Let's talk about Itzy
What really happened to Itzy? Did one terrible comeback ruin their career? Was it a mistake to focus on promotions in Japan and the US? Or are fans overthinking it and they're actually doing fine?
There is a persistent online discourse that girl group Itzy had a massive career collapse in 2022. Why is that, and is it true? What are the metrics that we use to quantify a group’s “success”? In today’s post I’m going to do a deep dive into what happened to Itzy and see if we can draw any conclusions.
Before we dive into the story of Itzy, I want to give you some background on their agency. JYP is one of the “big three” Korean entertainment agencies, famous for idols with lots of charisma, good behavior, and natural visuals (aka seemingly minimal plastic surgery). Without a doubt, the most famous group currently on the JYP roster is third gen girl group Twice, known in Korea as the nation’s girl group because they are the most popular and beloved girl group in the country. That might be true, but the most important and transformative girl group of the third generation was YG’s Blackpink. Their incredible international success with the girl crush concept inspired the other two “big three” agencies to debut their own girl crush concept girl groups in the fourth generation - SM’s aespa debuted in November 2020 and JYP debuted Itzy in February 2019.
After shepherding Twice to the top tier of girl groups, would JYP be able to replicate that success in a new generation with a new concept? At first, all signs pointed to yes. During their debut year, Itzy’s two first singles (Dalla Dalla and Icy) were both incredibly successful with over 20 music show wins and top ten chart results. The Blackpink influence is undeniable, but it’s softened with a bit of that JYP/Twice style charm.
Let me take this moment to introduce you to the members of Itzy:
Leader Yeji is the main dancer and has striking “fox-like” visuals. The other oldest member (born in 2000) is main vocalist Lia. Ryujin is the center of the group and the main rapper, and Chaeryeong is the other main dancer. And last but not least, Yuna (born in 2003) is the maknae and visual of the group.
Itzy’s strength as a group is in their dance and performance. Much like labelmates Twice, they are not particularly impressive vocally, especially compared to groups from other agencies (cough cough SM). Keep in mind that Itzy’s primary 4th gen girl group competition, especially at the beginning, was SM’s aespa, who are particularly known for their incredible vocals. Among fans this brings up that perennial question, can one truly be an “idol” if you’re not really a singer? Is dancing and stage performance enough to justify fans’ loyalty, especially if you might not be singing live? I think a lot can be forgiven if you are churning out hits, but if the production starts to slip, this sort of online chatter can grow.
In any case, Itzy’s success continued into 2020, with Wannabe and Ryujin’s iconic shoulder dance move. Sonically, this is a little darker than debut year, but weren’t we all a little bit dark and twisty in 2020? Lyrically it’s still very light and Itzy - “no matter what they say, I’m me. I wannabe me!” And then we start to pivot. With Not Shy in August, the group starts to sing about love, not just girl power. This song is just not as good as previous singles, and chart performance dipped accordingly. But as a group, sales and instagram followers are still going up, and they pop back up into the top ten in the Korean charts with their next comeback In the Morning in April 2021.
In the spring of 2021, the Korean entertainment world was rocked by a series of allegations of bullying against a number of stars. Lia was accused of bullying by a former classmate. JYP refuted the allegations but lost the defamation case against the claimant. Despite this, I don’t think Lia was ever put on hiatus from the group. This negative publicity, combined with complaints about Lia’s poor dancing relative to other Itzy members and relative weakness as a main vocalist, put Lia under a lot of scrutiny and, I’m sure, a lot of stress.
So this brings us to September 2021, the pandemic is easing and Itzy is about to release their first full length studio album, Crazy in Love, with lead single Loco. Results for Loco aren’t incredible in Korea, but Loco does achieve Itzy’s first ever appearance on the Billboard Global 200, coming in at number 44. All signs indicate that Itzy is starting to go global, and JYP marketing seems to shift to chase that market. Itzy puts out a Japanese compilation album and single before returning with their infamous July 2022 comeback, Sneakers.
Even before the single came out there was controversy among fans who were disappointed with how “dark” the album cover graphics were relative to previous Itzy comebacks and the promotional photos. As a result of fan complaints, JYP actually gave into fan pressure(!) and changed the cover at the last minute to something much more colorful. Fans were happy with this, but in hindsight I can’t help but wonder if the marketing strategy for this comeback was designed for a reason, and the last minute change disrupted the overall impression of the comeback.
Oh Sneakers. Did anyone like this comeback? Did Itzy even like this comeback? When you see it in the context of their career to this point, it does make sense as an Itzy song - it’s super catchy and meant to be empowering, and it’s written by the same team behind Dalla Dalla. But it came across as more childish than empowering, and online chatter about Itzy’s changing concepts reached a fever pitch. Commercially, it was actually a success, earning 3 music show wins, charting at number 5 in Korea and at number 71 on the Global 200, and its accompanying album sold over 1 million copies (a first for Itzy).
Amid the fallout from the Sneakers comeback, Itzy put out another Japanese single and their first English single. Neither of which were huge hits, but this was JYP laying foundations for international success as Itzy embarked on their first world tour. In the middle of tour, Itzy returned with a proper comeback in November with Cheshire. The song is actually good, but I’ve never seen a music video where the group looks so much like their heart is not in it. I think these girls needed a proper break and maybe some therapy. Album sales were still good, but at this point Itzy’s instagram followers did start to plateau.
