ago. Companies can't afford to have their idols disappear for 7-8 months because a new, shiny group (or 5) will come along and steal the attention or their fans. K-pop fans (especially internationally) are fickle. They're quick to run to the next new thing that one of the big 4 pump out (and god are they pumping them out....especially HYBE), so even though i have the same sentiments about pre-releases (and the lack of long albums...god I wish tripleS had had a few more songs on their newest joint even though it's still fantastic), I understand why they're done. It's even harder for non-big 4 companies to keep audiences when the giants are taking up all the spotlight. Unfortunately I don't think this will stop any time soon. There's apparently the new sm girl group this year, a british boy group from them too, some hybe groups debuting, new jyp gg and bg on the horizon and despite only just debuting, it seems like babymonster will be getting an official rival group with the arrival of the new black label gg. This not even counting the smaller/medium sized companies that will be debuting new groups and the survival show groups (don't even get me started on how much survival shows have ruined k-Pop). It's a shame but unless there's a massive shift and no demand, then there will always be supply.
Agree with all your points. The market is OVERSATURATED to a point that I think it'll damage the chance of K-pop to go global cause there is to many group
@@Yoongi10269 K-pop is already global but what's probably going to happen is its growth is going to slow down. It's not going to go away but eventually start to recede a bit.
@@MrSuperjam789 I know but by global I mean "general public" like for BTS and bp. I really think that too many bands will "pull back" the general public from abroad and contribute to driving them away from the industry. That a band has a fanbase abroad is fine, but what I mean by global is the general public: they're the ones who helped both BTS and Blackpink, and I don't see that helping with the new bands apart from Stray Kids, before Itzy and at the moment a bit of New Jeans
I think they’re trying to follow the western style, where people put out releases before the album. The thing is these kpop “Albums” are less than 5 songs so it’s so what’s the point? I was genuinely pissed with how JYP let all the mvs out before the album dropped. What’s the point of waiting on the album to drop if you’re giving it to us all now? At least wait til a few days after release. I usually don’t like the pre releases, with an exception of a few.
i feel like it's just so an album can get some traction, and also so fans know what concept/sound is coming to decide whether they want to preorder the album/presave it? the promotion... well that's just how groups work? marketing is how kpop groups become known, so if they need to mass promote a song on tiktok or instagram, let it be. kpop groups and idols want to be successful, so why wouldn't they "mass market' a song they put effort into making, even if the song's purpose was to only mass promote? yes, it does kinda suck knowing some songs are clearly just for cash grabs or whatever, but i don't think it's ever that serious. it's just a song. in reality, we just have to understand that this is what kpop is right now, bc it's what works best. but that's just me, everyone has different opinions. i just don't think pre-releases really are that serious that we need a whole convo about it.
Supernova isn't a pre-release though, I mean it is in the sense that it's out before the album but it IS a title track as well.
But it doesn't really bother me generally. It's like singles with western releases so I don't see why they wouldn't do it too, for full albums especially where there are still enough new songs to discover. I understand better for mini albums tho, it's frustrating when you see you don't have much brand new songs to listen to
this is worded a bit strangely in my opinion, as if prereleases are something unique to kpop when its the opposite, dropping an album and the single / title track at the same time is something only kpop artists do (for the most part, i guess taylor swift has started doing it too). wish you would have mentioned artms, their prerelease concept for their first album DALL is pretty interesting and it's going to be interesting to see how their prerelease singles affect the flow of the album
Pre-releases in K-Pop are only a problem because they only really release EPs/mini-albums with like max. 8 songs, so having multiple singles/songs being released before an EP with like 6-8 songs is not a smart move necessarily.
12:02 NO CAUSE THIS IS SO TRUE. They‘re putting EP out after EP. No time for the group to involve artistically and also get a rest. And some EPs by some groups could be very well one studio album instead of two-three EPs.
Also, this is also my problem, the songs are short asf, the EPs in results are also then so short.
i think loona's XX and BTS's wings album had perfect album rollouts. well thought out artistic trailers that connect to the album concept and tease the title track, no pre-release, a clear separation from their last comeback thanks to the time gap and the change in visuals. the rollout doesn't feel like it dragged because the trailers were spaced apart well and had substance to theorize and mull over, and MOST of all, the title tracks did not disappoint, and neither did the b-sides. i find that with a lot of the current releases, even when the pre-album rollout is nice, the actual title track and the b-sides end up being so much less interesting than the teasers because the group is tryna be radio friendly.
you literally just explained 1/3 of my problems with K-pop. I've been thinking the exact same thing for the past year.
as a long time kpop listener , pre release is like a appetizer, it really shows if the company have emphasize on the groups concept or its just a blatant money grabbing release.
