From 2012-2017, only one or two new female acts managed to send their debut singles to the chart, but 2018 saw five. This not only indicates growing interest in the K-pop scene at large in America, but also in female acts as male acts have tended to gain larger attention upon debuts.
Notably, lots of girl groups also see splinter group sub-units sending their debut singles charting meaning the members of the group had already debuted and, thus, some notoriety. Not including sub-units, Cherry Bullet is only the eighth girl group to send their debut single to the chart. See the historical, year-by-year breakdown of girl-group debuts on World Digital Song Sales below:
Artist, Debut single (Peak on World Digital Songs):
2012 - Girls' Generation-TTS - "Twinkle" (No. 4)
2013 - T-ara N4 - "Jeon Won Diary" (No. 5)
2014 - Red Velvet - "Happiness" (No. 4)
2015 - Twice - "Like OOH-AHH" (No. 6)
2016 - AOA Cream - "I'm Jelly Baby" (No. 4), BLACKPINK - "Boombayah" (No. 1)
2017 - Pristin - "Wee Woo" (No. 11)
2018 - (G)I-DLE - "Latata" (No. 4), Pristin V - "Get It" (No. 6), LOONA - "favOriTe" (No. 4) - Girls' Generation-Oh!GG - "Lil' Touch" (No. 3), IZ*ONE - "La Vie en Rose" (No. 6)
2019 - Cherry Bullet, "Q&A" (No. 17)
The accomplishment is also a special one for Cherry Bullet who specifically eyed entering the Billboard charts as a goal for their first year. At a Jan. 21 press conference to introduce the group and their debut album, Cherry Bullet revealed their chart ambitions. "We were always told to dream big," member Bora is quoted as saying (per Soompi). "To add on another goal, we want to enter the Billboard charts. Since Billboard highlighted us as a rookie group to look forward to in 2019, we set our hearts on making it onto Billboard."
And after a long-awaited debut -- that included waiting more than a year after what was expected as a 2017 debut for the act -- no doubt these women are dreaming big and already seeing one their goals come to fruition.
Watch Cherry Bullet bring "Q&A" to life with their very-first performance on Korean music program M Countdown below:
