So far this year, K-pop has seen major comebacks of past K-pop groups. First, there was the comeback of Big Bang in which their song “ Bang Bang Bang ” made it to the top 100 United States charts on iTunes. Then there are numerous updates on the comeback of Girls’ Generation, this time as an eight-member group now that Jessica Jung is no longer a part of them.
Despite this year’s K-pop trend, it must be reported the one group generally sitting on top of Korean (and Chinese) charts is EXO. Their popularity has skyrocketed so much this year and it is proven by the fact that the music video for EXO’s hit “Call Me Baby” is officially the most-watched K-pop music video for the first half of 2015.
According to Naver translated through Soompi , “Call Me Baby” is officially the most-watched music video in the first half of 2015, with about 52.3 million views by July 2, 2015. The two versions of the music video – one in Korean (40,000,000 plus views) and the other in Chinese (11,000,000 plus million views) – were released on March 31, 2015.
Such popularity shouldn’t be a surprise for EXO though. EXO is a multi-million seller with their first full-length album, XOXO , back in 2013. Add in the combined sales of their other album, EXODUS, as well as the repackaging of the two albums, Growl (repackaging of XOXO ) and Love Me Right (repackaging of EXODUS ), and the numbers are increased even more. EXO also won over 30 trophies from various music shows throughout 2015.
As for recent and/or future endeavors, the web series EXO Next Door just recently finished back in May of 2015. Also, if EXO’s manager Noh Yongmin is able to pique the interests of artists like Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift, it is possible they and EXO might collaborate on a K-pop crossover.
[Image via EXO’s Official Korean Facebook Page]