by The four-member girl group Espa is showing off their global popularity with their second mini album, ‘Girls.’ Photo courtesy of SM Entertainment
Espa, the ‘fourth generation representative,’ writing a new history for K-pop girl groups, has emerged as a new powerhouse in the global market. On the 8th, they released their second mini album, ‘Girls’ in Korea and the US at the same time and started to attack the global market in earnest.
Highest ranking among ‘4th generation K-pop girl groups’
US Billboard announced on the 18th (Korean time) through an online chart preview article, “Korea’s four-member girl group Espa has entered the ‘Top 10’ for the first time.” With the first mini album ‘Savage’ in October of last year, it rose 17 places from 20th place on the ‘Billboard 200’.
In particular, this record is the second highest for a K-pop girl group, with Black Pink’s 1st full album, ‘The Album’ in 2020 and Twice the 3rd with their 3rd full album the following year.
‘Billboard 200’ adds the number of digital music downloads to album sales (TEA) and the number of streaming to album sales (SEA) to the physical album (CD) sales. Espa recorded album sales of 56,000 copies.
Billboard explained, “98% of album sales in the first week were physical CDs, and the remaining 2% were digital albums.”
‘Girls’ contains a total of 9 songs, including the title song of the same name, full of intense energy, the first English song ‘Life’s Too Short,’ the Korean version, ‘Goblin,’ ‘Lingo,’ and ‘ICU.’ this is included.
First K-Pop Girl Group ‘Initial Chodong Million Seller’
Before its release, this album sold more than 1 million copies on the Hanteo Chart on the 7th day of its release, writing a new history for a K-pop girl group. It is the first time the sales volume (initial week) of a girl group album exceeded 1 million copies since Hanteo Chart started counting it.
Another album tally chart, the Circle Chart (formerly Gaon Chart), also recorded sales of 1,426,000 copies in the first week and became a million-seller.
Rolling Stone, an American music magazine, also recently praised “ESPA’s unique concept featuring a virtual world, a villain, and an avatar member, which has attracted much attention since its debut, but the root is music.”
