The summer queens of K-Pop, Sistar, officially disbanded after the release of “Lonely”. Given that the group had accomplished so much during the past 7 years, I thought it would be interesting to revisit some of those moments as we part ways with the group.

Numbers at a Glance

Years Active: 7 (June 2010 – June 2017)
Members Lost: 0
Albums Released (Studio Albums & EPs): 8
Awards Received (End of the Year + Music Shows): 88

It’s really hard to appreciate the numbers above without diving a little deeper. After all, Starship Entertainment did invest a lot time and money in Sistar, considering how they did not debut another girl group (Cosmic Girls) until 6 years later.

Having said that, the investment certainly did pay off. In total, the group released 2 studio albums and 6 extended plays. This roughly translates to a total sales of $2,747,879 USD. While this figure might not seem huge at first, keep in mind, it only accounted for physical album sales. And when it comes to revenue in K-Pop, physical albums are simply a fraction of the entire picture.

Now, let’s talk about videos. In order to really demonstrate how big of an impact Sistar had on Starship, let’s turn to its YouTube channel – StarshipTV. I wrote a program to calculate the total number of views from videos that have “Sistar” in their titles or descriptions. Then, I divided that number by the channel’s total number of views. Surprisingly, the group accounts for over 90% of StarshipTV’s views!

Last but definitely not least, we need to go over the number of lineup changes, or lack thereof, that the group experienced throughout their 7 years. The fact that not a single member left the team should be a feat that all fans should be proud of, especially when compared to other girl groups that debuted during the same year.

For example, Miss A, Girl’s Day, and Nine Muses all had to deal with member changes. Interestingly, those groups are still active today, so perhaps a few changes to the lineup card might not be so bad after all?

As someone who has been following Sistar since its early days, it’s extremely sad to see yet another legendary group disband. While I realize Starship is now dedicating most of its resources to Cosmic Girls to hopefully replicate Sistar’s success story, I am not sure how well that will pan out. I do, however, know that summer will never be the same.