[JoyNOW] 'Pushing Albums' Surfaces in Hive Incident... The Real Problem is 'Music Viral'

[Joy News 24 Reporter Jiwon Jeong]

HYBE and Adore CEO Min Hee-jin recently had a war of words over the 'album pushing' controversy. CEO Min Hee-jin claimed that she filed a whistleblower complaint last month, saying that she had been advised by HYBE to push 100,000 copies of New Jeans' album but refused, while HYBE refuted this, saying, "We do not push albums. CEO Min Hee-jin has constantly raised groundless suspicions about other artists' album sales." The two sides are still debating, claiming and refuting the album pushing controversy.

But if you look around a little, there is a music market that is stranger than an album. In an invisible place, there is a strange form of music viral marketing where you can stream songs even if you don't want to listen to them or stream them, using the method of 'music source hoarding'. There is a rumor that if you spend 10 billion won, you will become number one, and if you spend money, YouTubers create 'insubstantial popularity' without 'advertisement labeling'. Who is doing the wrong thing?

◇"I don't want to listen to this song, but it keeps streaming"... The power of 10 billion viral hits

A, a self-employed person in his 30s, recently experienced a strange phenomenon. A debut song from a new girl group kept playing on the hip-hop R&B playlist at his workplace. He skipped the song several times because it didn’t fit the atmosphere of the workplace, but the song kept popping up 7 or 8 times, perplexing A. He said, “I don’t want to listen to that girl group’s songs anymore,” but A ended up streaming the girl group’s song more than 7 or 8 times against his will.

The same goes for B, a 30-something office worker. B, who was clicking on a playlist of children’s songs he enjoyed listening to on YouTube with his colleagues at work, ended up listening to the debut song of a new boy group that appeared out of nowhere. The refreshing song didn’t fit the concept of children’s songs, so he checked out other children’s song playlists, but the boy group’s song was also on those lists. His colleagues now know how to hum this song. However, they all ask, “Why do I know this song?” and “Who sang this song?” Streaming has occurred without the listener’s choice and will.

The reason why A and B are confused is because of excessive SNS viral marketing. Here's how it works. In order to increase global popularity, the song is randomly inserted into YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, and Melon playlists. No one put the song in their playlist, but through viral marketing, the song is included, and a situation arises where 'no one has streamed it, but it is being streamed a lot'. Even people who don't want to listen to the song end up streaming it unwillingly. Ironically, even though there are people who don't know the singer and dislike the song, the ranking goes up. The more money you pour in, the more frequently the song is inserted into more playlists.

In relation to this, an official engaged in viral marketing recently told Joy News 24, "There is a form of viral marketing that raises the rankings solely by inserting a playlist when the singer's popularity and recognition are almost non-existent. I understand that it costs close to 10 billion won, and sometimes even more."

◇They only care about rankings… Ticket prices increase, suspicions of fraud, and even overseas attention are ruined

The problem is that this method is practiced not only domestically but also overseas. SNS viral marketing is not absolutely illegal, but it can be problematic enough to the extent of disrupting global charts such as Spotify and Apple Music. If it is a singer whose fandom has been proven by the scale of overseas performances, then how can the ‘newcomers’ of the K-pop market rank at the top of overseas charts? It is assumed that it is all because they spend tens or hundreds of billions of won to create ‘insubstantial popularity.’

All of this is a result of the characteristics of the K-pop market that is obsessed with rankings. Of course, if a new group's fandom is formed in an instant through SNS viral marketing and they can make money by increasing the scale of their concerts, that would be the best outcome, but most groups that have grown through viral marketing cannot keep up with the scale of their concerts compared to their incredible domestic and international success. From the company's perspective, they can't just make the concert hall small because they've achieved great results. They have to make the concert hall fit their performance, even if it doesn't fill the audience. So how do they make money at concert halls that can't sell out? They just have to raise the ticket prices as if they're sucking the blood of their fans. Of course, the main factor in the increase in ticket prices is the rising cost of materials for building concert sets due to rising prices, but we're also letting you know that there are such anecdotes.

If you create popularity without substance through viral marketing, the way K-pop is viewed overseas will soon become worse. How did the public view the singers who suddenly appeared on the charts and took first place during the controversy over domestic music chart manipulation 7-8 years ago? If there were cases where new K-pop artists with unproven fandoms and listeners suddenly achieved good results on the charts, how would overseas listeners view those singers and the K-pop industry? In the end, situations where people risk their lives for rankings are destroying the foundation of K-pop. K-pop is an industry that deals with people. If trust between people is destroyed, it can affect not only the company but also the industry.

In relation to this, a music industry insider expressed his anger to Joy News 24, saying, "Pouring hundreds of billions of won to create a ranking that doesn't have substance is called 'SNS viral marketing,' but isn't it in fact music chart manipulation?" and "How can making people who don't want to listen to a certain song or aren't interested in it stream it without knowing it not be music chart manipulation?"

Is this really the right way? Everyone in the industry unanimously said, "There needs to be some level of sanctions on SNS viral marketing that relies solely on the power of capital and pours in hundreds of billions of won to disrupt the charts."

https://www.joynews24.com/view/1722648