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aespa's vocals at Coachella 2022 make fans wonder why SM won't let them sing live

K-pop girl group aespa performed their hit tracks like 'Savage' and 'Next Level' at Coachella 2022, along with a new song 'Life's Too Short'

Coachella 2022 turned into a K-pop festival as we had idols after idols performing at the biggest American music festival. Not only was Epik High the first Korean act ever to perform at Coachella, but they also became the second to perform again as they were reinvited this year. Additionally, Asian-American label 88rising invited GOT7’s Jackson Wang, CL and aespa to perform on the main stage of the festival. CL’s stage became the highlight of weekend 1 as she reunited her disbanded K-pop group 2NE1 to perform with her.

Rookie girl group aespa impressed everyone as they were also invited to perform at Coachella, becoming the first fourth-gen K-pop group to do so. However, people had some prior misgivings since their label SM Entertainment has not been allowing aespa to sing live. Many pointed out that aespa did not even lip-sync properly during their debut at the Macy’s Parade and their performances on American talk shows like Nick Cannon’s. And so, fans were surprised by aespa's talent when they delivered a live performance at Coachella 2022.

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Why was aespa not allowed to sing live

While singing with a backtrack or lip-syncing is often looked down upon in the West, it is quite common in K-pop. In fact, Stray Kids’ Bang Chan had shared that it was not strange for idols to lip-sync since the promotional strategy of the K-pop industry is quite hectic, which could take a toll on an artist if they continued to perform with raw vocals for weeks without proper sleep, food and care. He had also shared that since K-pop is quite strict, no idol was bad at singing since they had to be a good singer and dance at the same time to debut in the first place. But that does seem to be the case for aespa as they more than proved themselves at Coachella 2022.

‘Not one miss’

Along with fans, even Knetizens were surprised with aespa’s live singing as they took to social media to hype up the girls. While the YouTube broadcast edited and increased the volume of the backtrack, fans who were present at Coachella uploaded fancams where the girls can be heard singing live. Many were in awe that Winter’s live vocals sounded exactly how she did in the studio recording, “Winter singing her part in life’s too short sounds like something you’ll hear when you enter the gates of heaven.”

Another flexed, “No. Because the moment aespa step in they started gathering more crowd and it became so lively. Even in their new song, the crowd was waving their hands up. They were singing live, stage presence is on, the crowds jamming, and made those few mins their OWN concert. Now beat it.” One MY (aespa fan) tweeted, “‘Everyone but ningning did well’ The ningning in question:.” Another added, “One thing about karina is that she will SERVE VOCALS.”

One fan was surprised that Giselle sounded better live than on the pre-recorded backtrack, “The way giselle sounds so much better on raw fancam footage than the live stream.” Another MY said, “Why did sm take so long to let aespa sing LIVE live… THEIRE VOCALS WERE CLEAR NOT ONE MISS JUST SLAY AFTER SLAY.” Another commented, “Now why the hell have aespa not been singing live their entire careers  thise girls can SING.”

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