Minzy Sends Debut Solo EP to World, Heatseekers Albums Chart
Minzy's future looks bright as the first 2NE1 member to release an album since their disbandment, showing impressive early chart performance for her solo debut.
Minzy‘s future looks bright as the first 2NE1 member to release an album since their disbandment, showing impressive early chart performance for her solo debut.
The singer-dancer-rapper’s Minzy Work 01 Uno: Mini Album EP starts at No. 2 on Billboard‘s World Albums chart, selling 1,000 copies. The release is also the best-selling K-pop album in America this week.
Furthermore, Minzy bows on Billboard‘s Heatseekers Albums chart, which sees a much smaller amount of K-pop acts break into. So far, Minzy is only the eighth Korean act to crack Heatseekers this year and one of three soloists following Taeyeon and Seohyun.
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While Minzy Work marks the first time the 23-year-old appears as a solo artist, she certainly isn’t new to the Billboard charts. In 2014, she and her 2NE1 bandmates scored the first K-pop album to chart on the Billboard 200‘s the top 100 when Crush debuted at No. 61 and sold 6,000 copies in its first week. Meanwhile, 2NE1 was also the first K-pop act after PSY to score a No. 1 on the World Digital Song Sales chart. The group most recently topped the World Song Sales chart with “Goodbye,” the outfit’s farewell single that Minzy was not a part of recording.
And Minzy Work makes a good case for the star to continue 2NE1’s legacy. The set mostly incorporates the electronic-pop sounds along with the empowering messages the group. Lead single “Ninano” incorporates an exotic, Indian-music influence that was heard in some of 2NE1’s most famous songs (“I Am the Best,” “Crush”), “Ing” has the reggae vibe that the girl group favored in a few singles (“I Don’t Care,” “Falling in Love,” “Come Back Home”) and album cut “Superwoman” has the same confidence of their fiercest tracks. Yet, there’s new musical ventures for the starlet too, including the smooth album standout “Flashlight” featuring Jay Park. Ultimately, it’s a safe-yet-still-exciting venture for the member whose multiple and increasingly sharpened skills made her a true was a secret weapon in her quartet.
“Ninano,” which features rapper Flowsik, also debuts at No. 18 on World Digital Song Sales with a little under 1,000 downloads sold. Watch Minzy take the solo spotlight with one of her first performances of “Ninano”:
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