According to the Circle Chart, which tallies sales from 13 music distributors including Kakao Entertainment, trot singer Lee Chan Won's album 'One,' released on February 20, sold a total of 560,000 copies in just 8 days, making it the top-selling album for the month of February. This figure surpassed the album sales of 'Second Wind,' a single album by Seventeen's unit BSS, which comprises of popular K-pop artists Seungkwan, Hoshi, and DK, that sold around 500,000 copies in the same month, putting it in second place.

What's noteworthy about this achievement is that it's unusual for a trot singer to beat out a K-pop idol group with a strong fandom both in Korea and internationally. The trend continues as Lee Chan Won's album sales for January and February outperformed K-pop artists such as Key of SHINee (70,000 copies), Yesung of Super Junior (60,000 copies), Minhyun of NU'EST (50,000 copies), and Jinyoung of GOT7 (40,000 copies), as well as new K-pop idols, with his sales being up to 14 times higher.

This clearly highlights the reality that top trot singers are carving out a niche as new idols in the music industry.

In the past year, there has been a noticeable shift in the music market's perception, which has long been dominated by K-pop. Last year, trot singers such as Lim Young Woong, Kim Ho Jung, and Youngtak sold over 2.5 million copies (based on the top 50) of their albums, marking the first time annual album sales for trot singers have surpassed 1.5 million copies since Circle Chart began counting album sales in 2010. In addition, the market for music downloads has shifted from K-pop to trot, with all of Lim Young Woong's songs making it to the top five of last year's annual music download chart, with no K-pop songs in sight.

This newfound prominence of trot singers in the fandom-centered music and music download market is evidence that the number of trot enthusiasts has recently exploded. Even in the music streaming market, where trot had a high threshold, changes are occurring. Genie Music was commissioned by Dong-A Ilbo to investigate the number of trot entries in the "Monthly Chart Top 100" for the past five years, and the results showed a soaring increase from 0 in 2017 to 41 in 2022. During this same period, the proportion of trot songs among the total number of streamed songs increased by 8 times. It's safe to say that we are currently in the "heyday of trot."