Two “Big Four” K-Pop Girl Group Solo Debuts That Fans Think Were The Most Underwhelming

When a K-Pop idol that’s in a group decides to make the jump into debuting as a solo artist, there’s always some level of risk and uncertainty over how successful they’ll be. Sometimes, no matter how talented an idol is, they still have to be one of the more popular members of their group to perform well. And that’s if they debut with a song that is catchy, well-marketed, and enjoyed by the general public.

Their company usually matters too, and you would expect artists under the “Big Four” labels — SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment, YG Entertainment, and HYBE Labels — to have an advantage over those from smaller companies.

But recently, netizens discussed which two female K-Pop idols from the “Big Four” labels they think had the most underwhelming solo debuts. One of them is TWICE‘s Jihyo, who debuted with “Killin’ Me Good” on her Zone album last summer.

In the grand scheme of things, Jihyo’s solo debut was far from a failure — after all, Zone sold nearly 600,000 units and debuted at number one on the Circle Album Chart. Despite these accomplishments, though, some fans still felt like more should have been put into her promotions, and that JYP Entertainment could have spent a higher budget on the music video and other aspects of the debut.

The other idol who fans feel could have had a more successful solo debut is Red Velvet‘s Seulgi, with her album 28 Reasons that came out in October 2022.

The album made over 240,000 sales, which is still a considerable amount for a female idol solo debut, but fans feel like it just didn’t get the attention it deserved. Some netizens think that the disconnect between the teasers and music video was a big part of the problem, and that SM Entertainment just didn’t promote it as well as they could have.

On a forum post discussing these two idols’ solo debuts, here’s what netizens had to say.

Do you agree that these two solo debuts were “underwhelming”?