In my opinion sneakers wasn't a bad song, it was just tricking the audience with the concept. However this such little thing killed their hype and started their downfall which in my opinion, was unfair because Itzy are very talented and each member genuinely works very hard. Their "love myself" and confidence concept was what got them a lot of attention along with their noise sound. After 2021 it seemed like people started to get bored of that sound and demanded different sounds and concepts. In 2022, NewJeans, Ive, Le Sserafim debuted which all were girl groups with different sounds, concepts and songs. This is one of the main reasons their downfall happened; Newjeans brought a fresh sound with y2k concept and they got everyone's attention. Ive had a royal concept and they had one of the best single/title track runs with Eleven, Love dive, After like. Le sserafim may had lost Garam but they released Antifragile after debuting with Fearless which definitely helped them maintain the popularity and even expand it. They also had a brave/fearless concept. So, Itzy's concept felt too repetitive or boring for the audience. They tried different things throughout the years after their downfall, born to be was bold and something you would hear from Blackpink, but it didn't do like their previous songs. imaginary friend was really amazing and very different from what they usually release. But it didn't get the enough recognition that it deserved. Even one of the members mentioned it, saying they wish it got more attention. Their album sales are stable and pretty well, but on streaming platforms they don't seem to show the same amount of success as they did before. The reason to this is, when they were trending (before their downfall) it was all the kpop fans being tuned in for their comeback. Not shy, wannabe, loco, mafia, dalla dalla, icy got very big recognition from the gp and 80% of the kpop fans were casual listeners. They had more casual listeners/fans than loyal fans, which was a disadvantage. And now after the downfall, what they have right now is their loyal fans/stans. That's why album sales are good, but it's always the same people tuning in for their comebacks without the majority of gp's support. They released gold which sounded like Nmixx's first year releases, and it didn't really do well. Girls will be girls, their latest release had a very good music video and it sounded trendy. It did okay, but still not the way they did before. Is their music that bad? Actually, no. their bsides are AMAZING, but title tracks need to be the very catchy and well so it could catch attention for them to do well. People won't check the bsides of an album or ep if the single or title track is bad. So, how do you all think they could gain their audience back? submitted by /u/Artistic-Network-247 [link] [comments]