I think it’s generally agreed that this period in 2022 felt like a turning point for Itzy. The question is what actually happened? Let’s quickly bring the story to the present moment and then investigate further.
The Checkmate tour ended in April 2023 after 20 shows in 9 different countries. Figures aren’t publicly available, but based on what I could find from 5 US dates, I’d guess they grossed at least $10 million on this tour and performed for at least 100,000 people. Not bad! And it does seem like the girls got a break after this, because they didn’t return with a comeback until July 2023 with Cake. The accompanying EP was their best-ever selling album, and results for Cake as a single were on par with Not Shy (that is to say, not that great). Personally, I think it deserved better! But at this point, had their fans abandoned them?
Since Cake, Itzy has released two more studio albums - one in Japanese (Ringo) and another in January 2024 (Born to Be), with lead single Untouchable performing slightly worse than Cake. Lia has gone on hiatus for anxiety and the other four girls have just started their second world tour, which will have 32 shows in 18 countries. Some of the venues are the same as their 2022 tour, but many of them are bigger.
So what really happened with Itzy? Did one terrible comeback ruin their career? Did JYP make a mistake in focusing on promotions in Japan and the US? Or are Kpop fans overthinking it and they actually doing pretty well for a fourth generation girl group in a saturated market? Can all of the above be true? How can we measure a group’s success? There are lots of different definitions of success and a lot of different aspects of being an idol group, but I think we can get a pretty good grasp on “success” by asking the following four questions: how successful are your comebacks, how are your album sales, how big is your social media following, and how widely are you touring. Using an unnecessarily complicated methodology, I’ve combined and weighted various aspects of each of these components (full methodology available upon request lol), and I present to you my quantitative analysis of Itzy’s “success” since 2019:
You can see that 2022 was actually on par with their debut year, but then they did have a big drop off in 2023, which is probably why fans might feel like their career has dropped off a cliff - it kind of did! But the good news is, 2024 is already shaping up to be a much better year for Itzy than 2023 (and keep in mind that album sales are still quite early figures and touring data is all estimates!).
So what actually happened to cause this career dip for Itzy? There are lots of opinions online, so I will briefly respond to the most common.
Song quality has just gone down for Itzy steadily since their debut
Just on its head I would disagree with this statement. Personally, I don’t think Itzy was ever doing anything particularly groundbreaking, but they have had good “Itzy” songs every year - Wannabe in 2020, Loco in 2021, Cheshire in 2022, and Cake in 2023. In my opinion, these are songs that are at relatively the same level, and this is just looking at singles, not B sides!
One bad comeback (Sneakers) made fans leave and basically destroyed their career
Listen, as I said - Sneakers actually makes sense as an Itzy song. Some people loved it, and it was a huge hit for Itzy and part of a very successful 2022 for them. A lot of very online fans hated it, and beyond that, a lot of very vocal fans complained so much about the album artwork before they even released the song that the company changed it.
JYP has mismanaged Itzy, focusing on promoting them abroad and not appropriately promoting comebacks with existing fans.
Fans love to claim that groups have been mismanaged, but I would suggest that the fact that they are touring more widely every year and increasing venue sizes suggests that whatever international promotion plan JYP has is actually working. JYP is also doing all the promotional bits that are normal for album releases, such as multiple versions of albums, etc. That being said, I’m a pretty active Kpop listener and I hadn’t even listened to Itzy’s new album until I started this article. I’m not sure that speaks super highly of whatever marketing strategy JYP had for their January comeback, but maybe they didn’t want to put too much energy into a comeback with only four members? Or maybe Itzy themselves asked for a lighter comeback, considering what I think is the most likely explanation…
Itzy was overworked and dispirited by the negativity online
A group that is famous for its stage presence needs to be able to serve performances. Even if the music is decent, if their heart is not in it and their performances are meh, then they just won’t be successful. Obviously, the biggest warning signs of Itzy’s burnout is Lia’s hiatus, but the signs were there before. Compare a random live performance during the Wannabe comeback and to a live performance during Cheshire comeback. A sign that this might be getting better is that the girls have gotten more involved in their music production, contributing to writing their solo songs on their newest album.
In conclusion, Itzy has significantly more instagram followers than every other fourth gen girl group. They have also consistently put out music, are currently on their second world tour, and have released songs and albums in three different languages. Three of their albums have sold over a million copies. I’m not sure anyone could look at these figures and say that Itzy has not been a success. I’m not sure the online discourse around their perceived failures as a group is anything but a self fulfilling prophecy.
I think what is most concerning about the story of Itzy is that many fans seem to feel that they should get to have creative control over what Itzy is and what Itzy puts out, rather than allowing the artists to have agency over their own art. I think sometimes Kpop fans lose sight of the fact that Idols are human beings with agency and talent and feelings and life experiences. Their job is literally to express these feelings to their audience via music and performance. It is not their job to be a doll for fans to dress and pose and make perform whatever they want. I also think girl groups receive a degree of scrutiny and criticism that boy groups do not receive. Over the top online discourse about women is not just a Kpop thing - look at Kate Middleton - and the line between love and hate can be very thin.