I’ve never had a ‘problem’ with pre releases but it’s because I grew up used to western artists. There was always a lead single released before the album, and subsequent singles were called 2nd single, 3rd single and so forth.
The issue with kpop is that it wasn’t like this when I started listening to it so the industry as a whole is still working out the process. I mean, most kpop groups back then always had the title track come out with the album on the same day and that was it. Promoting a b side along with the title was also very rare unlike these days where top groups are expected to do so. The positive thing is that I do feel like overall albums have improved in quality (labels adding in more songs to appeal to more potential listeners) instead of packing albums with fillers like back then coz albums being purchased had a lottt to do with titles. In fact, a group’s current cb depended a lot on their previous one.
However now that streaming defeats the point of purchasing physical albums, enjoying an album no longer hinges on the title. Pre-releases kind of try hyping up the album for more people. But I do think most kpop agencies are still not fantastic with this approach, after all, this wasn’t how they marketed albums before.
For me more MVs and more songs being promoted are better than having just one MV for the title track. I like my world more than drama bc they made videos for almost every song. I think its good when before an album release you can check how its gonna be so if you don't like it then don't buy it. Idk I don't have a problem with over consuming a song that I like or having new tracks every week from a group I like
I don't want a pre release if there is only 3 songs on a mini album. I rarely pay attention to them. I can wait for the full album.
12:54 I think we have a very similar viewpoint with a lot of this stuff. I feel acknowledged with this video lol. I don't mind too much of waiting for release schedules either, but I think a lot of the consumers do. Others may just want a lot to consume and want to see frequent consistent drops even if the album/style isn't their cup of tea, at least they're active. I think all of this goes hand and hand with songs becoming shorter too (in terms of themes in albums as I remember them) it's way easier to do that in a 3-4 min track, but not so much in a 2-2:20 length song.
The change I had to adapt to the most when I started consuming Kpop was how frequent comeback periods are, and how much a group I stan will drop music. Being a fan of Vince Staples, Kendrick, Tyler the Creator, etc. I had to wait extensive periods of time for new music to drop, but I didn't mind because the quality was always there, typically with a well formed narrative. In Kpop a lot of these companies aim for profits, and just churn out comebacks like a bakery does with it's daily special.
Thanks for commenting! You're one of the few reaction based channels I actually watch so your support is appreciated! Keep up the great work! :)
I think (G)I-DLE is a good example too. Allergy was a perfect appetizer for the Queencard comeback’s main course (sonically, thematically, narratively, etc.) What exactly did Wife add to the Super Lady comeback artistically? (Other than being an iconic flash in the pan, of course.) Maaaaaybe something specific I missed, but casual fans like me will miss it.
Sometimes it adds to the art moment, sometimes it takes me out of it.
I've never understood the whole general concept for pre-releases. Even if it's a 10 track album and they only shared just one song prior. I'm exactly the same like you. I really need to get the whole album as one whole package fresh in the moment. So I can digest it all at once together, like it's meant to be. I fully agree with the argument that usually in kpop songs don't even relate as one similar cohesive story. So what is even the point of a pre-release? I think ColoRise by Weeekly came close enough to it. Or Last Sequence by WJSN. Or Unlock My World by aespa. I would recommend those for a cohesive album in sound and lyric theme.
Imo, I'm not against pre-releases (if they serve their purpose right) but I wish companies would change their approach to it. Singles/lead singles have been a common practice in western music for a long time & I think kpop is trying to emulate it. The difference however is that singles are is more spaced out (2-4 months between), the tracks are chosen deliberately (fan favourite, gives broad idea of what to expect, etc), & they often match the length of the album. Plus considering how short kpop albums can be, they should be more conscious of how many songs they release before & figure out the intent (why this song? what's the purpose?). I also feel like the need to put out as much music as possible tends to kill hype for the album very quickly. For example, SM released 2 other tracks for the upcoming aespa album within 24 hours of Supernova's release but what purpose do they serve? Do they give us an idea of what to expect of the album? Why weren't they just released later on? Why not make a lyric video instead?
I think one way companies can resolve this would be to have a slower album roll-out (having the releases take places within a couple months) & consider putting out singles after the album is released (i.e seeing which songs are fan favourites & then promoting them). One group who did a pretty good job at this was Blackpink for their first album. Not only were the tracks deliberately chosen (give listeners an idea of what to expect) the releases were spaced out so the songs wouldn't outshine the other or overwhelm fans.
Also thank you for mentioning the whole touring & back-to-back release approach in kpop. I feel like the industry struggles with differentiating relevance & overexposure but that's a topic for another time.
