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It’s that time of year again! While December is filled with year-end countdowns, I like to take a look back at some of K-pop’s biggest agencies during November. Before reading (especially if you’re new to the blog), it’s helpful to know that my grading focuses most heavily on music releases and how comebacks are managed and delivered to fans. Scandals and non-musical factors can certainly impact an agency’s grade, but the biggest criteria will always be the music itself.
As usual, the thoughts below are my own and aren’t privy to any insider information. There will be plenty of subjective critique.
The Good
Commercially, SM has had a very strong year. To me, this was highlighted most clearly by two acts: aespa and RIIZE.
While I feel like SM kind of stumbled into a hit with aespa’s Supernova (they were clearly not expecting it to do as well as it did), the song has become one of 2024’s defining moments. Hit songs are not unfamiliar to aespa, but this feels like a whole new level and has buoyed a trajectory that was already in ascent. I don’t love everything the group releases (mostly the b-sides, tbh), but they’re clearly doing what they need to do.
RIIZE’s music has been incredibly solid this year and each single seemed to hit it off with the listening public – a feat SM boy groups aren’t always able to achieve. After a promising debut in 2023, they proved themselves masters at vastly different genres while still managing to forge an identity that felt distinct. I haven’t been this excited for an SM boy group since SHINee, and the agency has done a very good job distinguishing their sound from NCT’s. Of course, there are non-musical concerns for this group… but more on that later.
This year marked the point where NCT members began to enlist. That puts the core group in something of a holding pattern, though their sheer number of members ensures we’ll probably get new music well into the future. None of their group or solo tracks hit big with me this year, but they were certainly prolific. We had new albums (of varying quality) from 127, Dream and WayV and a bevy of solo debuts. It’s clear they’ve built a very stable fan base that’s eager to support a variety of sounds and formats as long as the members are involved.
Newly arrived in the NCT universe are NCT Wish, and SM has gone all in on them. The guys have been incredibly active in both Korea and Japan, releasing a ton of music and straddling the line between the two markets quite well. They seem to be an out-of-the-gate success and I’m glad the agency has decided to give them a sound different from the core NCT style.
As expected, SM’s veteran acts weren’t quite as active as their younger counterparts – at least when it comes to new music. Most of this work focused on solo efforts, with all four SHINee members releasing albums, Super Junior basically being active when and where they want under their own label and only a couple Girls’ Generation members releasing new music. Similarly, EXO’s 2024 slate included only solo albums. On the other hand, we did get a very well-received Red Velvet comeback and TVXQ just released an anniversary album in Japan. BoA also gave us a single. But for me, none of these veteran acts released work that really moved the needle. There were many pleasant songs but few that lived up to their full potential.
Musically, I think SM did a better job than most agencies at avoiding the beige, “easy-listening” trend currently sweeping through the industry. Their output was quite varied and many of the music retained the unique touch we associate with SM acts. In fact, I think they’ll be the agency to lead overall trends in the coming year. I imagine many producers are trying to cook up their own Supernova, for example.
To sum it up, SM Entertainment’s 2024 strengths were mainly attached to their newer acts. The company seems well-positioned for the future with plenty of public-appealing talent to usher in the next wave of their history. And with trot group Mytro and a new girl group waiting in the wings, they may even be able to expand their reach in 2025.
The Bad
Okay, let’s get this out of the way first. When it comes to SM in 2024, the elephant in the room has to be the situation with RIIZE’s Seunghan. In fact, I imagine many would give the agency an “F” for the year simply due to this single issue. I couldn’t argue with that, though it’s not the way my evaluations work.
In short, SM handled the “controversy” around Seunghan’s past incredibly poorly. It was a mistake to have him go on hiatus in 2023, but even that couldn’t have prepared fans for how badly SM bungled his “return” (and later, removal) during these past few weeks. Their inability to stand behind their artist sets an awful precedent, kowtowing to the worst instincts of fan culture. But beyond the moral shortcomings, this about-face was an absolute communications nightmare. I’m shocked an agency of their caliber messed this up so badly. It has put a major stain on RIIZE’s trajectory and doesn’t bode well for future issues that may arise in the agency.
Musically, my gripes with SM Entertainment are the same as they have been over the past few years. My favorite eras for the agency tend to be driven by one or two visionary producers, giving their line-up of artists a distinct sound. For a long time, that fell to veteran producer Yoo Young-Jin. But after SM’s management transition in 2023, he left the agency and no single person has stepped up to fill that role. Kenzie comes to mind as SM’s most long-standing creative force and her work was reliably solid this year. Apart from that, SM fell strongly into the outsourced song camp approach. The agency has long outsourced their music, but without a central cohesion these songs can sometimes feel a bit generic. As I mentioned earlier, SM largely avoided what I call the “beige” music trend, but they also didn’t offer anything particularly new or visionary.
What I’d like to see in 2025:
- A new girl group with the lighter, more melodic sound of SNSD (this is a holdover from 2023…)
- The stabilization of RIIZE in whatever formation they move forward with
- One or two high quality composers steering the general sound of the agency
- Comebacks from veteran artists (SHINee, TVXQ, SNSD (?))
Previous years: 2023 // 2022 // 2021 // 2020 // 2019 // 2018 // 2017 // 2016
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