10 Kpop Girl Groups to Look Out For in 2021

All of them.

The End.

Just kidding of course, that would be a pretty weak and clickbaity article. There are a lot of girl groups out there, and if you’re like me, married and working, you just don’t really have time for all of them, so here are the 10 girl groups that I think you should look out for this year in no particular order.


WJSN

Okay, there is a slight order, I’m a Ujung, so of course I’d think of WJSN first. WJSN are a flexible group, and despite having a certain similar flair across all of their music, you never quite know what each comeback will bring. 2020 was a weird year for most groups, but I feel it hit WJSN harder than many other groups, the members said that Butterfly was delayed for months due to COVID, and it resulted in them having just a single comeback in an entire calendar year. So this year I’m looking out for at least 2 comebacks, I’d really hope for 3, but I expect Starship might have other projects they’re ramping up to…


Starship New Girl Group

With the impending end of Iz*one, Starship will be getting back their star trainees Wonyoung and Yujin, now fully experienced idols with huge personal followings. This is the time for them to capitalize on that popularity, and I expect them to launch their next girl group by the fall, with either a first comeback late in the year, or at the start of next year. That said, this group will have a lot of momentum built in from the Iz*one members, hopefully they won’t struggle with bringing full group popularity, but given the success of Cravity and WJSN, I don’t think this will be a Gugudan situation. I actually think this group has potential to be up there with Itzy and Everglow as leaders of this new generation.


Rocket Punch

Rocket Punch is an established group that has a lot to gain from the disbandment of Iz*one, despite them already being one of my favorites. Chaewon and, most importantly, Eunbi are both Woollim idols, and one or both of them should be expected to join Rocket Punch to help boost the group's popularity with their individual fame. While it could be possible that Eunbi may go solo, she’s more than talented enough to, I think both Chaewon and Eunbi work best in a group environment, so I am leaning into Rocket Punch becoming an 8 person group. This would pretty much secure them a second place spot in my heart, they almost had that this year, and Eunbi would make that a guarantee.


Everglow

The last of the groups that should be better off with Iz*one disbanding, and the one that already has the best momentum, given that they are already one of the best new gen groups on Youtube, and the physical sales are slowly trending up too. Yena is likely to join once she’s available, and brings with her a great variety presence, as well as fantastic singing and rapping skills, and dancing that is becoming increasingly sharp as time goes on, she looks like the third best dancer in Iz*one these days to me. With the power Everglow already has as a brand, I don’t think Yena will individually overwhelm it, but instead will help to bring some more balance to the group, likely taking a vocalist role, which is the groups most lacking category.


Red Velvet

The only one of the big 3 girl groups without a single full group release in 2020, while Twice and Blackpink both had a lot of releases (a lot is relative in Blackpink’s case). Luckily, Wendy is back and ready to roll, so SM can keep pushing out Red Velvet tracks again, and I expect both a Red and Velvet release to happen this year. You might even want to anticipate a third release from Red Velvet this year, but I wouldn’t lean into that too heavily because of the next group.


Aespa

Any betting person would be wise to put money on Aespa rising to the top of the industry, after all, they are under SM, so they are guaranteed some amount of success. I expect SM to really put their resources behind Aespa this year, 2 or 3 comebacks, maybe some added members as well, although I would really hope that they stick with the four current members exclusively, I like the synergies they have a lot. That said, if there’s any changes I’d like to see from Aespa, it’d be an immediate announcement that they are leaving the strange virtual character concept in the dust, it’s weird as it is, and has been used very little anyways.


Weeekly

Apink’s rookie sister-group Weeekly were my rookies of the year in 2020, so I’d be crazy not to mention them here. I honestly know very little about the members, all my hype for this group actually comes exclusively from how much fun their music and choreography is. If the quality of the music and the performances from Weeekly continues to be at the absurdly high quality that has been set up in 2020, their place in my group rankings in 2021 could be extremely high.


Nature

Girls was an incredible song, my second favorite of the year, and the uncensored music video was easily the best video of the year, not even close in my opinion. I really didn’t care much about Nature in their first couple of releases, but they’ve grown on me a lot this last year, and I even have taken the time to watch their variety appearances and found my biases along the way. I really don’t know what to expect from them, in terms of the lineup we get with the next comeback, or what the music will be like, so I’m nervously interested.


Fromis_9

Speaking of my top songs of 2020, Fromis_9 not only held down 7th place with their title track Secret Code (Feel Good) but took the whole thing, having my number 1 song of the year, Weather. I always like Fromis’s music, and their members are really charming and fun, I’m a fan of many of them. If you ignore Fun, every Fromis title track has received a massive amount of plays on my Spotify and on my drives to work, and Love Bomb is the definitive kpop girl group song to me, so I’m really happy to have them back, and super excited to see what comes next.


Woo!ah!

This is my sleeper pick among our rookie class of 2020, and maybe the most surprising addition from my own perspective, as I thought their debut song was horrible. That said, Bad Girl and I Don’t Miss U are absolutely incredible, and I’ve seen the potential in this group. Notably, the members are also still very young with a lot of room to grow, so that potential definitely has the opportunity to be met. As long as their company fosters their growth and gives them songs at the same quality that we just received from them, I think they can hit the point of being a great group in the new gen field.