lol this is just straight up misinformation? both of Hot Issue's albums sold over 2k copies in the first week alone

Your answer to why Hot Issue sold extremely less than Kiss of Life is one reason, NATTY. She has a very huge fan base. Like huge. Starting from JYP Sixteen, to her solo, to now, people have been wanting her to be in a group for a long time so when it happened of course she was gonna help sell a lot of copies.

A lot of these companies had no long term gameplay for these girl groups and expected them to blow up out of nowhere which is a rare occurrence. It’s so sad 😕

I would also add Brave Girls to the list. It is a similar issue. Brave Brothers produced music for big groups like AOA, 4minute, Sistar but thier own group was most of their career inactive because BG didn't bring much money.

I think kpop rise in popularity made many people believe that it's easy to create a famous group. When in reality we have to understand that MOST artists won't reach this level

bugaboo had so much potential... one thing i want to add is that i think a factor of why bugaboo's "Pop" failed to make waves was that it was also overtly overshadowed by Nayeon's "Pop", which was released around the same time!! like... both of those songs are insanely catchy but the timing was just so unfortunate for bugaboo

I remember falling in love with Bugaboo’s debut and was ready to stan them next comeback, so sad to see the girls simply fade to obscurity due to mismanagement and lack of resources :(

For Hot Issue, I remember their debut it was right at the HEIGHT of covid, and there really was not promo for the group. The only reason I heard anything was some allkpop articles way before their launch. I still cry about Bugaboo, they were the goofy "dark" sisters to purple kiss and Dreamcatcher to me.

i think part of why kiss of life is so successful is because they have natty - a contestant on sixteen, the show that made twice - so they got a lot of eyes on them from the start. also, kiof's music is v trendy while hot issue came at a time when it seemed like everyone was 'sick of girl crush'. altho i never stanned hot issue or bugaboo, i was aware of them and sad that they had to go thru this bs. i really hope that other groups don't fall victim to the same thing.

Proof that producer privilege is not real

Natty was definitely a huge reason for Kiss of Life's success. So many of us have been waiting for her to comeback after her solo songs were released. Heck I've been a fan of her since Sixteen. Plus there's Belle who is a former songwriter and composer for SM, meaning they have a member that could make their songs without depending on a producer to give them a song. I think just from those 2 members alone, it was bound to go better than Hot Issue. Still wished they stuck with Hot Issue for a little longer to really give em a chance in the industry, but oh well.

S2 hired new/different creative directors for Kiss Of Life. So the previous management staff were most likely blamed for Hot Issue’s failure and let go. Kiss of Life creative director Lee Haein, from PD101, and like Natty, also from Idol School, has been praised for the concept and direction she envisioned for the group. Most attribute a great deal of their debut success to Haein.

kiss of life has got an insane lineup. natty has been popular since sixteen, belle is a producer and songwriter (she is credited on lsf's unforgiven for example) and as an ex sm trainee she has got insane vocals. the people who bias these 2 members make up like 70% of the fanbase

