🍰 The joy and sadness of photo cards (5) | There are only photo cards in the album?
How I feel looking at the photo card album
Being a fan is an experience. Diving into that experience. So I decided to tell the story of the people who actually went through that experience. Today is "The Joy and Sadness of Photo Card". It's Pink Blood's 'Duckzil' essay, who has been insisting on being a fanatic of SM Entertainment for xx years. It is serialized once every four weeks.
People who collect photo cards(=phoca: 포카) usually buy albums. These days, goods including photo cards are basic, and they are often sold in various places such as clothes, cosmetics, shoes, and ramen of the company in charge of the model, but anyway, the basic and fundamental of photo cards are photo cards embedded in the album.
In an era where no one listens to music on a CD anyway, you can only buy photo cards separately, but why buy an album? I didn't directly investigate it to various idol fans, but to tell you my personal opinion, it's unlikely that the person who collects the singer's photo cards is a light fan.
This means that the purchase of the album cannot be completely excluded because it values the sales volume of my singer's album, especially the initial sales volume(=the first week of release), as much as my taste and will to collect the photo cards. Even in this situation where music is virtually the only reason to buy a real album as a sound source, how much it is sold is directly related to the singer's career and fans buy the album faithfully.
The problem is that there is too much garbage. What I want is the sales volume of the photo cards and albums, but there are many things that come with the album when I buy it. The previously sold size album is now about the size of Jewel and Digipack, and most of them are bulky with various components in a large case. Naturally, albums without photo cards are frequently sold in various used markets, and they are often seen abandoned on the street and are often turned away.
As more than 1 million pre-orders have been created one by one, new initial records have been continuously written. No matter how much time fans are inflowing, it is true that one person's share of the album will eventually increase unless the number of people buying the album increases rapidly. The industry, which is clearly aware of the bubble in album sales, is nevertheless making many larger and more colorful albums.
This is why criticism has been raised in the music industry that it produces unnecessary waste while ignoring the social atmosphere these days, which emphasizes corporate social responsibility.
It was self-reflection that this should not be anymore. K-pop fandom "K-pop for Planet," which raises its voice to protect the Earth and make sustainable ‘duckzil’, also called for direct action against large agencies. They said that they should select the purchase of full packages containing components such as CDs.
IST Entertainment stepped up quickly. VICTON's third mini-album [Chronograph] released in January this year, is the result of a full-fledged platform album that only Phoca receives in real life. Only photo cards are received in person and contents such as music, music videos, and thank-you messages are digitally enjoyed through their own apps. The album, which is much smaller and lighter than the existing regular album, received groundbreaking attention.
Hive, a 'big agency,' also joined. Since April this year, SEVENTEEN's 4th full-length album [Face The Sun] and fromis_9's 5th mini-album [From Our Memento Box] have been released as Weverse albums one after another. BTS J-Hope will also release his first solo album on Weverse. The components that actually receive are simple. They are photo cards, QR cards, and card holders. The rest of the content can only be checked by installing the app.
The NEMO(='square' in Korean) album, which has released albums such as JustB, Lee Bo-ram, and MCND, is also small and light. It is only 15g to 60g. The basic configuration is a photo card, and it is in the same direction as the previous example in that you can listen to music through your own app and player. There are a total of four versions, including Full, Thin, Pack, and Light.
For the album + photo card collector, who was happy that the 15cm x 13cm Jewel Case album alone had a significant reduction in its place, this attempt is very welcome. I feel a little free from the guilt I felt when I saw the accumulated album. Naturally, it is also reflected in major domestic record charts such as(!) Circle (former Gaon Chart) and Hanteo Chart. So you can achieve the goal of achieving sales volume and apply for a fan signing event.
Still, for those who want to keep the album, it would be nice to sell both the existing full-packaged album and the version that only receives the photo card. Then you'll have a choice. Also, I think the price of the photo card album should be lowered.
I want one more thing. I hope SM Entertainment will try this as soon as possible! ^_^
Written by Pink Blood
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