aespa makes history with Girls!
On July 8, aespa made a comeback with its second mini-album, Girls. The female group sold over 1.4 copies in the first week of release, making them the fastest K-pop girl group to reach the million-seller mark. But seems like the girls didn’t intend to just stop there.
On August 11, Circle Chart revealed that aespa’s mini-album Girls had sold 1,645,255 copies in July.
In less than a month, Girls has surpassed BLACKPINK’s THE ALBUM to set a new record for the most sales recorded by any girl group’s album in chart history. The only two girl group albums to date to achieve 1 million sales are Girls and THE ALBUM.
According to a report from Billboard on July 17, Girls also debuted at number 3 on the Top 200 Album Charts, making them the third and fastest K-pop female act to do so. A little more than two years after the group’s debut, it has already made a significant breakthrough. BLACKPINK’s The Album and TWICE’s Formula Of Love: O+T=3 are the other two K-pop female acts to have albums chart in the top three of the Billboard 200.
Additionally, Girls had a fantastic start, being the best-selling album in the US for the week. Not less than 56,000 equivalent album units were gained by aespa’s Girls overall, of which 53,000 were the result of album sales. When the mini-album debuted at number one on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart for the week ending July 23, aespa became the fastest K-pop girl group in history to reach the top of the chart.
Girls comprise nine tracks, including the group’s older singles, Black Mamba, Forever, and Dreams Come True. The pre-released single Illusion is also a part of the album, along with the English and Korean versions of Life’s Too Short. Other b-sides include Lingo and ICU.
aespa is a four-membered girl group consisting of Karina, Giselle, Winter, and Ningning. The group was formed by SM Entertainment in 2020. Lee Soo Man, the founder of SM Entertainment, said, ” aespa will project a future world centered on celebrities and avatars, and will be born into a group of completely new and innovative concepts that transcend the boundaries between the real and virtual world.”
The name aespa, is a combination of the English words “avatar” and “experience.” It also encompasses the word “aspect” which stands for “two sides” to convey the idea of “meeting another self and experiencing the new world”. Every member of the group has an AI version of themselves, which occasionally performs and can be seen in the group’s music videos.
“The æs are AI characters based on the members’ real, individual data. They live in a world called FLAT, and just like how we live and continue our daily lives in the real world, the æs also continue their own lives in the FLAT,” said aespa’s leader, Karina.
With a noteworthy number of accomplishments under its belt since aespa’s debut and a unique AI idea, aespa appears to have a lot in store for its fans in the future.
Stay tuned for more updates on aespa.