K-Pop Boy Groups Released About Twice As Many Songs As Girl Groups In 2021, And More Surprising Data

Are you a K-Pop fan that enjoys some interesting stats? Thanks to Reddit user anhonorandapleasure, we’ve got a look at some statistics from the last year of K-Pop that you might find intriguing, and possibly also telling of the state of the industry.

Through a lot of tedious work and data collecting from 90 active K-Pop groups — 45 boy groups and 45 girl groups — they found a lot of interesting data that just might surprise some people.

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One of the most notable things they discovered is that in 2021, on average, K-Pop boy groups released about two times more songs than girl groups, with boy groups averaging around 13.4 songs and girl groups averaging around 6.7. This doesn’t include members going solo or releasing music as just a sub-unit!

The boy groups that released the most songs last year were MONSTA X (with 31 songs), AB6IX (with 25 songs), ONEUS (with 24 songs), and both NCT 127 and ONF (with 22 songs each).

In contrast, the girl groups with the most songs released in 2021 were TWICE (36 songs), ITZY (16 songs), Dreamcatcher (15 songs), PURPLE KISS (14 songs), and both PIXY and Weeekly (12 songs each). Without outlier TWICE being included, the average number of songs that K-Pop girl groups released last year would drop to 6!

The statistics looking at full album releases is even more uneven. If you consider a full album to be one that has eight or more songs, only two girl groups included in the study — TWICE and ITZY — released a full album in 2021, which is 4.4% of the groups. In contrast, 21 boy groups released full albums, which is 46.7%, or over ten times the number from girl groups!

On this note, while 10 groups from the “big four” companies in the industry — SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment, YG Entertainment, and BigHit Music — released a full album in 2021, YG Entertainment was the only one of the four that did not.

Looking at how the data differs between K-Pop generations isn’t nearly as significant. On average, second generation groups released 10.2 songs, third generation groups released 12.1 songs, and fourth generation groups released 9 songs.

The second generation artists with the most song releases in 2021 were SHINee (15 songs) and Super Junior (14 songs). The third generation groups that released the most were TWICE (36 songs), MONSTA X (31 songs), NCT 127 (22 songs), ONF (22 songs), and THE BOYZ (20 songs). Finally, fourth generation groups that released the most songs last year were AB6IX (25 songs), ONEUS (24 songs), ATEEZ (21 songs), Stray Kids (20 songs), and CIX (18 songs).

When it comes to albums, 4 out of 6 second generation groups released full-length albums (66.7%), 10 out of 27 third generation groups did the same (37.0%), and 9 out of 43 non-rookie fourth generation groups released them (20.9%). No rookie groups released full-length albums.

While this data doesn’t really mean anything at the end of the day, it is interesting to look at how things are broken down from last year, and maybe they can be compared to years past or in the future to see how they’re different from each other!