Lisa (Blackpink) released the album "Alter ego" with 15 songs on February 28.
This project is highly anticipated, because Alter ego is not only the singers first studio album, but also a product that marked Lisas solo career after leaving YG Entertainment to establish her own company LLOUD, and sign a contract with a major American record label - RCA Records.
With 4 previously released songs, including "Rockstar", "New Woman" (ft. Rosalia), Moonlit Floor and Born again (ft. Doja Cat, Raye), Lisa has become the first female K-pop artist to have an album surpass 1 billion streams on Spotify before its official release.
However, despite the enthusiastic reception of fans, the sales of the album Alter ego shocked many audiences.
According to the Korean Hanteo chart, the album Alter ego sold 30,400 copies on the first day. This is a significant decrease compared to Lisa's debut mini album "LALISA", which sold 330,129 copies on the first day of release in 2021.
Notably, on the second day, the album Alter ego sold only 1 copy. As of March 5, after 6 days of release, Alter ego recorded sales of 114,560 copies.
With Lisa's reputation, many people expect her latest album to be equal to or surpass previous sales. The album LALISA sold 736,221 copies in its first week on Hanteo.
Therefore, the sharp decline in sales of Alter ego, even selling only 1 album a day, has confused the audience.
Some netizens question whether Hanteo's system has incorrect statistics or the release company has problems with album distribution. Because even if large orders have not been processed, selling only 1 album on the 2nd day is unreasonable.
Some other opinions say that, looking at album sales, it can be seen that Lisa is being turned away by Korean audiences.
Hanteo builds its data system based on its membership with more than 1,500 online and online album stores worldwide. This is a Korean chart, so sales on the first day and first week on Hanteo are always a figure that Kpop fans highly value.
However, Lisa's fans argued that sales on Hanteo fell sharply because Lisa had changed her album distribution strategy.
Lisa currently has her own company and is signed a contract with a major American record label. Lisa's LLOUD company is collaborating with RCA Records to release "Alter ego", while promoting the way to buy an album through a new website, different from traditional Kpop release.
Many international fans buy albums directly from this platform, so sales are not counted in Hanteo's statistics.
They pointed out that sales on Hanteo do not accurately reflect the true performance of the album Alter ego. Lisa is one of the Kpop stars with the largest international fan base, so sales on her own website can far exceed album sales in Korea.
And buying an album through her own website will be counted on the Billboard chart, so Lisa's fans expressed their support for this strategy.
However, the audience compared Lisa to the other 3 members of Blackpink - Rose, Jennie and Jisoo. All 4 girls have signed contracts with major American record labels, all of which have their own platforms to sell albums without Hanteo.
But Rose's album "rosie" still sold 444,648 copies in the first week on Hanteo and has now sold more than 500,000 copies in the US (distributed by Atlantic Records). Jisoo also recorded 520,318 sales of the album AMORTAGE in the first week on Hanteo.
Meanwhile, Columbia Records announced on March 5, Jennie's album "Ruby" (released on March 7) surpassed the 450,000 pre-orders mark globally.
RCA Records has not announced Lisa's sales, so it is impossible to know the exact current sales of the album "Alter ego".
