This feature has gradually shifted from a December to a November tradition, leaving more space for next month’s sprawling end-of-year countdowns. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be looking at many of K-pop’s biggest agencies and offering my thoughts about how their 2022 went. Following SM Entertainment, YG Entertainment‘s and JYP Entertainment‘s evaluations, it’s time for the last of the “big four.” Yep, it’s HYBE Labels.
As usual, the thoughts are my own and aren’t privy to any insider information. The purpose of these articles is to determine how well K-pop agencies are serving their artists and fans. Because of the timing of this post, I’ll be including the last few weeks of 2021 as part of my analysis.
The Good
HYBE has become such a sprawling empire that it almost exists on its own playing field. With no less than six major subsidiaries, HYBE is now home to over a dozen major acts. The corporation grew even larger in 2022 with the debut of two new girl groups. I’d like to start by focusing on them.
LE SSERAFIM and NewJeans have both become instant successes. They followed different paths to get there, but their music and image are quickly defining this new generation in K-pop. And given the creative control and focus of their individual subsidiaries (Source Music and ADOR, respectively), the groups arrived with a distinct identity and purpose. International appeal has always been a huge part of the HYBE brand, and these girl groups seem especially adept at capturing fans of various nationalities and cultural backgrounds. The future is looking bright for them.
Similarly, fromis_9 have benefited greatly from being swept up in HYBE’s umbrella. Their sales skyrocketed this year. Now, they just need that one big hit to cement them in the public’s mind.
Though I’m critical of HYBE’s overall influence on the K-pop market, there’s no denying it was a smart move to gobble up other successful agencies over the past few years. With their biggest act (BTS, in case you’ve been living under a rock) due to begin military enlistments, HYBE has a wide – and widely successful – bench of artists to fall back on. Boy groups TXT, ENHYPEN and Seventeen continue to be very popular. None of them had a particularly great 2022 when it comes to music, but they’re an imposing trio when you look at sales. A future without BTS group activities doesn’t feel nearly as uncertain as it did just two years ago.
Speaking of BTS, 2022 finally gave us more solo work from the guys. This has been a long time coming and opens the door for new sounds and ideas within BTS’s extended discography. So far, efforts by J-Hope and Jin have been met with success and it will be interesting to see what the other guys do – especially those who haven’t released solo mixtapes in the past.
Many K-pop headlines were built around a “will they or won’t they?” approach to BTS’s enlistment this year. I’m not sure the agency or members had an actual choice in this from a legal standpoint, but I think the forced hiatus might be good for them in the long run. There’s a real risk of oversaturation, even as the rate of new BTS music has slowed. This pause should give them a chance to jump off the hamster wheel and assess where they want their careers to go in the future.
HYBE artists continue to be popular across the globe, but the company seems to be making a concerted push into the Japanese market. In addition to Japanese albums from its existing roster, the new Japanese group &Team is set to debut soon. And with LE SSERAFIM scheduled to perform on the prestigious Kōhaku Uta Gassen (member Sakura is already a bonafide star in Japan), HYBE seems well-positioned to extend its tentacles into Japan’s music industry. Now, they just need to make sure the music is decent.
The Bad
HYBE is a financial juggernaut, and that continued in 2022. But, this was always going to be a difficult year for them. BTS’s hiatus has already taken its toll on their market share and is even estimated to hurt the Korean economy as a whole. I don’t think HYBE are in any real trouble, but their investment in other acts will be critical over the next few years.
Musically, HYBE’s output was a mixed bag. Apart from the buzzy debuts of LE SSERAFIM and NewJeans, most acts felt like they were stuck in a holding pattern. BTS punted with a compilation album led by a single that acted more like a fan song, while TXT and Seventeen mostly repeated sounds and ideas they’d covered with greater artistic success in the past. There was no big standout song from any of these groups – no 0x1=LOVESONG that everyone seemed to rave about.
In TXT’s case, this comes down to a lack of actual music. One mini album seems unfair for a group of their rising status. Post-pandemic, every K-pop act seemed to tour in 2022 and I understand this makes it difficult to schedule multiple comebacks. But, TXT have always suffered from a dearth of comebacks when compared to peers from other agencies. I wonder if they’d be better served under their own subsidiary in the way that Belift Lab manages ENHYPEN. Maybe BTS’s group hiatus will allow TXT to get more promotional attention.
HYBE subsidiaries were not without their share of criticism this year. From Kim Garam’s bullying scandal to the styling and concepts given to its underaged performers, the all-powerful empire seemed to play defense just as often as they played offense. Managing girl groups comes with different set of intricacies than boy groups, and HYBE don’t have a great track record in this regard. We’ll see what the future holds, but 2022 was definitely a year of growing pains.
2022 Grade: B
What I’d like to see in 2023:
- An elevation of some of HYBE’s younger acts (TXT, ENHYPEN, fromis_9)
- A diverse set of BTS solo projects
- The solidification of LE SSERAFIM and NewJeans as the new girl group vanguard
Previous years: 2021 // 2020 // 2019 // 2018 // 2017
