"BLACKPINK sister" surpasses "NewJeans sister", still criticized by music website

Debuting at the same time, BABYMONSTER was inferior to HYBE's "rookie" - ILLIT. However, sales of the group's debut album still managed to set a new record on Hanteo.
Last week, YG Entertainment's rookie girl group BABYMONSTER released their debut mini album titled "BABYMONS7ER" on April 1.

According to Hanteo Chart, as of April 7, "BABYMONS7ER" has sold a total of 401,287 copies in its first week of release, helping the "BLACKPINK sister" set the record for the most sold K-pop girl group's debut album in its first week on Hanteo.
Just before BABYMONSTER, the group that held this record was HYBE's ILLIT, whose album "Super Real Me" sold 380,056 copies in its first week.

On YouTube, YG's 7-member girl group also showed its influence when the MV "Sheesh" ranked No. 1 on the weekly chart for global MVs (from March 29 to April 4). This achievement was achieved after "Sheesh" maintained the crown for 4 consecutive days since its release.
And yet, BABYMONSTER's "Sheesh" MV also entered the list of the most viewed videos in 24 hours on YouTube, earning more than 70 million views as of April 7.

It is known that YG is also conducting promotional activities for the rookie group's debut mini album. The afternoon of April 7 marked the first time BABYMONSTER participated in a weekly music program on Korean television.
Despite the success of setting a new record, BABYMONSTER was still rated 2 stars by the British music website for their debut mini album. This product marks the first time "Jennie" Ahyeon's clone has been released to the public, after being absent due to health reasons, attracting a lot of attention from the K-pop fan community.

With 2 lackluster opening singles, the new E.P and Sheesh title track are expected to help BABYMONSTER "turn the tide". However, both the quality of music and the visuals of this project still disappointed people.

The most controversial is the fact that YG seems to lose form in building a girl group. As the entertainment empire that made BLACKPINK successful, YG completely lost to BABYMONSTER.

Without Teddy, they struggled to make hits for female rookies. The mixes are stereotypical, maximalism but lack novelty. People still see in BABYMONSTER the Hip-hop and materials that have characterized 2NE1, BLACKPINK but are sketchy and less than perfect dupe.

Because of the declining quality of music, BABYMONSTER's debut E.P was underrated by the British music website NME - a long-standing magazine in the land of fog, famous for its prestigious and underrated music reviews and ratings. Last year, NME was supported by a large number of music lovers in Vietnam when choosing Tlinh's Ai album in the Top 25 best Asian albums of 2023.

Accordingly, NME only gave E.P of BABYMONSTER an extremely modest score of 2/5 stars. Not stopping there, this column also devoted a detailed review of YG's production and track title selection for female rookies. He didn't even shy away from saying the group had "done their best with half-baked materials but not enough."

On the other hand, NME appreciated the song " Like That" – Charlie Puth's gift to BABYMONSTER was wasted by YG when it was not chosen to promote. "Like That, written by Charlie Puth, is a hidden gem that proves BABYMONSTER has enough qualities to overcome YG's lazy attempts.

The song is pleasantly flirtatious, full of optimism. "Like That" is a mix influenced by 2000s RnB material. The song has the potential to make BABYMONSTER the next great K-pop girl group — if YG is brave enough to step out of their comfort zone," the magazine wrote.

In addition, NME used the sweetest words to comment on BABYMONS7ER mini album and expressed their disappointment with YG's music strategy for the rookie.

Before NME's assessment, Knet also agreed and hoped YG would have a more suitable orientation for 7 young talents. Unlike HYBE rookies, good music, trendy concepts but controversial talents, BABYMONSTER is a combination of fresh colors and positive reviews.

It is clear that the team has the qualities to develop independently and move to a strong position in the future. But the ambition to create "BLACKPINK 2.0" that could make BABYMONSTER not yet explode has been dashed.

BABYMONSTER "patted" reporters when asking about ILLIT, not ashamed of YG's "chicken" Vân Anh10:27:53 05/04/2024The reporter suddenly asked the YG rookies about their opponent ILLIT, but their answers made fans extremely cool because they were too skillful and smart, thereby receiving countless compliments from netizen.