I feel like you summarized how I feel about pre-releases too. I also rather listen to a whole album together for my first listen. Whenever there are pre-releases, I usually skip over them when I listen to the album since I’m already familiar with the song at that point and just want to hear the new songs.
A Jack In the Box mention!! That album was absolute excellence. The fact that he could craft a Lollapalooza set into an entire thematic experience shows how incredible J-hope is as an artist. It’s been almost 2 years, and I haven’t moved on. I’ve never been so in awe.
J-Hope and Agust D have that spark that gets me so excited for their work as soloist.
Sometimes I also feel like pre-releases end up ruining the title track for me (or at least making me enjoy it less), because there have been cases where I enjoyed the pre-release so much that I felt like it should've been the title track instead (for example, I loved illusion by aespa, but i was extremely underwhelmed with the girls, or i loooooved sweat by zerobaseone, and i did like feel the pop but it felt "weaker" in comparison)
Felt the same thing with Sweat. FTP is cute but that pre release set the bar too high
finally someone talking about zb1 😭 they're so slept on... the members definitely requested for sweat to be a pre-release for a reason. sweat relatively made more sense as a pre-release to separate it from the album since the album isn't sonically coherent and it's really tt material, and i agree that it's stronger than ftp. it's unfortunate that out of the album i only really love sweat and dear eclipse, which made listening to the album for the first time quite underwhelming, in comparison to melting point, even though technically i should prefer yhmah because it has more songs that i really love
@@renroser6618 the boys should have requested Sweat to be the tt lol. It just made sense
I'm so glad I've found someone else as frustrated with pre-releases as I am lol. Pre-releases can be done well; I think BTS honestly pulls them off the best, especially back during the Love Yourself and Map of the Soul series where the members' solo intros would be released two weeks before the album in order to set the tone for the upcoming era. But so many companies manage pre-releases absolutely horribly. Newjeans' method of pre-releases genuinely pisses me off lmao. I tolerated it at debut when they put all of the songs on RUclips before eventually putting them on Spotify; I thought, "Okay, this is just a cute experiment they're trying for their debut. No harm in that." But when they repeated that same method for the Get Up album? Oh I hated that so much. There is no point in listening to an album in full when I've already heard the entire album on RUclips or via TikTok teasers, especially an album as criminally short as Get Up. I was praying to every god out there that Min Heejin wouldn't take the same route for Layover's release when she worked with Taehyung. I am begging companies to stop making pre-releases and instead go back to the era of promoting b-sides as secondary title tracks after the album has been released (akin to what BTS did with Mic Drop after DNA's promotions had finished).
We’re getting in an era of Fast Kpop, honestly...
Also, I’ve noticed that there’s really not that many people that listen to albums anymore... unless it’s from their faves
Pre-releases are fine as long as the title track is something bigger or more impactful for the group and their discography. I think a great example of this would be IVE's Kitsch and I AM. Kitsch was a great pre-release track because the album had eleven tracks on it so we still had ten new tracks to look forward to (unless if you keep up with their concert clips where they performed Blue Blood and Not Your Girl, in which case it would've been eight new tracks) and Kitsch was a bit different from what we were used to seeing with IVE. Don't get me wrong, it's got that IVE sound and feeling, but it was still different. It kept people engaged, it smashed the charts and did it's job of hyping people up for their album or at the very least, it made people interested to see what they would do next.
Then I AM dropped and it felt so much bigger than Kitsch. It's the most posh and elegant we've ever seen IVE be, it sold incredibly well, it charted well and everything about the release felt big. Bigger than your usual album drop. It genuinely felt like an event and I think that was partially due to the success of Kitsch and how it made people want to listen to the album.
I can tell u love IVE 🥺
@@hitmanbangsyellowcrocs4213 well yeah that’s kind of obvious. I will say, I don’t think the pre-release strategy worked as well for the IVE MINE album as that was 1/3 of the album that got spoiled and we technically only got four brand new never heard before tracks.
Pre-releases work better after a groups taken a long break or if it’s for a full album.
There is literally no reason for a group to go on tour every year. Touring is supposed to be a treat! It's a novel experience. Fans should not come to expect a tour from any of the big companies every year. It isn't healthy, for neither the immature, expectant fans, nor the idol who runs themselves into exhaustion.
In Itzy‘s case. It‘s more standard in the western pop industry to release a handful of singles and accompanying MVs before an album drops. However, they plan it out more carefully and with more space in between the releases, not everything at once. I mean it didn't help their case that the album was announced one month before its release and dropping all the singles and MVs before the entire thing drops.
