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ITZY’s latest comeback album Cheshire was released amidst mixed responses from netizens, who are now wondering if the group’s popularity has decreased over time.
A blog post uploaded to Nate, a South Korean online forum, titled "But why is ITZY slowly failing?" was uploaded on December 3, 2022. The post already had 359 thumbs up and only 76 thumbs down, along with 107k views at the time of writing this article. Many K-netizens seemed to agree that Cheshire was not performing well on the major South Korean music charts.
As per multiple tweets floating around on Twitter, Cheshire was out of MelOn Top 100, FLO Top 100, and Genie Top 200, three major South Korean music platforms, as of December 2, 2022. The blog post also compared the group’s previous hit releases and emphasized the digital “fails” of the new album.
ITZY’s latest comeback with Cheshire receives mixed response from fans
After dropping the pre-release English single Boys Like You in the last week of October, fans were enthusiastically looking forward to ITZY’s Cheshire. Even more so because the five-member girl group was behind some of K-pop’s iconic dance moves and songs with Dalla Dalla and Wannabe. However, with new girl groups reigning in the industry, the LOCO girl group’s popularity seems to have taken a backseat.
Cheshire was released on November 30, 2022, but its failure to peak on major South Korean music charts has become a part of the online debate. K-netizens discussed why they thought ITZY’s reputation was decreasing. The oversaturation of girl groups, the agency’s failure to keep the group buzzing, and the members’ composition were some of the reasons fans thought were leading to the LOCO singers’ fall.
On the other hand, international fans rose to defend the criticism. They shared that the song did well on the international charts. Cheshire ranked No. 1 on the Worldwide iTunes Album chart on December 1 and No. 6 on the same chart the next day.
The group has also hit its highest first-week sales, with 550,000 album copies already sold. They have two days left until the tracking period ends.
One fan, Twitter user @softfornini, pointed out the comparisons of the group’s previous releases and its achievements with Cheshire. They called out the hypocrisy of when many called ITZY “a flop” for doing well on K-charts but not on international charts and repeating the same when they have great numbers on foreign charts but not on local charts.
Meanwhile, ITZY continues to make its mark on Spotify and Billboard, demonstrating its popular reach. The group ranked 74 with CHECKMATE on Billboard’s Top Album Sales and No. 49 on Top Current Album Sales.
On Spotify, the girl group ranked eighth on the Most-Streamed K-pop Artists Globally list, while their song LOCO placed 33 on the Top 50 K-pop Tracks of 2022 Globally.
A major concern that pops up continuously among fans is the members’ promotions in South Korea. Fans continue to raise their voices for more promotions such as variety show appearances, photoshoots, and more for the members.
