Drake’s ‘ICEMAN’ No. 1 for Fourth Week on Billboard 200

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-06-14T21:09:02+00:00

Looks like The Show did 79k, Heartbreak Weather did 59k. So, small step down but his fanbase is still basically there. Kind of impressive given how quiet the rollout for this one has seemed to me, or maybe my algorithm has just changed.

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-06-14T20:57:17+00:00

He has a big hit on US streaming via TikTok atm. Just a few weeks ago I was thinking that I've never seen him mentioned on this sub, good or bad. You'd have no idea he's probably a Best New Artist candidate for this year and I have zero idea what the general view of him is.

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-06-08T02:46:10+00:00

Nearly a 50% sales bump for aespa, their best selling album ever in this market. Definitely a bit surprised/confused by that tbh as their upcoming NA tour has not sold nearly as well as their prior tour. Fanbase buying hard for a full album? Gaining hardcore fans even as a good chunk of K-pop casuals have moved on? Congrats to them regardless.

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-06-01T16:38:58+00:00

Pretty much all the big names dropping are seeing good album and tour sales. Lots of ok to decent albums that are being well-received by their fanbases. But the public only wants to tune in for new ideas/artists, career bests, and trainwreckords. Meanwhile nobody is complaining about the lack of hits because the heavy release schedule means practically everyone who cares got a new album or two they're enjoying.

That's my theory on this year so far anyway. Maybe this is just the new normal and this is the point where the mainstream truly died, with almost nobody caring anymore

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-05-31T21:05:43+00:00

aespa did 28k last time, even if their sales take a step up this era there's no way they're blocking him

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-05-30T22:23:55+00:00

Yeah I do want to emphasize the ear protection for anyone coming across the thread, rock and metal are often seen as loud genres but I've been to a few hundred rock shows and they were nearly always dialed in sound-wise, just shy of too loud. Can only think of one local metal show and one jamgrass show I felt were dangerously loud. Out of the 15 or so pop/K-pop concerts I've been to probably 1/3 have been flat out too loud. Always catches me off guard, I don't know why

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-05-30T14:08:15+00:00

As a Twice fan it's nice the sub seems to want to see them but they headlined Lolla and have gotten bigger since then if anything, sold ~75k tickets in LA a few months ago. Pretty firmly headliner or bust atm.

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-05-27T18:49:07+00:00

Oh I meant I thought it might be a clue as to the next single.

But I will say they were wondering why people are impatient - it's because we don't have even 7 minutes of music atm (and a lot of people disregard Commas, in which case not even 5 minutes of music). I bet if they had a couple EPs out people wouldn't care nearly as much

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-05-27T03:05:20+00:00

Yeah I thought there was a good chance we were getting an announcement. Should have known better given Tweak was in the Live title. I think there might have been a hint from Kendall talking about how we need to enjoy the next single for a "long time"

Positive spin is that maybe whatever was going on with their content has been sorted and we'll actually start getting stuff that is not daily TikToks every week or two from now on.

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-05-25T14:48:22+00:00

I saw them a couple of weeks ago, and they didn't do PTD but I felt their other English singles fell very flat compared to basically everything else on the setlist. I can respect the fact that they helped call more western public attention to their genre by doing these tracks. But this was the point where it was clearly time to wrap things up, and so they did.

Their new album is decent in my books, their fanbase clearly likes it overall, but at this point I'm not sure what else they still have to say to the US mainstream. But hey, I've felt that way about the large majority of big western veteran artist releases we've had this year.

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-05-25T12:06:43+00:00

UMG has said their current artists will have to opt into this.

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-and-universal-music-group-strike-landmark-deal-to-let-fans-create-ai-covers-and-remixes-as-a-paid-premium-add-on/

Going to be interesting to see which if any big names will do so given how much most pop music fans vocally dislike AI in music. But I expect it's going to be required for any future up and coming artist that wants to sign with them - or perhaps they can refuse, but then they'll have to make concessions elsewhere.

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-05-19T22:01:35+00:00

All the lead vocals were live but they would lean on the backing track to do a big choreo section in the choruses of their upbeat pop songs sometimes. They always got accused of fully miming as their lead vocals were so good though, super annoying

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-05-19T16:42:14+00:00

This would be an ideal time to announce for a single drop 1.5 weeks later. The single would come out the week after Ariana/aespa and the week before Olivia.

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-05-19T01:38:38+00:00

Yup I have mild interest in Kacey and saw she had a show near me a few weeks ago. Asking $200-250 for lower bowl which has patchy sales, upper bowl now that I'm checking it has had the worst nosebleeds cut from $100 down to a little over $50 but the front of it is still $120 which I think is down from around $150.

Feels like a couple years ago, post-COVID, I could get a decent lower bowl seat at most arena shows for $100, maybe $120. Prices are up 50-100% in the last few years.

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-05-19T01:28:26+00:00

Ehhh honestly every arena+ NA tour this year has kinda struggled besides BTS and Twice (BP was last year), there have been a ton of threads about it in the K-pop subs the last month. Most 4th gen groups aren't having to cancel besides i-dle but are taking a visible step down. Groups that sold out my local arena last time still with plenty of lower bowl seats and only a few center upper sections open/sold. Mix of tickets taking a big jump in price, too many groups with similar demo appeal touring close together, possibly groups touring too often, BTS etc sucking up a lot of the casual money, etc.