Cause there‘s nothing bad with announcing an album one-two months before release but that only works if some singles have been already dropped. Not if nothing is known about it, whatsoever. And in my opinion, the solos didn't need a video, track-motion video or whatever they‘re called, cause those weren’t even like actual MVs cause it‘s not even the entire song for each one. (This still bugs me so hard)
Again, in the pop industry releasing some singles before and even after the album drops/dropped is the norm but they don‘t release everything all at once
I legit thought Supernova was the Title Track 😭
and was like wtf, are u fr SM?
it IS a title track, idk what he’s talking about because Supernova was never a prerelease
@@Ethan-cc9ne album is not yet released so yes, it is a pre-release.
i'm here to say Supernova it's not a pre release, is a title track
(welcome to my world was a pre release)
Wouldn’t that mean life’s too short and illusion were also singles? I’m pretty sure pre-releases can be singles they aren’t mutually exclusive, maybe I’m wrong though.
@@TaejiuI think the original comment means…even though we all know all these songs are singles, supernova is a title track before the album, and for example welcome to my world or LTS are single pre release that will not have the support of a TT
@@afeliz2642 I think when it comes down to it, whether or not it's a TT, it's still a pre-release by definition. It is being released before the album's release, making it a pre-release, which then feeds into how horrible Kpop semantics are. By pre-release standards, Supernova, WTMY, and Illusion are all technically pre-releases.
@@Taejiu well yeah…never said they weren’t pre release 😭
I personally love when we get videos for other songs AFTER the title track/album release. But for my favorite groups I just want as many things as I can get from them. I liked what Ateez did with their solo/duo MVs coming after the title instead of Itzy’s pre-release solos that seemed like too much before the full release.
You must be pretty pissed that aespa is basically releasing the whole album before it's even out
I feel basically the opposite way. I prefer everything to be slowly rolled out little by little. I like to devote all my time and attention to each thing/song separately. I often get overwhelmed with too much at once. If I could have one song a day until the whole album has been revealed, I'd take that. Too often I don't fully appreciate a bside until months later because it was buried within all the other songs. So pre- releases are a big positive for me personally. Also, I tend to view them as an additional song that wasn't meant to be on the album anyway. Like the ones that don't fit the vibe (ie Wife, Life's Too Short) they are basically just bonus songs for me.
Also, pre-releases provide another "first time" MV experience. I know bsides get MVs sometimes but you already know the song when they are released after the album. With pre-releases, you get to hear a song for the first time with the visual element of the MV as well. I really enjoy hearing a song for the first time while watching the MV. This way not only do you get this experience with the title track but also with any pre-releases.
Very good points. I'm curious about your thoughts on how NewJeans approach their releases for their upcoming double single albums with them literally dropping big chunks of their songs on commercials. While I was open to their approach at first, but it turns out I personally found that the impact for Bubblegum wasn't as exciting because I heard like 70% of the song already on the shampoo ad. And I really like Bubblegum, but add to the fact that they haven't dropped the song on streaming platforms while the whole MV is out on RUclips for weeks, personally is kinda irritating to me.
for me using it on ad didn't do anything bad, I was equally curious for the song, but I believe that it should have been put on streaming platforms. I really want the listening experience, watching the MV on youtube is not always good experience.
and here they are using Right Now on another ad campaign. :grinning_face_with_sweat:
I feel the I feel album properly used the pre release concept. As ans when the concept of pre release was getting popular, gidle used a non messy and clear way to use the trend. They started it off as an episode series, with a story in Allergy and the climax in queencard, with the songs and messages also being very clearly. People dont talk about how planned this was. Same with wife and super lady, wife was a completely diff vibe but gave the perfect vibes ans message of a pre release, calling attention to the bold message and corny, fun lyrics before coming back with a mega scale powerful and fearless concept, with Super Lady.
I love prereleases coz it makes me anticipate what's to come and also it gives songs that were gonna be ignored a chance to be seen
pre releases are great. i love knowing 1-2 songs from a project, it creates a sense of familiarity when i get to listen to the full project. way less overwhelming for sure. have u ever heard of western artists dropping singles??? this is such a nitpicky take. soooo many double standers with kpop and western artists. if u don't like pre-releases just DON'T LISTEN TO THEM. yes it's that easy, i know.
i think the actual problem is when kpop artist's pre-releases don't immediately go on streaming alongside the music video.
I kind of feel that way with new jeans’ bubblegum. Like I adore the song, but I believe there’s only gonna be that song, and one more on the EP? , so they’re releasing it so early (only on yt, not even to stream like almost three weeks in advance?? it’s kind of like… why though. Same with the teaser for right now and supernatural, like they release that I think a week ago, and we’re getting the right now + supernatural album in like MID June.
