Mark James Russell

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Korean Music Charts – October 2007

November 18, 2007 / / 5 Comments

Back when I started this blog, I included the Music Industry Association of Korea’s month music sales chart as part of my regular comments, but after a few months I stopped. It was just too depressing. Sales were miserable and the quality of music in the charts was even more miserable. I did not want to spend all my time complaining and being negative, so I decided not to write about it.

But I found myself curious about how the music biz has been doing this year, so I checked out the latest MIAK charts.

The most immediate thing I noticed is that only one album released in 2007 has sold over 100,000 albums. Pretty shocking, really, considering just a few years ago top stars would move 1 or 2 million. But these days, SG Wannabe can become the biggest selling artist of the year with just 190,000 albums sold.

The second thing I noticed was the dominance of ballads in October. The top five albums are all ballad oriented!

It also looks like that brute-force marketing is less and less useful. Super Junior’s latest has already fallen to 11th, after being released on Sept. 20. Wondergirls have dropped all the way to 17th, and have sold just 18,000 copies of their first album since it was released on Sept. 13. TELL ME might be catchy and might even be a hit at the karaoke rooms, but Wondergirl fans are not buying CDs at all.

Other notes:

  • Lee Sang-eun’s 13th album made its debut in 25th.
  • Hey, Shim Soo-bong has a new album! It’s her 11th, and it hit the stores on Oct. 25. Not so many Shim fans left apparently, as it opened in 34th. Not that time or that person anymore, I guess.
  • With foreign music selling so miserably, classical music is growing ever bigger, at least on a proportional basis.
  • Even Paul Potts (the musical equivalent of the Nixon-Kennedy debate) is selling in Korea. And Andrea Bocelli. I’m not sure whose success I find more distressing. Do yourself a favor — check out their stories on Wikipedia or Youtube or wherever, cry, emote do whatever you feel compelled to do. Then head directly to a music store and completely IGNORE their CDs. Buy something by Jussi Bjorling instead. Your ears will thank you.
    This Month Artist Album Name Release Date This Month’s Sales Total Sales
    1. Eru Vol. 3 – Eru Returns 9.19 30,978 42,228
    2. Brown-Eyed Soul Vol 2 10.31 30,095 30,095
    3. FT Island FT Island 6.08 28,746 76,097
    4. See Ya Vol. 2 5.25 27,807 81,393
    5. SG Wannabe Vol. 4 4.06 19,050 190,125
    6. Jo PD Vol. 6 10.22 17,364 17,364
    7. Cho Shin-seong Vol. 1 10.25 15,405 15,405
    8. Lee Soo-young Vol. 8 – Set It Down 9.12 15,027 51,035
    9. Lee Seung-chul Vol. 9 – The Secret of Color 2 10.18 14,604 14,604
    10. Taewangsasingi OST Taewangsasingi OST 10.17 13,841 13,841

    (source: MIAK)

    And here is the foreign sales chart:

    This Month Artist Album Name Release Date This Month’s Sales Total Sales
    1. Once OST Once OST 8.14 12,160 13,138
    2. BoA Complete Clips 2004-2006 3.21 12,000 13,258
    3. Richard Yongjae O’Neill Winter Journey 9.11 9,968 9,968
    4. Luciano Pavarotti Pavarotti Forever 9.20 3,730 5,606
    5. Orchestra de Nodame Orchestra de Nodame Live 8.23 3,552 12,074
    6. Richard Yongjae O’Neill Lachrymae 2006.9.07 3,222 30,703
    7. BoA Love Letter 10.04 3,189 3,189
    8. Andrea Bocelli Best of Andrea Bocelli 10.25 3,063 3,063
    9. Ennio Morricone Gold Edition 10.02 2,445 2,445
    10. Paul Potts One Chance 8.02 2,113 2,113

    (source: MIAK)

    • Korean music

    5 Comments

    1. Simon

      Thanks for doing another music update, even if it is a bit depressing. I thought Lee Sang-Eun was a lot more popular than number 25. Do grown-up Koreans just not listen to popular music at all these days?

    2. Mark Russell

      I think people listen to music… just no one buys CDs anymore. Even grown-ups tend to listen to the pop garbage. Or else they give up on the scene and move to trot. And of course there are classical fans.

      But Lee Sang-eun is not really a mainstream artist in Korea these days. Sure she has her fans, but not so many in Korea anymore. I think she is much bigger in Japan. In fact, at the last fan event I went to, there were quite a lot of Japanese people attending.

    3. Anonymous

      Don’t you think the reason people don’t buy CDs is beause they can illegally download anything and everything without any concern of getting caught or punished?
      People here aren’t scared in the slightest of getting caught, wereas in the US, people are slightly wary of it, or sometimes have a moral qualm with it. Here its one big freeforall and I haven’t seen the music industry attempting to do much to curb it, as they do in the states and UK.
      I don’t know a single person that buys CDs in this country.

    4. Twreckx

      There seems to be quite a derth in imaginative names for albums. It seems that every one released a “volume”. Sad to see Epik High wasn’t there

    5. Trance lover

      Very interesting
      I’m adding in RSS reader

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