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Le Sserafim's encore has fans doubting win against Lim Youngwoong's million-seller album

The girls were off tune while singing live which had fans questioning their music show win on 'Music Bank'

Le Sserafim is one of the newest rookie girl groups that everyone is keeping an eye on since not only does it have two popular IZ*ONE members, but it is also HYBE’s first girl group in collaboration with Source Music. There is also the case of Kim Garam’s bullying case with new updates that have many wondering if she was in fact the victim and not the bully. On top of it, they are also doing well with their debut album which helped them get their first win on music shows.

Le Sserafim’s ‘Fearless’ broke the record of the highest first-week sales for a girl group’s debut album with 307k copies. They were also the fastest girl group to enter Spotify’s music chart – Global 200. However, we have another ‘monster rookie’, Lim Young-woong competing with them. The Korean trot singer had dominated music shows in 2021 with just singles and now his debut album crossed 940k sales in just the first 24 hours of its release.

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Le Sserafim 'Fearless': Girl group's debut album records highest first week sales in Hanteo history

Who is Lim Young-woong? Korean trot singer’s debut album makes 940k sales on day 1

Le Sserafim wins on 'Music Bank'

Winner of the talent competition ‘Mr. Trot’, Lim Young-woong released his debut album ‘Im Hero’ which then crossed 2 million sales in just over 24 hours. The album and its tracks also topped seven of Gaon’s weekly and monthly charts. His appearance on the music show ‘Music Bank’ also doubled viewership in just a day. And so, many were surprised that Le Sserafim ended up beating him and taking the trophy for ‘Music Bank’. 

While Lim Young-woong had more points in almost every criterion he got 0 for broadcasting while Le Sserafim got 5,348 which was the turning point. And so the girl group won with additional 846 points. With claims of KBS’ ‘Music Bank’ being rigged, fans pointed out that while this was Young-woong’s first appearance on the show, Le Sserafim had attended ‘Music Bank’ last week, as well as other KBS shows like ‘Idol Human Theater’ and ‘Lee Mujin Service’ which helped them secure the points.

The girls' encore stage has fans divided

While Le Sserafim might have won fair and square with the years-old criteria set by ‘Music Bank’, Knetz are now wondering if it should change with the girls’ encore stage. While most K-pop acts perform with a pre-recorded backing track and in-ears on the actual stage, after an act wins, they have an encore stage where they sing without all of these accouterments. There was quite a difference between Le Sserafim’s actual stage and the encore stage where they had to sing live.

Most of the Le Sserafim members were off tune and not stable while singing live which had fans defending them by sharing that they were just goofing around. However, non-fans and Knetz pointed out that even while goofing around, other winning groups always sounded good and so had Lim Young-woong who had previously won on ‘M Countdown’ against K-pop legends PSY and BTS’ Suga which had everyone impressed.

'How did they beat Lim Young-woong'

One fan tweeted, “Well, lesserafim's music is so good, the performance is excellent, the album selling is doing well. Accept the fact please.” Another fan defended, “I guess knets don't understand encores aren't supposed to be serious or good. If the other groups can fool around with encores why can't they?” One fan added, “I hope knets know it would be difficulty to sing in perfect tune to the background music playing and they aren't even wearing earpiece.”

However, Knetz and non-fans are not having it, “No, they’re singers but they can’t even sing while standing?” Another said, “How did they beat Lim Young Woong to take first place with that skill? I can’t even hear what song it is, and the song itself is so weird.” One added, “The song isn't hard or out of their range, it's actually quite low?? How is it that like none of them can decently hold a note.”

'Is this even allowed?'

One user felt that ‘Music Bank’ should change their winning criteria that helped Le Sserafim win despite not being able to sing live, “Yea the thing is these aren’t even music related coz tv attendance are from connections and also bought by the company while LYW songs are being played on radio and he is a million seller and top #10 in charts, istg some scam is going on in music bank about time they reform.”

One pointed out, “Just check out most 2nd gen. They are the icon when it comes to encore stagas. Running , jumping and fooling around yet still sounding better than the recorded studio version.” Another felt the criteria could easily help an agency rig the music show. One Knetz added, “Is this even allowed..? Does it make any sense that the highest score they received was not related to music?”

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