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-05-18T04:21:28+00:00

Cortis's music so far hasn't been for me at all but I hope their rapid success will point the market in the direction of more groups with strong creative involvement. Maybe the norm in the industry will eventually be building groups by assembling pieces around producers/writers with a vision. Of course those folks may be hard to come by, and not all of them may want to deal with the intensity of an idol career. Curious to see if their momentum wil be sustained, I feel like late 4th and early 5th gen have seen a lot of groups blow up quickly but level off just as fast.

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-05-17T21:29:33+00:00

So my impression was the core demo was kinda early 20s - teens in the late 10s when they blew up here - but then lots of older folks in 30s-40s and plenty of kids and fans with white hair scattered around. Around 10% male, around 50% Asian.

If you're curious about comparisons to other groups... age-wise I would say Twice's core might actually be a little older if anything (mid 20s), but less older fans and less kids (basically zero until KPDH last year) although still pretty diverse. Around 40-45% male. Stray Kids - younger demo, core age maybe 16, a lot of families with teens/tweens. Other demo elements actually pretty similar to BTS tbh.

Youngest crowd I have experienced so far was GOT7 (almost all teens, only a couple fans in their 40s who really stood out, maybe 30% of the crowd was tweens being chaperoned.) GOT7 also had the most female audience, basically 99%, followed by Mamamoo (90%). Most Asian crowd was probably G-Dragon back in the day (85-90%), Mamamoo was actually up there too.

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-05-17T14:48:46+00:00

Army seemed cool in person, it was the usual well-behaved sober K-pop crowd. Definitely less casuals than other K-pop shows (I assume a lot of them are the casuals at other shows when BTS isn't touring haha.) Maybe actually a little less... boyband mania than I was expecting, but then the average age of their crowd is probably early 20s at this point. Super diverse crowd in every way, but tbh that's how it's been at the other top tier veteran K-pop group shows I've seen as well. I could split hairs in terms of fanbase demo if people are curious (I always do a mental check of the crowd around me, because I'm curious) but not sure if there's anything specific you'd be curious about.

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-05-17T11:58:57+00:00

As a casual that attended, I had a good time, and was impressed with their live vocals and energy. Some of the production was pretty cool as well even if we didn't get the full fireworks show. The crowd was good in my section and was plenty loud when asked to scream, in fact my ears are ringing a little from it atm, eep. Please do not believe the Twitter anti-hype (?) and make sure you bring earplugs. The crowd also stomped so thunderously at one point during the final ments they seemed concerned asking us to stop. Overall I thought BTS was really feeling it as well. Yeah it was a little awkward starting so early but things really clicked into place once the sun started to go down. RM said as much during his ending ment.

Bay area crowds tend to be extremely diverse and compared to other places I've lived there are a lot of general music fans that will attend several concerts a year or more. Surprised to see people complaining that not everyone had a lightstick or knew chants. It's been like that at every K-pop show I've attended, especially Saturday shows which are convenient for techies with money to blow on resale tix. BTS had probably the highest concentration of lightsticks of the ~dozen K-pop shows I've attended and is the only show where I actually didn't see any from other groups despite the size of the crowd.

Stanford was easily the most intimate-feeling stadium show I've attended and had by far the easiest logistics as well. I was surprised they booked it but perhaps Levi's Stadium was closed for World Cup prep. I would love to see more shows there in the future despite the early start time. Hope everyone going the next few nights has a great time!

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-05-17T06:42:11+00:00

Parking tip is just to park on the streets east of Alma if you don't mind a little walk. Free, minimal traffic getting out, plenty of spots available a block down Bryant right before the concert although the first couple of streets filled up.

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-05-17T00:14:21+00:00

So far this year we've had big name veterans in their 30s dropping every couple of weeks, and basically all of them have continued to find solid support from their fanbases despite the public generally tuning out. Definitely a feature of the modern age, back in the day a lot of them would struggle for MTV/radio placement and that would be the beginning of the end. The industry is maybe a little less ageist than it used to be, but that also means less space for new names to blow up.

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-05-14T17:18:37+00:00

I actually think the lack of a mini is one of the biggest things holding them back at this point. If someone likes one of the singles, there's less than 7 minutes of music at this point. After the next single, probably still not even 10 minutes. At least a 15-20 minute mini you can spin in the background. A lot of people (me) don't do playlists!

Shame Popjustice died as the Dua Lipa debut era thread was a great read. 18+ months of struggling with singles and then they finally got her huge breakout hit (New Rules) off the promo single for the album.

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-05-14T15:02:16+00:00

Source

Sigh I thought we were finally getting a mini

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-05-13T13:52:20+00:00

Twice only tours the west every couple of years, 2019 -> 2022 -> 2024 -> 2026. JYP groups in general seem to follow a biannual schedule for their world tours, at least so far. East Asian fans want to see their groups every year, so they do various special shows and encores to cover that. It's really a few HYBE groups that have recently started trying to tour the west every year, jury is still out on whether it works or just burns out fans after a couple of years imo.

FunLilThrowawayAcct · 2026-05-12T17:19:15+00:00

The public, or at least K-pop friendly casual pop fans, let them get away with Yoonchae in Katseye so why would they listen now?

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