‘Miracle’ rookie K-pop girl group H1-Key’s mini-album Rose Blossom tops the charts after January release, as their popularity grows
- Four-piece girl group H1-Key, formed in 2021, dropped their debut K-pop mini-album, Rose Blossom, in January 2023, and it has been steadily climbing the charts
- Launched by a small label, their success has been called a ‘miracle’. Seoi, Riina, Yel and Hwiseo sing about overcoming adversity and showing inner strength
By Dong Sun-hwa
Rookie girl group H1-Key is revving up its presence in the K-pop scene with its latest release, Rose Blossom. The first mini-album by the four-piece act dropped on January 5, and topped the real-time physical album chart on Hanteo, a Korean album sales tracker, last week.
Unlike most other K-pop albums – which usually top various charts during the first week of their release when fans make the most purchases – Rose Blossom reached the milestone more than a month after its release, seeing a gradual increase in popularity.
The mini-album was quite a success from the beginning, too. Upon its release, it ranked first on the iTunes top album chart in Turkey and Bahrain, while securing the top spots in seven other countries including Singapore, Mexico and Australia.
Its lead single of the same name has also been creating a splash on major streaming charts in Korea. The track reached the No 5 and the No 32 spots on the Hanteo and Melon charts, respectively, soon after its release. Its music video garnered more than 11 million views on YouTube at the time of publication.
The rise of H1-Key has been called “a miracle”, as it is one of the few groups formed by small record labels that has managed to survive in the cutthroat K-pop industry. The group, consisting of Seoi, Riina, Yel and Hwiseo, was created by Grandline Group (GLG), a company established in 2021, which currently represents only H1-Key and singer-songwriter Stella Jang.