A photo of Seventeen’s new album, which was reportedly abandoned on the streets of Shibuya in Tokyo, Japan, on April 30, spread via X.
SEOUL/TOKYO, May 6 (Korea Bizwire) – Photos showing boxes of discarded albums by the popular K-pop group Seventeen strewn across a street in Japan have reignited criticism from a prominent music executive over controversial marketing practices in the industry.
The images, posted recently on social media by a user in Japan, showed dozens of Seventeen albums piled up near Shibuya Parco, a major shopping complex in Tokyo. “Feel free to take them,” the caption read. Reports said the abandoned albums were later bagged as trash and removed.
The likely culprit, industry insiders say, are the randomized photocards and entry privileges for meet-and-greet events that are packaged with K-pop idol group albums. To collect all versions of the usually dozens of photocards randomly inserted, fans buy multiple copies of the same album, keeping just the cards and discarding or giving away the CDs.
Fans also purchase large album hauls to improve chances of winning tickets to coveted events where they can meet band members in person, creating a vicious cycle of over-purchasing followed by trashing unwanted inventory.
At a news conference last month, Min Hee-jin, founder of Hybe subsidiary ADOR, lamented the wasteful practices. “To boost an artist’s initial sales numbers, their existing fandoms keep buying the same album over and over,” she said. “I wish they’d stop making these random photocards and aggressive pushes” to inflate album sales figures.
“If everyone does this, the market becomes abnormal,” Min added. “If the numbers just keep rising artificially, the burden falls entirely on fans, who have to keep buying while idols are forced to do endless fan events until they’re exhausted.”
The so-called “album baksu” or “push” strategy she criticized involves entertainment agencies requiring album distributors to purchase portions of stock, then holding various events with artists to deplete inventory.
Min argued the manipulative tactics exploit fans’ psychological attachments. Her own girl group, NewJeans, avoids randomized photocards, focusing solely on music with its physical albums.
According to the Hanteo chart, Seventeen’s new album “17 Is Right Here,” released April 29, sold over 2 million copies on its first day and has surpassed 2.7 million in cumulative sales — figures inflated, critics claim, by the systemic pricing gimmicks.
Ashley Song (ashley@koreabizwire.com)
