Nine Percent

Nine Percent was a nine-member Chinese boy group formed by the survival show Idol Producer by iQiyi on April 6, 2018. The group was scheduled to promote for 18 months since formation.

Nine Percent
Also known as百分九少年
OriginChina
Genres
Years active2018–2019
Labels
  • iQiyi
  • Sony Music Entertainment China
Associated acts
WebsiteWeibo
Members

Nine Percent rocked the Chinese entertainment industry in the few months they existed, experiencing a truly meteoric rise in popularity in the short time since the group’s formation. Fans of Nine Percent are estimated to have generated some 20 million RMB of Idol Producer’s revenue, with their debut album To the Nines earning more than 10 million RMB in China alone.[1]

History

In 2018, Nine Percent (百分九少年) was formed from the survival show Idol Producer where the audience voted for the group's members. This ran from January 19 to April 6, 2018.

The group consists of Cai Xukun (蔡徐坤), Chen Linong（陈立农), Fan Chengcheng (范丞丞), Justin (黄明昊), Lin Yanjun (林彦俊), Zhu Zhengting (朱正廷), Wang Ziyi (王子异), Xiao Gui (小鬼), and You Zhangjing (尤长靖).

First public performance and Debut with To the Nines

After their debut stage in Idol Producer, they were then sent to Los Angeles for further training for half a month. Rodney Jerkins and Christopher Scott were two of their mentors, and they debuted with the 8 original songs during the second half of the competition, they held their first public performance in Shanghai in May with those songs.[2]

On May 25, their official Weibo account announced that the members decided to name their fans 'NINES' and chose to be represented by the colours PANTONE325C   and PANTONE7456C  .[3]

They released their debut album To the Nines on November 12, 2018. They gave their first live performance at M space, a music venue in Beijing, to a group of 500 fans. The show was also live-streamed through the online platforms hosted by the Tencent Music Entertainment Group, including QQ Music, Kuwo and Kugou, which racked up over 15 million clicks. Within 3 days of the album being released it made almost 8 million yuan ($1.15 million) in sales through Tencent Music's online platforms selling for 20 yuan a download. [4] The album also accumulated almost a million digital sales and landed at No. 2 on the Billboard China V chart.[5]

2019: More Than Forever, and disbandment

On September 23, 2019, the poster for the group's farewell show, More Than Forever, was dropped. The documentary showed the members prepare themselves for their final performance with each member having a chance to express their feelings after being together for 18 months and how they felt fortunate for getting to know each other.[6] A day later on September 24 the group's new album, also named More Than Forever (限定的记忆), was announced to come out on September 26 and will feature 9 solo tracks from each of the members.

On October 6, 2019, the group officially disbanded and on October 12, they held their farewell concert in Guangzhou. The livestream of the concert, which was made available to iQiyi VIP members, garnered 400 million in likes and more than 1.2 million views at one point. On Chinese social media, approximately 80,000 iQiyi VIP members participated in the concert's online activity while 8 topics related to the concert made it onto Weibo's - China's version of Twitter - list of trending topics, which in total gathered an accumulated readership of over 1 billion.[7]

Controversy over lack of promotions

In August and October 2018, many netizens criticized iQiyi for failing to provide more opportunities to some of the members of the group. The lack of group performances and members' tendency to work on their own led fans to suspect the group Nine Percent might exist in name only. This caused some to believe that the group's company lacked a vision for the future in terms of music, instead of producing music, individual members had been busy with their own activities such as filming TV series and appearing on variety shows. Even presenter He Jiong joked on an episode of Who's the Murderer that it's very common in China for boy bands to spend a lot of time appearing on food shows.[8]

Despite being a phenomenal success, the group was mocked for lacking a sense of unity as only a few members, like Cai Xukun and Chen Linong, earned noticeable fame with a loyal fanbase.[9] Most fans blamed the company, Idol Century, for their poor management of the group, 55% of Idol Century's shares are owned by iQiyi and had only been around for a while after Idol Producer had ended. Fans criticised the company for immediately holding fan meetings and concerts for the group with the same tracks from the show, without releasing a new album.[10]

A little after Nine Percent had debuted, Yuehua debuted their newest boy group NEXT (formerly known as NEX7) with members Zhu Zhengting, Fan Chengcheng and Justin which resulted in them being more involved in NEXT than in Nine Percent. According to an article from one of China's biggest social platforms, Weibo, it's said that the members were more like solo singers or actors than members of a group due to the lack of promotion Nine Percent received. Even in their final album More Than Forever it was pointed out that there were no songs sung by the members as a group, which led to there being more fans who liked only one or a few members of the group than there being fans who liked the group as a whole.[10] The article then spoke about the same issues concerning other groups birthed from shows like Idol Producer, such as UNINE, Rocket Girls 101, R1SE, AKB48 and Black Ace.