You started with a music producer (Ryan S. Jhun) and his pet product (BugAboo) and how he failed to give his own group some of the quality material he was providing for other groups, so I'll comment in kind with another example of this exact same phenomenon. One of K-Pop's most recognizable producers is Kang Dong-chul (otherwise known as Brave Brothers) of Brave Entertainment. One of Kang's pet projects was Brave Girls (now BB Girls). Brave Girls history is one of the strongest examples of half-hearted management in the genre. Here's their history: - April 7, 2011: Debuted with single album "The Difference", with the title song "Do You Know" (which I absolutely love). - July 28/29, 2011: Released mini-album "Back to da Future", with title song "Easily". - February 22, 2012: Released second mini-album "Re-Issue". - August 31, 2013: Released single "For You". - Hiatus #1 (2013 to 2016): Shortly after the release of "For You", Brave Girls went on a two and a half year hiatus; during which, 3 members left and 2 remained. - February 16, 2016: Released single "Deepened". The 2 remaining members were joined by 5 new members. Of the 5 new members, 4 (Minyoung, Youjoung, Eunji, Yuna) are still in the group (now named BB Girls). - June 19, 2016: Released third mini-album "High Heels" with a title track of the same name. - September 1, 2016: Released digital single "Yoo Hoo". - January 13, 2017: The last 2 original members (Yoojin and Hyeran) leave the group. - March 7, 2017: Released "Rollin'" with a title track of the same name. - August 11, 2018: Released "Rollin' (New Version)". Shortly afterwards, Hayun leaves the group, leaving the 4 members that still remain today. - Hiatus #2 (2018 to 2020): After a failed attempt to reboot the groups popularity by having 3 members participate on "The Unit" (survival show), and dismal sales of "Rollin' (New Version)", the group goes back into mothballs. - August 14, 2020: Released digital single "We Ride" (another song I absolutely loved). The 4 members expressed sadness because they felt that this would be their final release. At this point, they were just waiting for the disbandment notice from management. - February 2021: The Miracle. A video compilation of "Rollin'" performances for South Korea's military goes viral. The song would then shoot to the top on most music charts making Brave Girls a household name. "We Ride" also rose in the charts as a result. NOTE: Brave Brothers had nothing to do with this. This sudden burst into the spotlight is owed to a dedicated fan. This "miracle" rivalled a similar experience that happened when a fancam of Hani (EXID) performing of "Up & Down" saved that group from disbandment and catapulted them into the big leagues. - March 14, 2021: Brave Girls received their first music show win for "Rollin'"; 1,854 days after their debut's initial release, marking the longest time it took for any girl group to win after debut. - April 29, 2021: Released special version of "High Heels". - June 17, 2021: Released fifth mini-album "Summer Queen" with "Chi Mat Ba Ram" as the title track. - August 23, 2021: Released repackaged version "After 'We Ride'". - March 14, 2022: Released sixth mini-album "Thank You" with a title track of the same name. - May 23, 2022: Released single "How Come". - February 15, 2023: Released single "Goodbye", which would be their swan song. Shortly after release it was announced the all 4 members would be leaving Brave Entertainment. - April 26, 2023: All 4 members sign with Warner Music Korea (yes, that Warner of Fifty Fifty fame (infamy)). They continue under that label to this day. Now, for 12 years (2011 to 2023), Brave Brothers produced top ten hits for "other" groups such as T-ara, 4minute, After School, Apink, AOA, BESTie, BIGBANG, Brown Eyed Girls, Dal Shabet, HelLOVEnus, SISTAR, 9Muses, Stellar, Sunmi and many other solo performers; and that's just the girl artists. You would think he would've shared some of that creative genius for his own group of girls. Instead, he gave them decent material that he would try to re-release numerous times. Brave Girls deserved so much better. It's a sin what they went through. As far as HOT ISSUE, I had such high hopes for them. "Gratata" is such a great song filled with some really good singing talent. The way their voices fused in that song was only rivalled by the vocal performance they did for "Hot Candy". Seriously, go listen to that song and focus on the individual flare each of the girls added to the overall production. Between debuting at a time when the market was saturated with Girl Crush, complete mismanagement, and lackluster promotions, their fate was nothing less than tragic.

I think the main difference with Kiss Of life and Hot Issue is that the CEO already knew how to manage a group with "known members" rather than mainly new faces. From what I could understand he had a play into 4minute (you know HyunA's group) so to me it seems like he already knew how to go and use members that were already known. Natty was from Sixteen, Idol School and even had a solo. Belle was known for writing songs. Finally, Julie was also a familiar face. I think the CEO was simply more able to double down on what he knew worked and how to make it work. Also Dalshabet is another group like this. Their producer/CEO literally produced Gee and couldn't do anything to make these girls get a 1st win. At least the company was able to do something with Dream Catcher I guess.

bugAboo and HOT ISSUE were two of my favorite groups that debuted in 2021 and I was absolutely devastated when they both disbanded. bugAboo was a really unique fun group with a ton of talent and great personalities. HOT ISSUE had everything they needed to become the next Everglow. I am forever scarred by losing these two incredibly lovable and promising groups. (At least Nahyun of HI and Rainie of bugAboo were able to redebut together in Primrose!)

I was surprised to learn that Hot Issue came from a company founded by someone from Cube. The fact that their name was Hot Issue (the same name as the debut song for 4minute, a group from Cube) and their own debut song was named Latata just like (G)i-dles (another group from Cube) makes me think that the group wasn't well thought out from the start and the CEO was just trying to recycle old ideas and hoping it would work.

bugaboo deserved more of a chance!

