Before the end-of-year countdowns next month, I like to take a look at many of K-pop’s biggest agencies and see how their year went. Obviously, 2023 is not over yet so any upcoming changes to an agency’s grade will be reflected next year. We’ve got a lot to pick apart over the coming weeks, so let’s start with SM Entertainment.
As usual, the thoughts below are my own and aren’t privy to any insider information. The purpose of these articles is to determine how well K-pop agencies are serving their artists and fans. There will be plenty of subjective critique.
The Good
2023 kicked off with a big moment of transition for SM Entertainment. After the ousting of founder (and longtime creative force) Lee Soo-man, the company announced its transition from “SM 2.0” to “SM 3.0.” Most notably, this change widened the company’s structure to allow for multiple production teams’ input rather than resting solely on Soo-man’s oversight. K-pop juggernaut HYBE also became SM’s second largest shareholder, continuing to solidify their grip on the industry. With such seismic shifts in SM Entertainment’s operation, you might expect their output to sound markedly different from before.
I don’t think this was the case. Many of the shifts felt more structural in nature, with the termination of NCT’s “infinite expansion” and the debut of the company’s first non-NCT boy group in over a decade. However, the music itself felt largely stable in terms of sound and promotion.
Let’s start with that rookie group, because I think Riize was SM’s most exciting venture in 2023. The NCT project still holds a lot of promise, but I’m thrilled to see the company move beyond its confines to explore new territory. Over the past few years, I’ve felt that most of SM’s boy group releases have become interchangeable. I’m not 100% convinced Riize will be any different in the long run, but they’re off to a good start (strangled saxophone loop notwithstanding…) and their strong sales and promising chart success seem to guarantee an enduring career. Don’t mess this up, SM!
As the most sprawling agency in K-pop, SM has a lot of talent to manage. But with few exceptions, they remain quite adept at letting all their artists release content. This includes both group and solo efforts. I may not have enjoyed everything that came from SM this year, but they delivered a ton of new music to choose from. And with a variety of sounds and genres, fans were bound to find at least one SM release that caught their ear.
With the global success of aespa, SM continue to have a powerful rookie on their hands. The group isn’t being promoted as frequently as they should (where’s the full album?), but so far the company has done a nice job catering to fans both at home and abroad.
While NCT’s “infinite expansion” may have concluded, their musical universe continues to churn out song after song. Since last November, every established NCT unit has released something, alongside the debut of new unit DoJaeJung and NCT New Team (to be renamed later…). We had solo and group comebacks spanning multiple languages and genres. I didn’t care for much of this music, but NCT fans are quite spoiled when it comes to content.
SM continued to grow the discographies of its veteran artists as well. SHINee and EXO each had big comebacks this summer (more on that later), while Red Velvet and TVXQ are set to release new albums in the coming weeks. Few agencies are able to retain talent for this long, and it seems to me that most of these acts are given increased creative freedom as their legacy becomes cemented.
The Bad
As mentioned, there’s been a ton of music from a ton of SM artists this year. So… why do I have so few highlights on my playlist? Sometimes I fear the agency is going for a “quantity over quality” approach. I remember when SM Entertainment had a unified vision that resulted in specific eras of sound for their artists. SM releases felt like events. It’s the difference between shopping at a boutique with a few high-end items or a pick-and-mix with a ton of lesser-quality options. Both have their pluses and minuses, but too often it feels like SM is simply chucking out music at an unending pace just to get something out there.
While I was delighted to see long-awaited comebacks from SHINee and EXO this summer, both albums underwhelmed. In line with this “pick and mix” approach, the music lacked the unique vision and high quality control these artists deserve. This is quite subjective, of course, but with so long to prepare for these veteran artists’ return, I can’t help but feel that SM bungled both comebacks to some extent.
Along the same lines, it feels like SM has become more and more fragmented when it comes to the rollout of their artists’ discographies. Perhaps this is due to structural changes inviting more voices/ideas in the room, but SM seems so eager to move onto the next thing that they don’t allow time and space for their natural successes to breathe. Take Riize’s Get A Guitar, for example. The song worked as welcome counterprogramming on the charts and had an unexpected ascent as the weeks went on. Yet rather than capitalize on this, the agency pushed out a follow-up single that shared few musical touchstones with Guitar. It all feels a little haphazard, and I wonder if this is a product of having so much going on at the same time.
Every agency of SM’s size is allowed some flops here and there, and there were a few 2023 projects that never gained steam. I don’t know what’s happening with their Girls On Top project. I initially thought it would become their female answer to SuperM, but infrequent releases and a general lack of buzz have sidelined them for too long. There doesn’t seem to be much of a plan behind this. Similarly, the “NCT Hollywood” project (a bad idea from the start) was canned this year.
Finally, we can’t do a 2023 SM recap without mentioning the artists who have left the agency. There was a substantial exodus this year, with some individuals remaining active with their groups but taking their solo projects elsewhere. Every massive company can expect some level of turnover, but just this year we saw members of Super Junior, Girls’ Generation and EXO all cut ties with the agency. They also lost producer/mastermind Yoo Young-Jin (a massive loss, in my opinion). The future of SM Entertainment is definitely in flux, and 2023 proved to be one of their messier years in recent memory.