Both are single albums, not EP's.
to a certain extent, I don't mind pre-release tracks? but it definitely feels more exciting when they take the route of a promoted b-side. i also feel like it extends the promotion era and work and becomes more exhausting for idols. instead of 1.5 months of promotion, it's extended out to 2 or 3 months because they are promoting this pre-release for several weeks before the comeback. i agree that it's easier to tire of the songs and whole album as a result too.
it also kills the momentum sometimes. thankfully, dash did really well despite soñar breaker AND run for roses being such extended pre-releases. but i feel like basically every song on born to be being a pre-release (including the solos!) killed some of the hype especially with the high standard set by born to be. (and i LOVED untouchable!)
overall i think it works amazing for the most popular of groups but is it a bit detrimental for less popular ones
I like it how le sserafim and illit does extra mvs (there are for shure more but i dont know right now)
But they drop the ep/album and then after 1 or 2 weeks they drop an mv for an bside i like that much much more ( that way the album stays relevant for a bit more too😅😅)
Completely understand what you mean, and unfortunately, I personally tend to mindlessly say "YEAH YEAH!!! I love more music from my favorite idols," but sadly there is a lack of craft and artistry in much of the media our favorites have put out recently. I know Itzy can have better quality products for their Midzys, although I still support them all the way no matter what. I just love hearing from my favorite groups, but I do agree that time and effort has a role in MUCH better quality results. 👍🏻
You should talk about min hee jin, new jeans, and hybe
the artms shade im crying
I remember New Jeans' debut was kinda wild to me bc it has 4 songs and they pre released 2 of them which is half of the ep. Although they didn't put them on streaming services yet so like I guess you still had to wait to stream them legitimately but like??? That's also kinda strange to make fans wait weeks to listen to a non mv version of these songs. Obviously it worked out for them though and honestly the fact that there was literally no lead up to the attention mv dropping might have made it seem less strange.
I dunno if you're following the whole HYBE vs. Min Hee-Jin saga but according to her, that wasn't suppose to be part of the plan!
@@MrSuperjam789 I've been kind of checking in on it every so often, but that's actually very interesting and also makes sense!
Personally, I am happy with prerelease. Prior to prerelease era, most of the public attention would be on title track that’s heavily promoted in music shows. To me, if we can give the love and attention to prerelease song, that would be great too.
oh frrrr i think we need to have conversations that capitalism is degrading artistry. like the companies are just looking out for their year end revenue when instead they should be spending money on crafting an album that leaves an impact. its saddening because personally if i had big 4 resources i would be working with the most forward thinking song writers, producers and creative directors to make something that leaves an impression not just an earworm that will be forgotten (dont get me wrong i love kpop but its also good to critique it as well)
You don’t have to listen to the pre released song. Many people don’t. They wait the album comes out.
I've been listening to kpop consistently since 2015 but fell out of my fav group's activities for a few years. So, when I came back I was baffled by the amount of pre-releases comebacks were having. I was used to the main single then new single for repackaged album format so I was at first confused by all the pre-releases and not only did it make the final single underwhelming, it confused me as for WHICH single was the main one since pre-releases aren't yet a uniform format that all companies are doing for comebacks. When I heard Supernova I thought it was the main single, especially with those teasers :')
Finally someone agrees with me. Pre releases, for me are just spoilers of the comeback. Cuz it just destroys that excitement and anticipation of a proper comeback. I personally try to avoid pre-releases completely until the full comeback. That's also the reason the song just becomes stale for me. When skz had a cb last year I COMPLETELY avoided the two performance videos of Megaverse and Leave it would've killed that excitement and joy of listening to your favorite group's new song after like a 7/8 months hiatus
Υou can always not listen to the pre-release until the album drops
Just fyi Supernova is a Title track, in this album they have 2 TT 😞 I actually like the pre releases, they can be confusing but in groups like aespa they make like cute little mvs for their b-sides and it’s fun
Part of my issue with prereleases too is that it gives the company the opportunity to have the group promoting and on music shows for literally months. I LOVE NMixx's fe:304 like it's my album of the year so far, but from the time they first performed/released Soñar and Run for Roses to the end of Dash promotions was a HUGE span of time. Don't get me wrong, I ate it up and loved all of the songs, but those girls were WORKING
It’s not only kpop and it’s because some streaming services won’t show fans songs unless it’s pre saved
pre-releases are just an excuse for kpop companies to hype up a group's comeback whilst gaining money and in theory the idea should work but as you pointed out if a company chooses the wrong song to pre-release for its group's album most people wouldnt bother listening to the actual drop if they didn't like it. i personally think that some groups pull off the whole pre-release thing well like aespa, i think welcome to my world and supernova are both solid pre-releases and i like it more than some other tracks on the following album my world. i really think it depends on how much effort was put into the pre-release because its obvious when a company just wants money from it.
