A 2020 girl group restrospective: the year of "Oh My Pink"

It's safe to say the year of 2020 has largely been wrapped up for girl groups (and idol groups in general). Most music shows have already ceased activities, leaving only a few awards and the traditional end of the year performances at the Gayos to finish the year. New music, however, will most likely only come out in 2021 and with that in mind we turn our attention to a specific collective of idols who are going to have a quite decisive year as a whole for next year: girl groups.

To understand 2020 first we have to rewind to 2019, which was an abysmal year for girl groups in Korea. It set many negative records and was the first time a girl group failed to score a #1 song since the inception of the Gaon charts in 2010 (and most likely since all the way back in 2006). The year, which had a promising start, with newcomer Itzy delivering what ended up being the biggest girl group song of that year, ended up peaking quite early. Top groups Blackpink and Twice made their returns in April and underperformed their 2018 results, same for Mamamoo a month earlier, but in hindsight their charting performance was actually good compared to what came up next. Historically speaking, girl groups best season is summer, where they use to dominate the charts with catchy songs perfect for the season. It wasn't the case for 2019. Matter of fact they struggled hard and collected one chart failure after another. Their songs were replaced by ballads in the charts. Red Velvet's two summer releases of 2019 were much less impactful to their 2017 and 2018 songs at the same time of the year. Itzy, who were the new sensation early in the year, also underperformed with their first comeback. Even all the way up to September the situation hadn't changed much. Twice made their second comeback during that time and scored the worst charting of their careers. It seemed like Koreans had completely shifted away from girl group music and fully turned their backs on them.

However, girl groups found an unexpected source of help in the final stages of the year: Mnet's competition show Queendom. Mixing a lineup of popular established veterans such as Park Bom, AOA and Mamamoo, newcomers such as (G)I-DLE and groups making their last attempt at a breakout in Lovelyz and Oh My Girl, the show offered a second chance for these groups to intoduce themselves to the audience or remind them about whom they were. Ir didn't register top-notch ratings but many of its performances gained steam after initial airing, particularly during the cover rounds, which saw AOA perform Mamamoo's "Egotistic", and Mamamoo retributing the favor with a cover of "Good Luck", but if the veterans made noise, the ones who benefited the most were the groups with less recognition among the audience, namely (G)I-DLE, through their cover of 2NE1's classic hit "Fire" and Oh My Girl magestic cover of Lovelyz's "Destiny" in traditional Korean outfits. Obviously, not everything was good, Lovelyz cover of Brown Eyed Girls' "Sixth Sense" drew a decent amount of criticism, but overall the show managed to reintroduce girl groups to a broader audience.

It was not a coincidence that once the show ended, girl group chart improved massively in the last couple months of the year. (G)I-DLE's Queendom single "Lion" gained a surprising amount of traction and did much better than the group's first two releases of the year, "Senorita" and "Uh-Oh", which failed to match their 2018 results from a solid debut in "Latata" and its follow-up "Hann". Mamamoo held its second comeback of the year shortly after the end of Queendom, with its single "Hip" becoming the first big hit scored by a girl group in more than 7 months and enjoying great longevity. At the 2019 Melon Music Awards Mamamoo were the only girl group who won their "Top 10" bonsang, given to the artists with the best digital performances in the year. Even non Queendom participants such as Red Velvet enjoyed a resurgence, with the group's last second release "Psycho" topping the charts just as the year was about to end.

It seemed like the days of girl groups being ignored were left behind, and 2020 seemed to be off to a promising start. With "Psycho" and "Hip" solidly sticking at the top of the charts, new groups kept joining the fold. Iz*one scored the biggest hit of their careers with "Fiesta", after a comeback that was long delayed due to scandals related to the group's formation at competition show "Produce 48". Itzy while failing to match their debut results, had a bounce back with "Wannabe". In April, 9th year veteran Apink scored its biggest hit since 2014 with "Dumhdurum". If (G)I-DLE initially didn't capitalize on their Queendom hype with "Oh My God", later in the year they got their song with the best longevity of their careers so far in "Dumdi Dumdi". However, the year clearly had two protagonists, which came from groups with quite opposing career trajectories: Oh My Girl and Blackpink.

Oh My Girl never had a history of being a top charting group. They were a solid mid level girl group but one that always lived in the shadows of other bigger groups. That all changed in 2020 with the release of "Nonstop" and a surprising hit coming from a b-side track in "Dolphin", who eventually even surpassed the original single in success. They were another example a girl group who suddenly rises onto star level fame while no one is expecting it, as we saw in the past with groups such as Girl's Day in 2013, AOA in 2014, Exid in 2015 and Momoland in 2018, which is then followed by the audience falling in love with the charms of one member which sees her popularity skyrocket: Hyeri, Seolhyun, Hani, Yeonwoo and, in Oh My Girl's case, Arin. Blackpink, on the other hand, were popular from the start. Coming from YG Entertainment, a machine of churning out hits, home of legends such as Bigbang, 2NE1, Psy. The group was breaking records at debut. In the same year they managed to get close to chart on Billboard's Hot 100 before even their first anniversary, Oh My Girl was losing a member. One largely makes cute songs, the other has become synonymous with the girl crush concept in the recent years. The two groups couldn't be more different but 2020 converged both onto the same spot: the two main girl groups of Korea. 

