[Today’s K-pop] Seventeen to go encore in Korea, Japan

Seventeen is adding more dates to its tour, announced agency Pledis Entertainment on Monday.

The 13-member act will perform in Incheon on March 30-31 and in Osaka and Kanagawa, Japan on May 18-19 and May 25-26, respectively. All venues are stadiums, with Nissan Stadium in Kanagawa being the largest in the country and accommodating about 70,000 audience members. The band will be the second K-pop boy band to hold a concert there, after TVXQ.

The bandmates have toured Asia since July last year, performing in nine cities for 20 shows that drew over 700,000 fans in total.

Seventeen’s most recent album is its 11th EP “Seventeenth Heaven” from October last year, which sold over 5 million copies in the first week, a first in K-pop history.

Le Sserafim to host showcase for 3rd EP

Le Sserafim will hold a showcase in Seoul on Feb. 19 to introduce its third EP, agency Source Music said Monday.

The group will perform a series of songs including the lead single from EP “Easy” which will be rolled out that day. The live event will be broadcast online as well.

The mini album comes about nine months since Le Sserafim's first studio album “Unforgiven” that sold over 1.25 million copies in the first week and became the group's second million-selling album. It also entered Billboard 200 at No. 6.

The teaser trailer for the upcoming album landed on YouTube’s worldwide trending video chart and received one million hits on the platform in about 10 hours.

Zerobaseone tops 100m Spotify streams

Zerobaseone has amassed 100 million streams on Spotify as of last week, according to agency WakeOne Entertainment on Monday.

The group has done so with songs from its first and second EPs. The main track “In Bloom” from the debut EP “Youth In The Shade” logged approximately 38 million plays on the platform, and “Crush,” which fronted second EP “Melting Point,” followed at 10 million. “In Bloom” was chosen as one of the “Best K-Pop Songs of the Year” by Billboard magazine last month.

Both mini albums from the rookie band sold over two million copies each and earned the group 14 trophies from year-end award ceremonies in Korea, including eight rookie awards, last year. Last week, the band, barely six months old, was nominated for Best New Artist in the K-Pop category for the 2024 iHeartRadio Music Awards.

BTOB to return in March: report

BTOB is making a comeback as a full group in March, according to a local media report on Monday.

The six members went their separate ways in December when their contracts with agency Cube Entertainment expired after 11 years. Lee Changseob signed with Fantagio, Yook Sungjae with IWillMedia and the rest of the members joined a newly established firm. They managed to retain the name of the band.

After the news that they decided not to extend their contracts, for the second time, the members all promised to prioritize group activities and Lee assured fans that they would be together forever.

The band’s last album was its 12th EP “Wind and Wish” from May last year.