A Guide to I-dle: Cube's Financial Reliance

We all know that I-dle is one of the most successful girl groups. But that success can only be attributed to them, not cube. The only reason they are so successful is because of how much they have done for themselves. Most notably, Soyeon who writes, composes, and produces most of their music. Anything not written by her, is by one of the other members. Additionally, she also does a lot when it comes to coming up with concepts, styling, MV direction. At this point she is basically their creative director. This is what sets them apart from previous girl groups at Cube whose success may have been hindered due to Cube’s neglect. 

Because of this success, Cube has become increasingly dependent on them financially as I-dle is their only big group now since many of their previously popular groups including CLC, Apink, Beast, and 4minute are either disbanded or no longer under Cube.

There are a few reasons why this is important. First is because their initial contacts ended this year, and instead of leaving, they decided to stay. This could have come as a surprise since all the members have been very vocal about the problems they’ve had with Cube and their management. However, when you think about it, it makes sense. They know that Cube needs them more than they need Cube, so they had the upper hand in negotiating terms for their new contracts. If they decided to leave Cube, they definitely would have gotten less freedom and pay. The second thing that was impacted was their rebrand earlier this year. There is no way that the rebrand would have been Cube’s idea since it was their first time since Soyeon’s MAMA rap that they have acknowledged Soojin's departure. The rebrand was them leaving their past behind, which included Soojin. Soojin was part of (G)-Idle, but is not part of I-dle, which is likely why they decided to rerecord their old songs. Soojin will always be part of their identity, and I don’t think they are trying to erase her, but they are trying to move forward. Anyways, up until now Cube has constantly been constantly trying to push Soojin’s departure under the rug, and pretend that she was never part of the group. Therefore, it had to be the girls who wanted the rebrand and Cube only okay’ed it because they needed them. This also makes sense when considering the name change. The girls had never wanted the “G” which stood for “girl” in the name because they believed that music cannot be labeled as “for girls” or “for boys”. However, Cube wanted the “G” in their name, and because they had no power in the company as rookies, they had to comply. Eventually, they stopped pronouncing the “G” in their introductions, and were finally able to permanently remove it from their name when the tables turned. It was no longer them that needed Cube, but Cube that needs them. This fact now gives them the ability to have more creative freedom and influence over their own careers.