Discography

Studio albums
Title Album details Sales
To the Nines
  • Released: November 12, 2018
  • Language: Mandarin
  • Label: Sony Music Entertainment China[11]
Track listing
  1. 创新者 (Rule Breaker)
  2. I Need A Doctor
  3. Good Things
  4. 了不起的9% (Extraordinary 9%)
  5. Ei喔Ei喔 (Ei Oh Ei Oh)
  6. 一起跳舞吧 (Let's Dance Together)
  7. 离不开 (Inseparable)
More Than Forever (限定的记忆)
  • Released: September 26, 2019
  • Language: Mandarin
  • Label: Sony Music Entertainment China
Track Listing
  1. 梦 (Dream)
  2. 为你绽放 (Blooming for You)
  3. Umbrella
  4. 挣脱 (Struggle Free)
  5. Like A Star
  6. Hi Buddy (一路同行)
  7. Lovelab
  8. 热气球 (Hot Air Balloon）
  9. Maybe Someday

Singles
Title Year Peak chart positions Sales Album
CHN
[14][lower-alpha 1]
"创新者" (Rule Breaker) 2018 75 To The Nines
"离不开" (Inseparable) —
"—" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released in that region.

Other charted songs
Title Year Peak chart positions Sales Album
CHN
[14]
"I Need A Doctor" 2018 6 To The Nines
"Good Things" 14
"—" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released in that region.

Filmography

Television shows
Year Title Network Notes
2018 Idol Producer iQiyi Contestants
Nine Percent: Flower Road Journey[18] The group's first reality/variety show
2019 More Than Forever[19] iQiyi The group’s last reality/documentary show

Awards and nominations
Year Nominated work Award Category Result Ref.
2018 Nine Percent iQiyi Scream Night 2019 Group of the Year Won [20][21]
Scream Boy Group Won
Idol Producer Best Variety Show Won
Nine Percent 12th Migu Music Awards Most Popular Male Artist of The Year Won [22]
Most Popular Group of The Year Won
To The NINES Best Digital Album Won
2019 Nine Percent Weibo Night Weibo's Best Group of the Year Won [23]

Concerts and tours

Headlining concerts
  • THX with Love (2018)
  • 專輯分享會 (2018)
  • More Than Forever Final Concert [限定的记忆] (2019)

Notes
  1. The Billboard China Top 100 was launched in January 2019 by Billboard China.
gollark: So 40%. It's a nice number.
gollark: An average of 1/e and 40%.
gollark: I say 40%. We need other things, you realise...
gollark: We can evenly split all the possible research tasks onto the ***SWARM™***, except possibly weapons which can be lower priority.
gollark: 40%.

References
  1. "Major Boy Band Nine Percent is No More, and Fans are Crying "Like Rainfall"". RADII | Culture, Innovation, and Life in today's China. 2019-10-07. Retrieved 2020-06-09.
  2. "NINE PERCENT赴美集训照首曝光 知名国际导师公开{". Sina. Retrieved 2018-05-06.
  3. "微博正文 - 微博HTML5版". m.weibo.cn. Retrieved 2019-01-11.
  4. 董志成. "Power of nine: Winners of a reality show release 1st album - Chinadaily.com.cn". www.chinadaily.com.cn. Retrieved 2020-06-09.
  5. Staff, MTV News. "With WayV, All Eyes Are On C-pop". MTV News. Retrieved 2020-06-09.
  6. "真人秀《限定的记忆》即将收官 NPC全员告别不舍解散". news.xiancn.com. Retrieved 2020-06-09.
  7. Inc, iQIYI. "NINEPERCENT Holds Farewell Concert, iQIYI Upgrades in Innovative Membership Benefits for Idol-incubation IP Met with Great Acclaim". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2020-06-09.
  8. "Chinese boy band Nine Percent's lack of unity causing it to fall far behind K-pop's Wanna One, EXO and BTS - Global Times". www.globaltimes.cn. Retrieved 2020-06-09.
  9. "R1SE aims to set the example for Chinese idol groups - Global Times". www.globaltimes.cn. Retrieved 2020-06-09.
  10. 澎湃新闻 (2019-10-15). "Nine Percent告别演唱会：限定的记忆 限定的团魂|Nine Percent|演唱会|团魂_新浪娱乐_新浪网". ent.sina.com.cn. Retrieved 2020-06-09.
  11. "Read desc about entertainment".
  12. "Total Chinese Music sales - To the Nines".
  13. "Total Chinese Music sales - More Than Forever".
  14. "Billboard China Top 100". Billboard China (in Chinese). Retrieved February 17, 2019.
  15. "MV巅峰榜 - QQ音乐-千万正版音乐海量无损曲库新歌热歌天天畅听的高品质音乐平台！". y.qq.com (in Chinese). Retrieved 2018-11-29.
  16. "MV巅峰榜 - QQ音乐-千万正版音乐海量无损曲库新歌热歌天天畅听的高品质音乐平台！". y.qq.com. Retrieved 2018-12-07.
  17. "MV巅峰榜 - QQ音乐-千万正版音乐海量无损曲库新歌热歌天天畅听的高品质音乐平台！". y.qq.com (in Chinese). Retrieved 2018-11-25.
  18. "微博". m.weibo.cn. Retrieved 2019-08-01.
  19. "微博搜索". s.weibo.com. Retrieved 2019-08-01.
  20. "iQIYI Scream Night 2019 - AWARD WINNERS | CPOP 音乐 Amino". CPOP 音乐 | aminoapps.com. Retrieved 2018-12-04.
  21. "Sina Visitor System". passport.weibo.com. Retrieved 2018-12-04.
  22. "NINE PERCENT 9% on Instagram: "Mi Gu music 咪咕音乐 official weibo update 051218 - nine percent and xuezhiqian fans went head-to-head in the polls to score their idol(s)…"". Instagram. Retrieved 2018-12-05.
  23. "See 2018微博之夜 under 大型頒獎典禮獎項 under 獎項".
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