I completely agree. Even if companies don’t approach their music content differently and just simply give us time to breathe in between a group’s comeback, it will do wonders for the group.
You literally just said what I think haha
This is the reason why it's so hard for me to completely stan others kpop groups (bg and gg)
I have only had a few on my radar for a long time and with these groups they are the ones that I always follow absolutely everything they release when they make a comeback, the groups are BTS, ITZY and TWICE. The rest of the groups that interest me (aespa for example, I like them) I only follow them a little bit just to see what they do and now, I don't see anything more about them
But I really feel that in K-pop they don't care about quality, they don't take the time to create incredible things, they just release and release content. Pre-releases is an example of this, I don't see the need for them to do that, they damage the experience of listening to a new album and enjoying the new thing. It is something very strange but companies do this more and more, it is a saturation of content.
And no, it doesn't feel like they're taking a break because after the comeback they continue to take them to promotions, whether doing concerts, interviews, shows, whatever. They don't let the idols rest and much less allow the creative team to think properly before releasing something new. You can see that companies are only interested in generating the most money and they compete among themselves for that, they only care if they achieve something on the charts or not. Kpop has become very boring lately.
I love pre-releases. It draws out the comeback to a several week event, rather than one big "dump" at once. Also allows the groups to promote one song at a time. More live stages, more MVs, more fun. 😊
Its not just prereleases but for Mini albums every song having a music Video or Performance Video. For me its kind of weird to not have a deepcut b side anymore. For example songs like the bsides from ives full Album that are just that. Songs without and visuals or Video that have been performed live a couple of times and thats it.
As if idols dont have enough to do with the mv and choreo, now you have so much more for them to do. Oversaturation is a thing already without prereleases
the whole prerelease cadence we are experiencing in kpop could work if it didn’t feel as overly meticulous and disingenuous. singles are something that works, right? quite literally most artists in the west drop at least a single or two before their full length project to garner buzz, and it works. in an industry like kpop, where things are so fast paced and the business practices feel as if they’re being sold to you as much as the music is, people can’t help but feel overwhelmed and turned away by the mass amount of product. overconsumption has always been an issue, but with the climate of the world currently, it all feels to be too much and hold little to no value other than short gratification. i love kpop so much, really, but the turnover rate and lack of intention (outside of monetary gain) will be it’s detriment :/
The problem I have with pre-releases is that I often don't know that they're pre-releases and then mistake them for the title tracks. And this then ruins the whole comeback for me, because I'm juct confused and can't enjoy the music completely. I only know of pre-releases if I follow the groups youtube channel and see the community posts on there, but I only do that for a few groups and not for every artist I listen to. So I wish they would either make it more obvious or just do fewer pre-releases and then promote these songs either with or after the title track.
the thing is everyone is looking for their How You Like That - Ice Cream - Lovesick Girls moment nowadays. they just don't notice that it worked for BP because 1. they were away for more than a year and 2. the songs had months between them.
pre-releases nowadays are just "here's a song that does NOT necessarily fit into the album but we still think it has potential to get somewhat popular so we'll give it a cheap music video and hope it makes you interested in the actual project coming out 2 weeks later".
Uh oh! This is gonna be interesting!
I feel like one piece of it is the more we already know prior to comeback, fans will spend more time to stream the title track so they get more views/streams for award shows
the only this pre release system works is for the full length albums (12-15 track album) with a very wide and complex worldview in it and a long time frame. and as someone also said they can do this to introduce a new era for a group. a single or two release will do before the album d day just to build the anticipation without actually ruining the experience.
for example with beyonce's cowboy carter, a 27 track album, there are 2 singles that were released before the album dday to introduce how the album is gonna sound and look like.
since you mentioned tripleS and had some loossemble clips in this video, i was certainly expecting you to touch on artms' debut full length album and how it has 4 pre-release singles. i was also thinking about this recently and how we are really only getting 6 new songs when the album officially drops (7 if you want to count the intro). i would love to hear your opinions on these 4 pre-releases: did you think they were cool or totally unnecessary?
I didn’t really follow their release mainly due to the AI art thing putting me off so I didn’t have the knowledge to properly speak on it. Dropping 4 pre-releases feels very unnecessary.
@@Taejiu jaden jeong said those Ai teasers were for commentary on how bad ai art is and when the prereleases actually dropped, they posted teasers with actual artists credited for "comparison." honestly orbits are divided on whether to believe if thats what he actually planned or not but eitherway, Ai hasn't been part of the album rollout since the 4 initial teasers.