The best example for a company caring for their group is KM Entertainment, the company of iChillin. Their debut song didn’t make waves but the company didn’t gave up and gave these girls a lot of comebacks. And now they sold over 6000 copies with their latest comeback and it only goes up from here. Another company that really cares for their group is NV Entertainment, which is Woo!ahs company.

In my heart I'm still a Rainboo, so it hurts that bugAboo disbanded. And I mean hurt, I literally felt extreme sadness and didn't really get over it because it was just out of the blue. The irony is that POP is a great song, but like lightsoup said, you can't stop promoting your group and expect people to stick around except the hardcore fans. I was one, but even I had to search out when they would appear on this and that because their main socials barely covered it. They did have some side content, but didn't appear on any of the big shows to grow an audience. Combine that with POP being blown over with Nayeon's POP just days after their comeback, and that's all she wrote. (Also, what was their company thinking trying to compete against a TWICE member? Sometimes you got to know when to delay and re-schedule. It wasn't a secret Nayeon was doing a huge solo, JYPE advertised that to the moon.). Anyway... I guess I'm still hurt about it, lol. I love Nayeon. I even think her version of POP is good too, but my Rainboo heart is broken because of it. lol

BugABoo: Hurt very hard for me. I was enjoying them right from the start. It hurt me when I found out that they were disbanding. I bought both of them albums. I still blast the music till this day. Hot Issue: Is another group that I was here for from the start. I also bought both albums as well. Their songs were super good and I still blast their songs as well.

it still boggles me how ryan jhun can create ive's whole discography while he can't even manage both bugaboo and vav.

For the bg version, Rain with his company and mismanagement of 3 groups over 3 decades are astonishing.

Ryan doing everything else and making song after song for other groups EXCEPT his own... so somilar to Brave BRothers and Brave Girls... stupid successful producers and their egos....

Perhaps S2 ent realized their mistakes of debuting Hot Issue in middle of pandemic, plus their decision to go with heavy girl-crush concept that's already overdone at that point. I personally love Hot Issue & their music, but i also can see why they barely sale enough album And i think the company learned from those mistakes & decided to go on another direction with KIOF. The fact that they let one of their artists, Lee Haein, to be the group's creative director, was ballsy & genius. She wasn't that much older than the members herself (she was a former constestant of idol school, along with natty). I think her perspective & vision for the group were one of few reasons why KIOF debut was received far better than Hot Issue.

I wish S2 didn't give up on Hot Issue because Hot Issue's debut had a similar situation with H1-Key's debut with selling less than 100 copies for a long time just because of the fact it was the pandemic and people dropped nugu girl group's left and right because there was limited resource's to gain any significance in the industry. Glg still stayed strong with H1-key and now H1-key sell over 70k first week, and if S2 kept up with Hot Issue we could see a similar incline of sales and popularity. Also Kiss of Life is 10x more popular than Hot Issue because they smartly gave Natty the best solo, completely utilizing her pre-debut popularity which allows more people to discover the group and now the other 2 members are starting to gain more fans.

Hot Issue's disbandment still hurts me, their music was so good!! 😭 Dunga Dunga, Hide in the Dark, Purple and Hot Candy all went number 1 in my heart

Another addition would be pristin they deserved so much better nd had SOOO MUCH potential

One nice thing is that both Rainie from Bugaboo and Nahyun from Hot issue both recently redebuted together in the group Primrose, so it's nice seeing that these peoples careers won't necessarily end with these messes in management.

Kiss of Life has Natty as a member, famous ex-JYP trainee who has a huge fanbase on Thailand, that's why this group is doing better from the getgo, also they are different from current kpop since the 4 members are adults and the concept is more sexy

I began my KPOP journey by liking TREN-D. Actually I discovered they disbanded or faded away in 2016. I was sorry about this because the group had talented members. After watching every video on youtube I could find I felt the company was not doing well by its girls. After years of training they only lasted 3 years.

i usually avoid this topic because i'm a swith and i don't wanna jinx my beloved stayc but this was a great video thanks. when it comes to the success of KOL their success comes to the members themselves, natty is popular with her name being known for almost a decade plus one of the members co-wrote unforgiven which gave them some clout, i'm not saying their success is purely because of that, their album is really good and effort was definitely put into it and i'm not saying that hit issue's music was bad but KOL definitely had way more potential.

i am so sad for both groups, they had so much potential :( hot issue are among my favourite girl groups and i really love them, i even bought their first album bc i really got attached to them, unfortunately the timing of their debut was absolutely terrible cause there was the pandemic and this really affected negatively their carreer, i wonder what if they debuted in 2022, they might be still here...

