Blackpink in your area – no more?
After wrapping up their Born Pink world tour in Seoul with tears and sentiments, the famous K-pop girl group is rumored to disband.
Several reports about the girls not renewing their contracts with YG Entertainment surfaced days after their final group concert. As always, the agency never confirmed, nor did they give any clear statements.
Blinks have mixed feelings about the rumors, but did it really come as a surprise? Or did we all subconsciously have it coming? Here are the tell-tale signs that we might’ve missed:
Long comebacks, few songs. It is obvious that Blackpink has unrealistically few songs for a group of their scale. In every comeback, the fans expected more songs, but the majority of their albums never exceeded eight songs. Only their live albums reached over 15 songs.
There was also an issue with music production, as the list of credited composers and producers on every album rarely shows the girls’ names. “They are scared to hold a pen” is among the various criticisms thrown at the group.
Brand ambassadorship over music. In early 2021, Blackpink took their first official hiatus, following the release of The Album in October 2020. This hiatus nearly took two years, and each of the members flourished more as brand ambassadors than as idols. They were even branded as “IG models” because the major achievements that their fandom can brag about are mainly the prestige and honor of being chosen as ambassadors of various luxury brands.
Uneventful music career as a quartet. Blackpink had numerous “musical breaks” in the course of their career. After every promotion, release, and performance related to their albums, the girls always take such long breaks before releasing another album, consequently taking the audience’s hype away.
The group especially lost some following during their long hiatus in early 2021 to late 2022, but it was around this time that each of the members started to gain individual fanbases pertinent to the release of their solo projects.
The differences in streams and the impact of their solo music show that the members are better off as soloists. Not even their occasional group projects with popular Western artists could be at par with each of their individual successes.
Low stage presence – silent quitting. The Born Pink world tour ended, but with some controversies surrounding it. One of which is the group’s low stage presence during their performances in a couple of stops.
Various clips shared all over Twitter, Instagram and TikTok show Blackpink’s poor synergy. The lack of synchronization, low energy and the occasional missteps brought criticisms upon the girls.
A number of netizens worried about their health. Some felt bad for Lisa for being the group’s saving grace. Some questioned if the members still wanted to be idols. Evidently, some concluded that this was their way of silently quitting the group.
It had only been SEVEN years since their debut, but from the looks of it, the girls are already tired of everything that came with being in Blackpink.
Individual celebrations during the group’s anniversary. Following COVID and the two-year hiatus, Blinks expected a proper OT4 celebration, only to be disappointed once again.
Instead of Blackpink, the fans only got a cereal deco kit, a pre-recorded content and a Rosé IG live for the group’s 7th anniversary. Each of the girls did share heartfelt messages in their individual social media accounts, but that’s as far as the fans could get.
All these signs, along with the recent cryptic IG posts, more liberal individual projects, lack of staff surrounding the girls and the inconclusive news of their contract renewal, only point towards one thing: DISBANDMENT.
Is this truly the end of Blackpink’s era and the start of their solo careers? What do you guys think?