@@Callisto_52Hz To be frank I don't really trust Jaden Jeong, nor do I ever support the use of AI art even to show how "bad" it is. It's defeating the entire purpose.
@@Taejiu i honestly agree with your point. however, i think its great that he addressed the complaints directly saying that he's gonna scrap the initial rollout plan because we didn't like the way he handled his "commentary" on ai, and that he explicitly opposed Ai usage. now, if he ever tries to incorporate ai into artms' future content, we have his own words to use against him and he knows that we will boycott. considering that other companies are also slowly tryna incorporate Ai into their content, i think its good that modhaus got called out sooner rather than later.
ok but all artists outside of kpop release singles before they release their albums/eps/mixtapes. it’s a normal thing to do, i don’t get why it bothers people that kpop groups have started doing it now. i feel like the problem is just that most kpop projects are random songs thrown together just to be released
#1. I bring up that Kpop does a lot of pre-releases, that is not me saying other industries don't. #2. As someone who listens to multiple industries worth of music simultaneously, Kpop promotes and releases these pre-releases the most by far.
honestly i agree with you, when u listen to most of the album, it just kills of the suspense of the album,however as someone who has a short attention span, i find it helpful dor me listen to the song before the full album drops. but as time passed by i started appreciating companies who didnt do prelreleases (which lets br honest is very rare now. i do really like suspense. i remeber aespa literally released their whole. my world album as pre releases, each day we got a new single like...... theyre doing the same thing now
ok edit me: i actually completely agree with you that pre releases and all the content filmed doent make it ssem like they there was a 7 month gap between their previous and lastest album. i still am really excited for an aespa comeback however naeyeon also just annouced hers too and soojin. ive gotten more excited for those and ig that has to do with the time difference.
a problem for me is also that this compromises their quality in making albums. not neccessarilly the songs are bad but the albums themselves are not cohesive and that just makes me think will they just stick any song in an album and release. i want the cohesivity too. take drama album as an example.
drama was areally good title, the next songs which were dont blink and trick or trick were good follow up songs, and then we get to hot air balloon 🙄, i actually like that song but it just doesnt make sense in that album. i heard the highlight melody for the armagedon and i hope i like it more than what they put out tbh.
jhopes and sugas, although i will admit not my favourite cuz the songs arent really my taste, were albums, there was cohesivity and can clearly tell that they were from the same album. knowing kpop and their money grabbing tactics, i just fear these prereleases arent going anywhere anytime soon
Complanatory is not a word
still scared for the album if im THIS GAGGED over the pre-release 😔
I find pre-releases really frustrating since I'm a MAJOR multistan and generally don't keep track of when albums come out, so I'll see these drops and be like "Oh! The comeback is out!" Nope, wrong. And they'll smack you in the head with it two, three or however many ARTMS has dropped, which makes it EVEN MORE confusing. ("Born To Be" almost felt intentionally confusing, because it's LITERALLY THE NAME OF THE ALBUM.) It's gotten to the point that I'm pretty sure pre-releases make me FORGET that a comeback is happening because my fish brain thinks it already happened and when the actual, full comeback drops, I think it's ANOTHER comeback.
Anyways, regardless, Supernova was a fun surprise for my disorganized fish brain. I'll definitely be on a lookout for when the ~actual~ comeback comes out, let's just hope I don't forget lol
I totally agree. If kpop dropped 12-16 track projects I think pre releases would be more acceptable but with the limited track count it just kind of is almost disappointing.
I hear you about crafting albums that are cohesive and all but that won't really happen with the way the Kpop industry is currently structured. Also, Kpop groups can't really take the same kind of breaks like western artists can because too many groups are debuting and people tend to move on to the new thing. For example, when news came out that HYBE is allegedly going to put NewJeans on a 1 1/2 year break after their Tokyo Dome performance, I chuckled a little bit because for most western artists, 2-3 year break is the norm, so them being put on that long a break would be considered quick in any other industry. But of course, this is Kpop, so being on a break that long would kill their momentum. It's not really going to change unless companies stop pumping out so many groups and making so many frequent comebacks, but they're not going to do that.
Western artists do that all the time so i'm used to it and pre-releases were made popular in kpop bcs of Newjeans since they dropped Attention I'm not saying some groups did not do that before but since Newjeans it became like an epidemic in kpop.I really don't have a problem with pre-releases i kinda love them it makes me excited for the album
I’m fine with a pre release as long as it’s 10+ songs, anything else nah it should wait.
