Jennie's back in the Billboard top 10 the same week BLACKPINK hands off its Spotify crown. Two headlines, one very split picture. If you're just joining: Jennie's "Dracula" remix with Tame Impala has gone from a release-week moment into a real durability story — it's matched a No. 10 Hot 100 peak and stretched its run to 37 weeks. Now we're watching whether radio, streaming, and summer momentum can keep it up there. This is the show where I finally have to play defense — LE SSERAFIM took a Spotify title, and yes, I've got thoughts. Plus wings on LISA in London, and a Tamagotchi pop-up. Let's get into the number that's causing all the trouble. Here's Shim Sun-ah at Yonhap News Agency:
Elsewhere, BLACKPINK's Jennie climbed eight places to No. 10 on the Hot 100 with "Dracula," a collaboration with Tame Impala. The original soundtrack for the Netflix animated film "KPop Demon Hunters" rose 11 spots to No. 16 on the Billboard 200.
The Herald Business number I care about here: Jennie holding a top-10 Billboard spot as of the July 1 cycle. The "Dracula" remix — the Tame Impala version — climbed back to No. 10. Thirty-seven weeks on the Hot 100 for that remix. One of the longest-charting K-pop solo singles in recent memory, per Sportal Korea. That's a real run. And it sits inside a full Hybe wall — BTS at No. 10 on the album chart for the 14th straight week, plus that LE SSERAFIM, ILLIT and KATSEYE collab debuting at 43. Jennie's the lone BLACKPINK name on the board this cycle. Right, and I hate how clean that looks for Hybe on paper. One BLACKPINK member is out here moving units solo against an entire label roster — Jennie basically carried the chart week herself. Okay, real talk — a BLACKPINK Tamagotchi pop-up in Shibuya sounds adorable, but is this actually a strategic move, or is it just YG saying, 'BLINKs love pink things, let's go'? It's genuinely strategic, and the Tamagotchi pop-up is a pretty good case study. It runs July 3 through the 14th at LINE FRIENDS SQUARE SHIBUYA — a flagship retail space instead of a one-off tent activation — and it's built around the BLACKPINK Original Tamagotchi. That was already selling through LINE Gift before the doors opened, with a two-unit-per-customer cap, which is classic scarcity. And this fits a pattern: BLACKPINK dropped a My Melody collab with Sanrio in January, timed to the Japanese leg of the DEADLINE World Tour, per Hypebae. Jisoo separately signed an MOU-backed content and merch collaboration with Hello Kitty through CJ OnStyle and MuseM this year. Seoul Economic Daily's retail reporting also says Korean retailers are expanding these "fandom IP collaborations" because they reach audiences traditional ads don't. So yes, there's merch here. There's also customer acquisition and real-world fan touchpoints between album cycles. So with Tamagotchi specifically, is the nostalgia angle doing something the My Melody collab wasn't? Or is this the same playbook with a different character? The nostalgia IP layer does add something distinct. Tamagotchi hits millennials who grew up with the toy, plus younger BLINKs, so the buyer pool gets wider instead of just deeper. Longer term, watch how this stacks up with the capital side: Krafton putting 100 billion won into The Black Label, Rosé's label home, signals that game and entertainment publishers see K-pop IP as a globally scalable asset, per the Korea Herald. These character collabs may be a preview of the bigger IP monetization system being built around groups like BLACKPINK. Contactmusic.com's Lizzie Baker has this one. Okay, this is the one I've been waiting for all week: LISA, wings, full production, dropping "Bad Angel" live with ANYMA at Silverworks Island in London. Actual visuals, not a desert photo dump. And it's the first verifiable live-music moment in the rundown — a released collab track, on a real stage, June 30. That's a harder data point than anything else we've had on the LISA crossover this week. Right? That was the test — could she actually hold a room outside a K-pop context? ANYMA's ÆDEN show is festival-scale, and she walked out and held it. Wings and all. It answers it pretty cleanly. Her name is on the single — "Bad Angel" is a LISA collab, and the live setup treats her like headliner-tier. Here's CW33:
LE SSERAFIM has officially surpassed BLACKPINK to become the female K-pop group with the highest number of monthly listeners on Spotify. LE SSERAFIM now records 21,513,732 monthly listeners, exceeding BLACKPINK’s 20,867,531 monthly listeners.
Here's the number nobody on the timeline wants to sit with. LE SSERAFIM just passed BLACKPINK on Spotify monthly listeners — 21.5 million to 20.8 million, per CW33 and K-Crush. Okay, but a 646,000 gap? That's monthly listeners, which fluctuates by the hour. Come back to me when there's actual daylight between them. Sure, the margin's thin. But BLACKPINK held that top female-group spot for years, Joey. Even getting edged out is the signal — name recognition and active listenership aren't the same thing. And what's LE SSERAFIM been doing? Releasing. Constantly. BLACKPINK's group streaming base is on catalog with no new music. You're comparing a group that's actively releasing with a group between drops. Which is exactly why it lands right now. We just watched Jennie hold a top-10 Billboard spot — the members are charting while the group's shared base slips. That's the November issue in one sentence. Fine. Yeah. If the solo lanes are humming but the OT4 number's soft, then whatever YG teases for November has to actually move the group, not just re-park everyone in their solo eras. From Letty Seah at Her World Singapore:
Making the most of Korea’s warm summer weather, the trio escaped the bustle of Seoul for a quiet retreat in Muju, a picturesque county in North Jeolla Province located about a 2.5- to 3-hour drive from the capital. The occasion? A laid-back celebration for Jung Ho-yeon’s birthday, which fell on June 23.
Okay, this one's just nice — Jisoo, Jung Ho-yeon and Hyeri in matching plaid, hiking Muju for Ho-yeon's birthday. Hyeri captioned it 'our perfect first trip.' And it closes a loop — this is the Jisoo, Jung Ho-yeon, Hyeri trip that was floating around late last month. Her World Singapore ran it as a beauty piece July 1, minimal makeup, June 23 birthday. The Squid Game star, the singer-actress, and a BLACKPINK member café-hopping at a place called Place 64. That's the whole post. And credit where it's due — the byline is Letty Seah, and the 'at a glance' section is flagged AI-generated. The actual reporting is basically a photo dump and two Instagram captions. Right, so 'beauty secrets' is generous. The secret is no makeup, because it's a hike. If you’re tracking the wider K-pop conversation, check out BTS Daily Podcast: daily ARMY updates on Jungkook, Jimin, V, RM, Suga, J-Hope, and Jin — comebacks, charts, tour news, all of it. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts.
Next up, we’re watching the Billboard Hot 100: does Jennie’s “Dracula” hold that reclaimed No. 10 spot, or slip again? And the BLACKPINK Original Tamagotchi pop-up opens July 3 at LINE FRIENDS SQUARE SHIBUYA and runs through July 14.
Links to every story from today are in the show notes, so take a look if you want to spend more time with any of them. That’s BLACKPINK Daily Podcast for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.