2023 Grade: C+
What I’d like to see in 2024:
- Riize continuing to distinguish themselves with their own sound/style
- A full-length album from aespa (a holdover wish from 2022…)
- A new girl group with the lighter, more melodic sound of SNSD
- That full-group SHINee epic title track we all deserve
Previous years: 2022 // 2021 // 2020 // 2019 // 2018 // 2017 // 2016
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
For me personally, there were a lot of releases I enjoyed out of SM but not always ones that made huge waves. Onew’s Circle remains a standout album. WayV’s album is a recent favourite as well, and I enjoyed Key’s (outside of Good & Great the song, unfortunately), Changmin’s Hybrid, and aespa’s Welcome To My World. I think out of the Big 4 agencies, SM probably still had a higher number of wins for me song-wise (mostly b-sides) while my other favourites this year came out of smaller agencies.
The rollouts for WayV, aespa and Red Velvet this month have all been pretty incredible – I look forward to seeing how the music for the latter two turn out, as those will set my expectations for 2024.
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Same here! I loved the circle album as is definitely had personality. With the ton of released within the past three months I’m ready and expecting a SM Town live 2023. Also, where’s superm???? They literally posted on youtube on Jan 1st 2023 that “Superm will be back in 2023”. Man, you better hurry up cause we got 2 months left.
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SuperM is an LSM project and they announced it when he was still in the company. I think you should give up at least for now
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The reason they’re not coming back this year is because Kai enlisted in May and SuperM is not complete without all 7 members.
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Also waiting to see how Aespa’s and Red Velvet’s albums are going to sound. They managed to captivate me especially through some of Aespa’s promo.
But as for Onew’s Circle, which is also a standout album for me as well for this year, I dare to say that it Onew’s credits here go beyond just recording it and performing. I read in his own interview that he handpicked each song, lyrics to all of them were written from his impressions that he gave out, and he sat through the whole production and mastering process together with the team. He can’t be credited for everything on the album since yes, he didn’t author it, but I highly doubt it would sound anything even close to what it sounds like without his own ability and contribution. So I’m saying that some of the artists take things in their own hands, and make stuff their agency might not be able to put out
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I’m an EXO fan so I’m going to concentrate on them.
The thing I hate the most about SM, is that lack of promotion for the older groups. Take for example, the EXO album. No promotion whatsoever. Only bits of information on the album 2 weeks before it was released. And that only on twitter and you tube. For such a big company, that is appalling. If members had not leaked information on the comeback, no one would have known. Also, even when it was released, they went on 2 or 3 live shows. Is that really treatment deserving for one of the biggest groups in Kpop. SM has certainly killed their group’s popularity using their own hands. I’m not surprised that the members wanted to leave. I’m sure at this point, they are only staying with SM because that’s the only way they can stay together as a group. I won’t even go into production and choice of music.
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As an EXO fan, even though I wished promotions could’ve been better for their comeback this year (like this is their first full group comeback in almost five years), I would say that there were some high points. They had two pre-releases, an entire pop-up store in Seoul, went on a few variety and singing shows, and even dropped another season of their Ladder show after promotions were done.
In addition, this is mainly for established groups in general (like EXO) but I don’t think they have to go on music shows for multiple weeks to promote their comeback. In my opinion, I think going on more variety/singing/other shows would help give them more promo since a bunch of us would be more interested in those and they can showcase their skills better there.
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Honestly, SHINee’s Hard grew on me.
The album felt transitional to me. They are all back forever now, and by how they have started casually mentioning Jonghyun more and more, it seems to me like they have finally made peace with everything and with where they are too, and are now more ready than ever to explore where to go, perhaps finding a new sound. Jonghyun’s voice (literal and creative) has always been a huge part of SHINee, and it feels to me like now they truly feel ready to move on, not in a leaving in behind way, but in a keep evolving way. I didn’t feel that was the case before, although that may just be me. So we will see where SHINee goes!
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Not to mention what the tragic past of some of their artists should have tought and how nothing they were able to learn, drying up every single drop of their main acts’ blood (especially SHINee and NCT) with overtasking schedules, back-to-back productions and promotions and actually no physical time to rest.
“Quantity over quality” can even be a valuable strategy, from a marketing point of view, but only as far as it doesn’t involve people’s health and wellness. Then it becomes slavery over morality.
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I think everything kinda fell apart after LSM left and that fiasco around the time SM transitioned to “SM 3.0”.
I do agree that there were some high points with SM this year though, one of them being that they finally debuted a boy group outside of NCT with some pretty decent music.
In addition, I think aespa is doing fine this year. We may not have a full album but this year we got a mini album (with a solid title track), a couple of anime OSTs, and two English singles (one of them is an OST). And we’re getting another mini album on Friday. I’m crossing my fingers that they’ll release a full album next year though.
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I really love everything SM does so im not complaining too much but definitely RIIZE having their comeback so early really robbed the chance for a get a guitar to ascend higher
However I will ways appreciate their daring take on music
B+
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I understand leaving out December and that maybe the upcoming releases might not alter your opinions on what these companies have done this year. However, does it not feel weird to ignore the remaining November releases? There’s at least 3 major group releases and a few other smaller groups.
Regarding SM, I’m mostly gonna speak on the music because I really don’t keep up with scheduling and groups in general. I just listen to whatever comes out.
For now, I’ve saved 49 songs of all their artists but there’s only about 5 of them that I will actively be in the mood for (mostly shinee/onew/u-know). It feels like a D but there’s a chance it might go slightly up with aespa and Red Velvet (hopefully lol).
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