However, despite its initial advantage, Blackpink had a quite complicated 2019 which nearly put in jeopardy their past achivements. The year which started on a high with a successful world tour highlighted by their performance at the Coachella festival, ended up on a very low note, with the group largely hiding from the spotlight and dealing with scandals hurting the image of its label and controversies leaving a scratch on the group's overall image. The result was a loss in popularity in Korea, which can be picked up by their results on Gallup's 2019 survey of the most popular artists, idols and songs. Compared to 2018 the group dropped from 8th to 17th, saw members Jennie and Jisoo go from the 2nd and 10th most popular idols in 2018 to 8th and 17th most. In 2018, the group's summer hit "Ddu-Du Ddu-Du" was the first girl group song since Girls' Generation's "Hoot" back in 2010. However, their 2019 single "Kill This Love" didn't even register. For the first half of the year that seemed unlikely to change, given the flashbacks of past years of false promises of a comeback that kept getting delayed. Eventually, the group, already known for extremely long hiatuses, ended up having the longest of their careers. Their story, though, has a nice ending for 2020, with both "How You Like That" and "Lovesick Girls" becoming hits, leading to their domestic popularity bouncing back and to their full consolidation as the main girl group on a global scale.

On the other hand, 2020 wasn't such a great year on many fronts for girl groups. If Blackpink and Oh My Girl managed to be standouts, there were also many negative results. One of them is the decline of veterans such as Twice, Gfriend, Red Velvet, AOA and Mamamoo. None of these four managed to score a true hit this year. Twice maintained their slide from 2019, with both "More & More" and "I Can't Stop Me" being their worst performing songs. Gfriend has essentially become a mid-tier group, long removed from the days of smashes such as "Me Gustas Tu" and "Rough". It's arguable that the group has never been as good musically as in 2020, with all three of their singles, "Crossroads", "Apple" and "Mago" being great songs, but none of them couldn't even chart in the top 30. Red Velvet did not have a comeback as a full group in 2020, with the accident suffered by member Wendy in late 2019 and the scandal hitting member Irene in October of this year as major factors. "Monster", their subunit release featuring only Irene and Seulgi, did alright, but a far cry from "Psycho". Speaking of scandals, 2nd generation veterans AOA essentially ended their career as a group on a awful note, with their leader Jimin leaving the group following accusations of bullying from member Mina, who departed in 2019. Mamamoo, who largely had individual activities, with three of the four members releasing solo albums, only held a group comeback in the final quarter of the year, with pre-release track "Dingga" doing better than the actual single "Aya" but none matched the results of "Hip". On the meantime, member Hwasa's solo career seems to be headed on a very solid direction, as she landed another solo hit with "Maria" and participated on the Refund Sisters project alongside rapper Jessi and legends of Korean pop music such as Uhm Jung Hwa and Lee Hyori, which was also a success, consolidating her as one of the top idols in the country.

Also, the rookie class of 2020 was particularly weak, even more so than 2019. Weeekly, who come from the same company as Apink, took most of the rookie of the year awards, but the group barely charted inside the top 1000. Groups like Cignature, Secret Number and Woo!Ah weren't even able to do that. The best results came later in the year, with StayC, from the newly formed label crated by producer Black Eyed Pilseung, managing to chart in the top 200 of Gaon's digital chart with their debut song "So Bad" and SM Entertainment's new girl group Aespa, which charted top 50 with "Black Mamba". They were essentially the only rookies who managed to chart on Gaon's digital chart (which is made of 200 songs), no one else did. Given their debut came past the eligibility window for 2020 awards, they will only run for rookie of the year in 2021. Aespa's debut itself was very complicated, having to deal with SM artists controversies, bad rumours, plagiarism accusations and overall lack of goodwill, meaning the group starts way behind its predecessors such as f(x) and Red Velvet at their respective debuts, counting on upcoming releases and the public knowing its members better as a way to improve results in 2021.

Overall 2020 ends on a mixed bag for girl groups, with many questions open for next year: will veteran who had down years bounce back or will their careers just wane until disbandment or hiatus arrives? Will Blackpink and Oh My Girl carry their results from this year to 2021? Will the rookies and young girl groups improve in general? Will we get a better rookie class in 2021? We can't answer them now, only speculate. For the next article, that's exactly what we are going to do. So stay tuned.