CORTIS Sweeps Rookie Records of the Year with First, Most, and No.1 Achievements

CORTIS Sweeps Rookie Records of the Year with First, Most, and No.1 Achievements

BigHit Music’s rookie group CORTIS has firmly secured the title of “Best Rookie of the Year” with overwhelming momentum.

As of noon on the 18th, CORTIS (Martin, James, Juhoon, Sunghyun, Gunho) had approximately 2.845 million followers on TikTok and 2.546 million followers on Instagram. Just over a month after opening their accounts, they ranked No.1 among all rookies who debuted this year. This proves the group’s resonance with the Gen Z and millennial audience (teens and twenties), who are the main consumers of short-form content. A major factor behind this popularity is the multi-hit success of tracks from their debut album. The title track What You Want, intro track GO!, and follow-up track FaSHioN sparked trending dance challenges online. In addition, self-produced content by the members and their unique fashion styles have spread beyond the K-pop fandom to the general public, creating daily buzz.

CORTIS’s popularity is also evident on the charts. According to Circle Chart’s latest weekly chart (tracking period: September 7–13), their debut album COLOR OUTSIDE LINES ranked No.2 on the album chart. The album surpassed 420,000 first-week sales, setting the record for the highest debut album sales among rookies this year, both on Hanteo Chart and Circle Chart. On the Global K-pop Chart, all tracks from the album entered the rankings: GO! (No.18), FaSHioN (No.22), What You Want (No.29), JoyRide (No.59), and Lullaby (No.161).

CORTIS is also the only rookie group this year to reach No.1 on Spotify’s Daily Viral Songs Global. They topped the chart consecutively with What You Want (September 1–7) and GO! (September 9–11). Notably, GO! became the first debut track by a 2025 boy group to enter Melon’s real-time Top 100.

The group is set to solidify their upward momentum with appearances on Mnet’s M Countdown (18th), KBS2’s Music Bank (19th), MBC’s Show! Music Core (20th), and SBS’s Inkigayo (21st).

Written by Mun Wan Sik

Translated by Lee So Yun