Ailee took the honor for her single “I Will Go to You Like The First Snow,” a track off the original soundtrack of the hit tvN drama “Guardian.” (Image: Yonhap)
SEOUL, Jan. 12 (Korea Bizwire) — The Korean pop music market saw sharp increases in the consumption of digital music through streaming and the sales of physical albums in 2017, a market tracker said Friday.
Twelve songs, up from only two in the previous year, streamed more than 100 million times, indicating a major shift in consumption of digital music, from downloading to streaming, the Korea Music Content Industry Association (KMCIA) that operates the Gaon Chart.
The KMCIA announced the increase in the consumption of audio streaming as one of the three main trends shaping the 2017 music market, along with the strength of female singers in the digital music market and male acts in physical albums sales.
“Thanks to the strength of male idol groups such as BTS, EXO, Wanna One, GOT7 and Seventeen, the accumulated sales of the top 400 albums recorded 1,693,491 in 2017, up 160 percent from the previous year,” the association said in a release.
Also unveiled were Gaon’s yearly charts for 2017 where pop diva Ailee and BTS claimed the top spot respectively in the digital music and physical album categories.
Ailee took the honor for her single “I Will Go to You Like The First Snow,” a track off the original soundtrack of the hit tvN drama “Guardian.”
IU’s “Through the Night” was runner-up on the Digital General Top 100 Chart based on downloads, audio streaming, and the number of uses as background music.
Yoon Jong-shin’s “Like It” and Ed Sheeran’s “Shape Of You” came in third and fourth, followed by Heize’s “You, Clouds, Rain.”
As for the albums chart, BTS’ “Love Yourself: Her” claimed the top spot by selling 1,493,443 copies, the highest since the KMCIA began tracking the market.
The Korean version of EXO’s fourth studio album “The War” was No. 2 with 949,827 copies, followed by BTS’ previous album “You Never Walk Alone” (768,402), and Wanna One’s “To Be One” (741,546). Wanna One also took fifth place with “Nothing Without You” that sold 614,072 copies.
(Yonhap)
