“Lucky Girl Syndrome” by ILLIT, Friday, June 7, 2024

I’ll-It, later known as ILLIT, was formed with the winning members of the 2023 South Korean survival competition show R U Next? The show was broadcast JTBC and streamed on Netflix and Wavve beginning June 30, 2023. Along with JTBC, the show was created by Belift Lab, a sublabel of Hybe, the label responsible for introducing the world to BTS and NewJeans. Six winners were selected by the end of the show and those members became ILLIT, a K-pop girl group who just scored a Billboard Hot 100 entry on their first single--an accomplish-ment, a first of its kind. “Magnetic” is one of the biggest K-pop songs now, and other songs from Hybe Corporation are charting high in Korea and other countries. But as the label has brought K-pop to its imperial phase, ILLIT has come under fire as an imitation of the label’s other successful girl group, NewJeans.

I DON’T NEED ANY GOLDEN TICKET. Hybe Corporation began as Big Hit Entertainment in 2005. The label signed their first act, 8Eight in 2007. Big Hit’s first big hit came in 2013 when BTS debuted. After several other idol groups, some of which were embroiled with scandal, Big Hit signed Tomorrow X Together in 2019 to a runway success. With the growing success of K-pop in America, in February 2021, Big Hit made a deal with Universal Music, to market music in both America and Korea. Then, in March, Big Hit announced that they would rebrand as Hybe. The label’s new strategy was multiple sub-labels. Each sub-label was run by its own CEO, but all were under the leadership of Hybe founder Bang Si-hyuk(방시혁). The company had been making headlines this spring because of an issue with the CEO of sub-label Ador, Min Hee Jin (민희진). Min was hired after working for SM Entertainment as she was responsible for the branding of some of the label’s biggest acts including Girls’ Generation, Exo, f(x), SHINee, and Red Velvet. When she began work for Hybe, Min demanded that she be named the CEO of her own label, and that label released NewJeans’ music.  Now, this spring, Bang and Min are in the middle of a legal battle which is still unfolding, with accusations between Bang and Min at the forefront of the case. Min claims she raised concerns about Bang copying her signature style, which was applied to Belift’s ILLIT. Bang claimed that Min was seeking independence of Ador and ordered an audit of the sub-label. 

 THE WORLD IS CHOCOLATE; LET’S SAVOR IT. The details of the case are quite intriguing; I wouldn’t be surprised to see a documentary or a drama with a plot heavily borrowed from the allegations—specifics changed, of course. The case of ILLIT, though, raises the question about how much a company can take from its workers. I’ve been blogging a lot about K-pop the past few months, and I’ve taken more and more interest in the corporate structure of the industry. K-pop seems to be somewhat based on a pre-2008 understanding of American record labels, and the art of K-pop is as much visual and merdandizing as it is about the music itself. That makes Min Hee-jin one of if not the primary artist for NewJeans. But can the parent company take Min’s ideas and apply them to ILLIT? And what about the listeners? Will they tolerate a clone of another group? The member’s personalities have to be a driving force of the groups moving forward. As for ILLIT vs. NewJeans, both groups offer a similar subdued catchiness. Often when I first hear a NewJeans song, I think it’s not that good, but catch myself humming it all day after just a cursory listen. The same goes for ILLIT’s “Magnetic” and today’s song, “Lucky Girl Syndrome.” As a former hipster, indie snob, it was the earworms of K-pop that made me start taking the industry seriously. In a time when Western pop music is shedding melody for monotonous simplicity, K-pop leaves an impression due to how easily it’s stuck in the listener’s head. And that’s a “Lucky” place to be. 

Check out the English translation.

Check out the lyrics on Genius.