Previously, HYBE Corporation declared that the company would decrease dependency on BTS and diversify its business to increase the ratio of revenue flow from their company.
Additionally, BTS announced that the group will focus on solo activities, and the members have been doing solo promotions. However, fans are starting to speculate that HYBE is sabotaging BTS's solo activities because of the way the label is handling their solo album releases.
This started with J-Hope's first solo album 'Jack In the Box' which was released in July of this year. There was no physical album released for J-Hope's first solo album due to "environmental reasons." Instead, they released a digital album with just a cardholder and two photo cards. However, HYBE later revealed they would release a limited edition Vinyl album which will be released in December.
Member Jin is also releasing his first solo single, 'The Astronaut,' on October 28 at 1 PM KST. Jin will be releasing a physical copy of his album, but it will be released overseas at a later date. This will cause both artists' album sales numbers to be significantly affected.
That is why many fans are speculating that HYBE is intentionally releasing the albums on different months to affect the album performance for the solo album releases.
One BTS fandom support team requested HYBE to delay the release of Jin's album so that the sales number in the first week can be properly tallied. They wrote, "Jin's solo single 'The Astronaut' album performance is expected to be affected negatively, as well as the Initial first-week sales count because the release date of the album overseas differs by more than a month. We strongly request that the album be released in 'early November' at the same time as the music release so that the artist's efforts and results can be properly evaluated."
Fans pointed out, "I feel like HYBE is doing this on purpose to show that they are depending less on BTS," "So they still want to make money but make sure that BTS members' solo albums don't have good performance," "they didn't even release a physical album for J-Hope's solo album," "I feel like HYBE is wary of BTS or something," "I think it's better if BTS just sets up their own company," "I think HYBE is trying to sabotage BTS solo releases since they feel the members won't renew their contract, lol," "HYBE's goal is to get more revenue but make BTS's performance drop," and "HYBE really sucks, they even leaked the lyrics sheet before."
SHARE
I don't think HYBE is doing this to prove they depend less on BTS, that doesn't make any sense. Rather, I think this way of controlling their individual sales is more about not letting their individual brands and fandoms to grow perhaps bigger than each other or bigger than the group's. HYBE is all about promoting BTS as a group. They have been doing that for years, hence not allowing the members to have individual endorsements or schedules, until recently. Obviously there are some members that are more popular than others, but it's not a situation like Suzy and Miss A, or Cha Eunwoo and Astro, because in the long run those end up with a disbanded group. While HYBE needs to depend less on BTS, that doesn't mean they are ready to let go of them. None of their other groups are as big as BTS and they won't be any time soon or ever, and BTS still have much potential as a group for many years ahead. Individual fandoms growing further apart in power could be a potential problem. It is also possible the members themselves are okay with this, since they started to do more individual activities this year, this must have been something they talked about with the company when they renewed their contracts.
5 more replies