Me @ Hinapia :/ Drip was such a moment

Hot Issue performing so badly is even more confusing now that Kiss of Life has done so well. What was missing before? I feel like it's more than just luck

Tbh these song writers shouldn't debut their own girl groups We already see many song writers tried to debut their own gg and failed For instance: Brave Brothers - Brave Girls Initially the girls were on the track to success but they stopped promoting the group post Nowadays You. The girls also mentioned that the song Miniskirt was supposed to be their comeback but they gave it to AOA and it became a hit. Then Brave Brothers just realized that they need to continue promoting Brave Girls but it was too late actually. After almost 3 years with no comeback, people seem to have already forgotten their existence. Thankfully the army vid became so popular in 2020. However, Brave Brothers don't know how to promote them post popularity. Next we have Shinsadong Tiger - EXID Again a great song writer who doesn't know how to promote his gg. For two years EXID was in the state of nugudom where they produced good songs but little to no popularity. After they merged with Yedang Entertainment, finally the girls were able to promote their song properly and thanks to the fancam of Hani. They became a hit. However, after they parted ways with Yedang Entertainment and built a new company, Banana Culture, Shinsadong Tiger went back to square one where he didn't know how to promote EXID. Hence, the company went bankrupt after EXID departure. Lastly we have Duble Kick - Momoland Again we all know what happened to Momoland. All I can say is most of these song writers only know how to produce good music but they don't know how to promote them. For me, they need to collab with a company that knows how to promote gg and has the connections to make the gg successful.

Hot Issue actually debuted on April 28th, 2021 & they made their first & last ever comeback on September 29th, 2021

no way, I pointed out before a few years ago in a discord a weird trend of ''pet groups'' popping up for companies that had no business in kpop before hopping into the scene. Noticed it because of Dreamnote and they had a hella expensive performance with a whole LIVE BAND from a company that's financed by a bigger company that has their toes in all sorts of waters, similar to that of Loona. It's not just producers that just do this, producers and companies alike do not seem to care at all that they're literally destroying lives and dreams of innocent young people.

When Hong Seung Sung left Cube is when Cube started to go downhill, especially with management wanting the artists to rich a certain sell’s goal. So we can blame him for 4MINUTE’s and CLC’s disbandment (which was intentional, because I saw firsthand their albums/singles not put out on iTunes from a span of a month to a full blown year). Let’s how Kiss Of Life can keep up, which honestly they will.

Kiss of Life has Natty and an Yg trainee. I loved Hot Issues concept but there was gap between promotions due convid and literally can end careers or take them longer to gain recognition in the industry.

Honestly my fav thing about you is you try to being facts primarily, along with opinions and you are so open to discussion instead of being like "I'm right, youre wrong." And its so nice and approachable. These videos feel like deep diving with a friend at 3AM. 😂🥰

Most of these companies seem to blow all their money on the first 1 or 2 releases, then go broke and disband their groups. Imo, don't debut a group if you cant afford to wait a while for them to become profitable. These companies are wasting these girls precious youth and talent.

Like others have mentioned- Kiss of Life has a popular trainee who is a member of the lineup with Natty. What I find interesting is that this closely mirrors the situation with 4minute- a cube artist. They had Hyuna- a popular previously debuted idol. So they had a lot of initial hype and steam behind them. I wonder if S2s ceo decided he’d rather try to repeat this successful formula with Natty rather than fight to get steam behind Hot Issue.

Eu tenho pensando muito sobre isso ultimamente sobre como as empresas parecem nao estudar muito o mercado que elas trabalham e só lançam grupos sem fazer uma verdadeira pesquisa do que vai funcionar. Tipo um grupo faz sucesso NJs por exemplo e aí as enpresas correm pra debutar seus grupos com conceitos e sons inspirados porque se deu certo com NJs, vai dar certo em outro lugar tbm. Quando a indústria do kpop precisa estudar pra se ter um plano a longo prazo porque a não que você seja de empresa grande, seu início vao ser mais difícil.

