Korea Ignored Lee Soo-man’s Boy Band. China Didn’t.

Featured photo: Lee Soo-man in 2024. Photo: K-POPIT, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.

Previously: China’s big-concert market alone is bigger than the combined revenue of Korea’s four biggest agencies, and Lee Soo-man is aiming straight at it. (Part 5)

Lee Soo-man’s second bullet, the boy group A2O SOUL, was never aimed at Korea’s charts. The same week its debut song “SUPERSTAR” entered Melon’s daily chart at No. 526, it was No. 2 on China’s QQ Music new-songs chart.[1][2] When the first album came out on Nov. 9, that direction only got clearer.

The first album, and its first report card

A2O SOUL’s first mini album, SUPERSTAR, came out at 6 p.m. Korea time on Nov. 9. It has five tracks, including the double title tracks “SUPERSTAR” and “Dancing in the Dark,” and composer Yoo Young-jin, who has worked with Lee Soo-man since the SM days, took part in every song.[3][4]

Three hours later, at 9 p.m., the two title tracks entered Melon’s HOT100 at No. 62 and No. 70, but neither made the main TOP100 chart. At the same hour, “NEON” by their sister team A2O LITE was No. 2 on the TOP100, and “Boogie Woogie,” the title track of NCT DREAM’s sixth full album released the same day, was No. 47.[5] A day later, at 7 p.m. on Nov. 10, the picture hadn’t changed. On the HOT100, “SUPERSTAR” was No. 62 and “Dancing in the Dark” No. 79, and both were still outside the TOP100. NEON was still No. 2 on the TOP100, and the No. 1 song on Melon’s daily chart for Nov. 9 was NEON too.[5]

Where the numbers did pile up was YouTube. The “Dancing in the Dark” music video passed 170,000 views in its first three hours, with more than 23,000 likes, roughly one like for every seven views.[6] A day later, on the evening of Nov. 10 in Korea, it had passed 1.03 million views and 63,000 likes.[6]

Also read: Only One Foreign Song Made Japan's Top 10, and It Was Lee Soo-man's A2O LITE "NEON"

The second bullet wasn’t a No. 1

Put the numbers next to NEON’s and the gap is impossible to hide. NEON hit No. 1 on Melon 29 hours after release, held the top spot for 18 straight days, and won 11 music-show trophies without a single physical album.[7] Of the two music videos released on the same day, NEON’s now has 41.9 million views and SUPERSTAR’s 3.28 million.[6] SUPERSTAR’s best spot on Melon’s daily chart so far was No. 211 on Oct. 28.[1]

But there are numbers SOUL clearly wins. The “SUPERSTAR” performance video has 6.44 million views, nearly double its music video, and the M Countdown debut stage has 2.15 million.[6] People looked up these fifteen boys’ dancing before their singing. I’ve replayed that performance video over and over myself, watching fifteen people switch formations like a single body.

On China’s charts, right behind NEON

Far from the top in Korea, SUPERSTAR stood right behind NEON in China. In its debut week, NEON was No. 1 and SUPERSTAR No. 2 on QQ Music’s new-songs chart, and SUPERSTAR also reached No. 6 on the popular-songs chart and No. 4 on the global music-video chart.[2][4] Four weeks later, on Nov. 9, NEON (No. 3) and SUPERSTAR (No. 7) were still side by side on the QQ Music new-songs chart, and on QQ Music’s Korea chart (tallied Nov. 5) NEON was No. 1 and SUPERSTAR No. 7.[8]

The lineup shows this is no accident. Of the fifteen members, six are Chinese, the largest group, followed by four Koreans, one Korean American, three Japanese and one Thai member.[2] Korean teams can’t get into the $4.1 billion Chinese concert market from Part 5. Of all the A2O teams, SOUL is the one standing at that door holding the most keys.

Why debut the boys and the girls on the same day

At the debut show at KINTEX in Goyang on Oct. 12, Lee Soo-man put both teams on one stage, and the next day he released both debut songs at the same hour.[9] One team opens Korea’s charts; the other puts down roots in China and across Asia. The two teams are also both on the lineup for the 30th-anniversary SBS Gayo Daejeon in December.[10]

If it had ended with NEON alone, people would have called it luck. Pairing it from week one with a second team aimed somewhere else means Lee Soo-man designed this game with two tracks from the start.

The comments saw the plan first

The reaction on Korean portals is cold. On a Dong-A Ilbo story about the two teams’ first chart results, the most-liked comment was this: “If you keep picking Chinese members just to do business in Korea, go to China and do business there instead.” (229 likes)[11]

Funny enough, that comment read SOUL’s report card exactly right. Another comment on the same story, with 77 likes, said, “SM was a step ahead of everyone else, at least back when Lee Soo-man was there.”[11] A boy group that stood right behind NEON outside Korea’s charts first, and a 74-year-old producer who pointed that team toward China. The road the angry comment points to is exactly the road Lee Soo-man is walking.

And in December, he releases an artist that isn’t a person.

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Sources

[1] Kpop Charts on X (Oct. 14, 2026), “SUPERSTAR debuts at #526 on MelOn Daily Chart,” https://x.com/kchartsmaster/status/2110301873932554481 / News1, Kim Min-ji (Nov. 8, 2026), Melon daily entry and No. 211 on Oct. 28, https://www.news1.kr/entertain/music/6343935 [2] Korea JoongAng Daily (Oct. 22, 2026), member nationalities and QQ Music results, https://www.koreajoongangdaily.com/entertainment/lee-soomans-new-boy-band-a2o-soul-to-release-1st-album-in-november/12933138 (Sports Kyunghyang, Oct. 15, 2026, reported No. 3 on the QQ new-songs chart, https://sports.khan.co.kr/en/article/202610151753007/) [3] News1 (Nov. 8, 2026), Yoo Young-jin on every track, https://www.news1.kr/entertain/music/6343935 [4] TenAsia (Oct. 22, 2026), https://www.tenasia.co.kr/article/2026102275084 / Raon News (Nov. 9, 2026), https://www.raonnews.com/news/article.html?no=62586 [5] Melon TOP100 and HOT100, checked Nov. 9, 2026, 9 p.m. KST and Nov. 10, 2026, 7 p.m. KST; daily chart for Nov. 9, https://www.melon.com/chart/index.htm [6] YouTube views and likes checked Nov. 9, 2026, 12:30 UTC (“Dancing in the Dark” MV and the SUPERSTAR performance video rechecked Nov. 10, 2026, 10:00 UTC): Dancing in the Dark MV / SUPERSTAR MV / NEON MV / SUPERSTAR performance / M Countdown, Oct. 15 [7] Raon News (Nov. 9, 2026), NEON’s 18 days at No. 1 on Melon and 11 trophies, https://www.raonnews.com/news/article.html?no=62586 [8] QQ Music peak and new-songs charts (Nov. 9, 2026) and Korea chart (Nov. 5, 2026), checked directly, https://y.qq.com/n/ryqq/toplist/27 [9] Maeil Business (Oct. 12, 2026), https://n.news.naver.com/mnews/article/009/0005747455 / Star News (Oct. 22, 2026), https://www.starnewskorea.com/en/music/2026/10/22/2026102207331859699 [10] SBS Entertainment News (Nov. 9, 2026), https://ent.sbs.co.kr/news/article.do?article_id=E10010324424 [11] Dong-A Ilbo (Oct. 15, 2026), “The boy and girl groups Lee Soo-man unveiled top Korean and Chinese charts right after debut,” Naver comments sorted by likes (checked Nov. 9, 2026), https://n.news.naver.com/mnews/article/020/0003755301