Interesting take. Just some context tho pre-releases are the norm for the majority of music industry around the world. Releasing a whole album without any singles beforehand is usually unheard of - that’s why when Beyoncé released an album with no single it was a massive shake-up.
Also majority of people don’t listen to albums but they will give a single a listen so a company would want to release as many singles to entice new fans as possible.
Also the trend of releasing the full chorus on social media before the actual full song is just by-product of tiktok. Plenty of songs become huge after a snippet of it is released on social media and so it garners more attention.
Ya most of it sounds like “marketing” vs “artistry” but it’s k-pop, emphasis on pop. It’s meant for mass market appeal with as much up to date marketing techniques.
Interesting to note tho that there is a growing trend with western artists to drop whole albums with very few or no singles now - this might translate back to the kpop industry in a couple years or so. (Especially for the biggest established groups - e.g Blackpink could announce a new album in the next month with lo pre-releases and it would outsell everything)
i thought supernova wasnt a prerelease, its a double title track
It is, it’s not a prerelease
I think pre-releases are fine, as long as they aren't too long before the actual release of the album or more than one pre-release at a time. I think it helps bring hype, but everything has ups and downs. For example, I did not enjoy ITZY's Born to Be or Kill My Doubt, (the songs) and it deterred me from listening to the actual title tracks, Cake and Untouchable. Later on, I decided to check them out and they're some of my favorite ITZY songs. I think Aespa will be a decent example of how to do pre-releases right (sometimes) WTMW and Illusion were top-tier pre-releases and did well, including the track videos. I do think that the main title tracks of those albums weren't the best they could've offered, but those pre-releases made me very excited. Now with Supernova, which is also a title track and now my 4th most streamed song of the month, I cannot wait for more Aespa content! I think pre-releases aren't needed for every comeback and I honestly liked 'Drama' for that reason.
The reason why J-Hope, Suga and recently RM dropped an album and it "feel" like an album is bc they are at a state where they can do their own music and concept without much interfering of the company.
They had earn the company wealth and fame(ofc for themselves too) so they have more "freedom" in music.
With other groups like aespa, ive or even G-idle (Soyeon even being the main producer). They still have to follow the company plans so the company can make the most profitable comback as much as they can.
They will have to agree with the company, 1st is I think terms and conditions like that were written in the contract that they signed in early their carrer. 2nd I think the idols wanted to make money as well so make the album with pre-release is good for marketing. It makes people take about them before the album is even release. Shorter songs(under 3mins will make more views on RUclips and streams on other plattform.
I honestly would prefer it if they released extra MV's after the album got released. Highlight medley's have become kinda obsolete when they release everything in advance and comebacks don't feel like comebacks when they already had several pre-releases leading up to it. It also gets a bit confusing when groups release a pre-release and you can't find it ony any music apps to listen to sometimes, because not everyone keeps up with every group and their actual comeback dates. For me it's a bit messy, but i can see why other would love their pre-releases.
My problem is that some pre-releases aren’t up to what I expected after many months of waiting so I’m disappointed in the group and don’t expect much from the album until I see the title track.
For instance, I was disappointed in Either way by IVE but I thought that the title track wouldn’t be a ballad so it was fine. But typically, Supernova isn’t really my cup of tea so I really hope Armageddon is good :(
All my faves mostly self produce their stuff. Obviously the company still has their roles. When you start to get away from the super manufactured groups it gets a lotttt nicer. (im a bg stan)
you pretty much laid it out already - dropping teasers of teasers for teasers gets the community talking and engaged. you literally made a 15 min video talking about aespa's comeback 2 weeks in advance so it's working. the agencies envision fans with short-term memory who might hop on or follow a different group if they don't continuously pump out content for their artists. you might be fine with kendrick every few years (same here) but you know the idol industry is a different beast. unless they're at the top like blackpink or BTS, most artists aren't given the leeway to just rest of their laurels to create every few years. if they're not in a comeback cycle, then they can be seen as irrelevant. you even hear things fromis_9 being sad that they're not being focused on and their comebacks keep getting pushed back. not saying i necessarily agree with any of this, but it's how the industry seems to operate right now.
anyway, i don't mind pre-releases as I can just ignore them if I want to and it gives other fans content to digest if they want to. everybody can win? sounds like you're just exhausted with the never-ending cycle. you're allowed to take a page out of kendrick's book and just step away for a bit. don't feel the need to make videos and go listen to some other stuff or focus on other hobbies or school. or i could be misreading your situation entirely. either way hope you good and don't go on aespa's YT to listen to "long chat" or "licorice" or who knows what else they'll release in the next few weeks so that the album is more enjoyable to you when it comes out.