I found both of these groups after disbanment on spotify, these groups were so good. I loved their sound and still listen to them.

actually kiss of life’s popularity is way bigger than hotissue’s bcs of natty.

My jaw dropped when I saw 95 copies. I guess because it happened in the middle of COVID they couldn't get the sales from fansigns but still, my goodness.

the interesting thing about BEP is that they said they expected stayc’s debut to be a big hit so they said they were disappointed with the results. just shows that if they let their ego get in their way and focus on other artists instead that stayc might had a different fate

Great video. It got me to think… what would your passion project be if given a reasonable budget to debut a group? For me, I’d love to put together a group of experienced idols with disbanded groups and pursue a 2 nd gen type sound and theme. Everything in music is cyclical and I think the audience would be there.

*Hot issue debuted in April of 2021 not September and S2 ENTERTAINEMENT planned debuting 5 girl groups and boy group during 2021 for different PROJECT so none of them group were supposed to last especially if they flop really bad. Kiss of life members were trained since end of 2021 and worked with ADORA since and I do think it was part of their project group too. Also i don't understand how After Like, Eleven, Not friends was given to other idols when Bugaboo could've make 4 single album with single and then having a mini album with Bugaboo, because honestly Bugaboo title track for debut was risky.

I loved bugaboos debut and the dark version of it for halloween but pop i had a feeling was'nt going to chart too well then silence 😢 from the group then disbandment i had high hopes for this group shame.

It reminds me of a Latina girl group called 4love they filmed visuals and record original music, they did so much promo for their group in the end they never debuted cause of the label and their team Redone.

Hot Issue actually debuted on April 28, 2021. Not September 29, 2021

the bugaboo situation breaks my heart, it's like bc they didn't debut successful straight from the jump like IVE or newjeans their company just disbanded them. they had so much potential, their debut was one of my favs of 2021.

With BugABoo I will understand if it was for there producer to focus on StayC but he kept producing so that tells he didn’t like the sells or something compared to the other artist he is a producer for

I feel mimiirose is heading toards this fate, especially with the near 90% drop in first day sales and company finanical issues.

S2 will always make me pissed because hot issues was one of ult groups.

These companies also forget you have to have creative,artistic and artist development and directors to help with artist.

BEP setup a proper company for Stayc. Note that they are not CEO of that company. They recognized that a label is more than the producer. Most of these other producers who fail did not put in same effort or planning. Then, they realize that producing for other groups on other labels still earns them more money. Ryan, for example, was a lead producer for Ive's successful launch, while he put his group on hiatus.

Kiss of Life has Natty who has a domestic and international fanbase.

Having said this all, what do yall think of Lightsum? I'm worried 🤩 cuz theyre under cube but Vivace was a masterpiece. Also ichillin and mimiirose

I think the only passion group that succeeded was woo!ah! Tbh, as i can remember their ceo was the guy who is the choreographer & appeared in the sisters slam dunk unnies season 2.

i loved Bugaboo and hot issue, pitiful they disbanded! i prefer hot issue songs than kiss of life songs

rip bugaboo, miss them so much

6:32 he want to get money more easily, with giving out the song to other artists that already has a name the probability of those songs getting him more money is bigger than giving them out to bugaboo, not to mentioned he's only being the song producer for those artists while for bugaboo he need to fund for the music video, marketing and all the stuff so its more work, more money needed and most likely less money to gain

Hot Issue to me had the talent but I couldn't get into their music. I really liked Bugaboos debut but didn't care for their comeback. I guess it just depends on the individual, I do like Kiss of Life's music though. Hopefully they will have a much better future.

