How Many is too Many?

Why do music companies put a lot of members in a single group? In my opinion a group should contain five or six members. I guess the only exception would be an actual band with members who play instruments like FT Island and CNBLUE. I know some of my favorite groups fall into the too many members list.

On the other side of things, even when the groups has five or six members some of them do not play a big part. Each member plays a part whether it is the lead dances, lead vocalist and main rapper. Also I know some are considered the looks of the group. But what is the point of having all these members when most of them play backup.

I have compiled a list of groups and how many members are in it. I am going to talk about a few groups that contain a lot of member: Super Junior, Exo, Topp Dogg and Seventeen.

Super Junior has nine active members and three inactive members. There are two members who are part of Super Junior M. Super Junior contains a total of fourteen members. Why does any group need to contain fourteen members? It just seems as overkill. Instead of having a fourteen-member group they could have broken it down and had maybe two or three groups. Super Junior also has five subgroups. SM developed the subgroups so other members could go pursue their own carrier while it no affecting the group as a whole. I’ve heard of other groups who only contain a few member still pursue their individual carrier while still participating in their group activities. Each different subgroup sings different genres but do you really need all those subgroups to sing different genres. In my opinion no, they don’t need all those members and subgroups. I like super junior and I can maybe put a name to a face on half of them. There are just so many of them and half of them play backup.

Exo contains twelve members divided between two groups. This group slightly confuses me. They are considered two separate groups but they do not contain much of individual sense. All of the videos are the same thing; the only difference is the language and the placement of the guys. I just wish that each group would develop their own sense of individuality. I like Exo but I think the two groups need to separate a little and develop their own concept. They act like one big group instead of the two subgroups. I guess I either want then to be one big group or two different, individual groups. Instead of using the same concept for their music video, they should have two different concepts.

Topp Dogg is a rookie group that contains thirteen members. I’m sorry; way does a group need to contain this many members. As far as I know there are not any subgroups. Their first singles were “Follow Me” and “Cigarette”. This group could have been two separate groups to help showcase their talents. I don’t know much about them. But one of their members reminds me of Harry Potter. With this many members you will have those who are the lead and those who play backup.

Seventeen, a rookie group that will debut in 2014, contains seventeen members. From what I understand about this group is that is will be divided between three subgroups. Each subgroup will promote in a different country: Korea, Japan and China. I guess this group will be similar to how Exo works. This group is a male group. It will be the second largest K-Pop group in history. I guess it’s a good way to spread K-Pop but try spreading K-Pop to other country like Canada and America. Instead of having one big group just make them into separate groups.

Here is a list of some groups I found that has seven or more members. There are probably a lot more group[s out there but here is just a few that I could come up with. I will put them from the highest number of members to the least.

21 members: A-Piece
17 members: Seventeen
12-14 members: Super Junior
13 members: Topp Dogg
9 members: Girls’ generation, ZE:A, 9 Muses, Speed and AlphaBat
8 members: After School
7 members: Infinite, BTS, BtoB, A-Jax, Rainbow, M.Pire, Block b, 100%, N-Sonic, Wa$$up, Radiance (debut 2014), GOT7 (debut 2014) and MOA (Debut 2014)