I immediately thought about Brave Girls during the intro….Brave Brothers were actively choosing to work with other groups instead of their own groups smh

I can’t say it’s Ryan’s fault all the way. He did the debut decently, the video shoot was great, even the teaser seemed like a movie. The music is great and composed well enough. It’s just hard to breakthrough. You can be as lucky as Fifty Fifty or distinguish yourself slowly like StayC. Stability is harder, even Itzy is plummeting a bit. I need to reiterate that Ryan and the company promoted the group during their first and final comeback for a while in UKposts ads. They were not gaining public attention. That’s the problem. It’s a business. I love the group and Choyeon is amazing but non-profiting is just common sense to disband. At least Ryan allowed them off the company with no debts and can debut freely later on in other companies.

its crazy to think that ryan s jhun wrote PAINT THE TOWN, and he couldn't even give his own group as a masterpiece as that song is

I started listen k-pop in 2014 so i have a decent good all notion about popular groups and non-popular gruops and build my favourite groups from both popular and non-popular girls grups so i was not biased from big companies only. I did an experiment with alot of friend (the don't listen to k-pop, i'm the only one) showing them only an image of group member photos kinda live a VS between a popular and a non-popular girl group. Guess what? without they even knowing the girls from nowhere, just by "looks" they chosed 85-90% of the times the girls from the big companies and popular ones, just because those girls look PRETTIER AND MORE APILLING... so... no wonder why regardless if a low budget group make a great song, if the girls are not apilling to the audience, then is over. Sorry for my bad english.

sounds a lotttt like brave entertainment w bbgirls (brave girls)

Bugaboo deserved better tbh

the case of Hot Issue is easy: Hong Seung Sung don't know how to make popular a group, he knows how to manage popular groups but it's terrible to make one popular from nothing and it's evident if we look to his two first groups that were succesful 4Minute and Beast, 4Minute was branded as the group of HyunA and was popular because she was already an exWonder Girls and Beast was the "recycled group" a group made of popular trainees that were in the lineup predebut of big groups like 2PM or BigBang, then the groups that debuted were BTOB promoted as new Beast and was succesful but then in 2015 decided to debut CLC as a whole new group and was the biggest flop for the company in that time, he tried for 2015-2016 to make the group popular but all the attempts were terrible in management and this is why the accionist of the company debunked him as a CEO (and this why since 2017 Cube is one of the worst companies because they don't found a good CEO and change every year). He tried to debut Hot Issue in his own fame, that the people thinks that it would be a great group because he created 4Minute, I mean "Hot Issue" is literally the name of the debut song from 4Minute but this didn't work so he returned to make what he already knows: debut a group with a popular member that will make the group a little fanbase since day 1, this is why they presented the group with a Natty solo

Stop I am still obsessed with hot issues purple 😍😍😍😍

Well bugAboo we have more information to look an it's a little more obvious what happened if we know that bugAboo isn't the first group created by Ryan Jhun, is the second after the boy group VAV. VAV isn't a really popular group wobut has his little fanbase in particular in LATAM with many collaborations and songs with a latin sound the thing is that even if they aren't that popular they do more money than bugAboo, and that's the thing even if it's a group of persons the kpop groups are an inversion for the CEOs, and whoever industry is they always think "this is worth to invest my money?" Ryan Jhun has experience with a group that is barely profitable, bugAboo weren't make the numbers that VAV already do in their debut, after pandemic is harder to make a nugu group big, the girl groups in general make less money because how fandoms works and he wons more making songs for other groups than his own groups (and this is more obvious because VAV has very long hiatus). We all this scenario bugAboo wasn't a good inversion to promote a whole new group that it wasn't sure to be a success, and I don't think we can compare to StayC because the case is different when is your first group in the scenario of the first group usualy the lost of money is bigger this is why we still have VAV but not bugAboo and also the success from StayC since debut makes the group a secure inversion to follow Sorry for my english, I hope that is at least understandable my point

Bugaboo got the Brave Girls treatment and got screw by their CEO

bugAboo and HOT ISSUE is just the experiment of ATeam and S2 Look ATeam more successfull with VAV rather than bugAboo And S2 FINALLY get their true color on KISS OF LIFE Also, they debuting on Pandemic era which is too risk to debuting for Small Idol

Who's the group at 0:16 ?

ciipher and rain. rain is terrible at this.

Bugaboo: 6G crews are cursed. This is science.

Not every group whould blow up

i loved Bugaboo and hot issue, pitiful they disbanded! i prefer hot issue songs than kiss of life songs

i loved Bugaboo and hot issue, pitiful they disbanded! i prefer hot issue songs than kiss of life songs