Most Popular Song of 2018, and Possibility of Chart Manipulation

On 29th December, Genie Music (a popular music streaming service in Korea) revealed their 2018 Yearly Chart.

According to this chart, the song that racked up the highest play count throughout 2018 was “Love Scenario” by iKon. Love Scenario was released in January of 2018. The song was especially popular among people in their 10s and 20s, but also very popular among children under the age of 10. A number of video clips of kindergarten children singing along to the song went viral, adding fuel to its popularity.

In 2nd place was “Good Old Days” by Jang Deok Cheol.

This stirred up some controversy: artists like Jang Deok Cheol, who were relatively unknown (namely Nilo and Shaun), suddenly made leaps up the real-time charts in minimal time, triggering suspicion that the charts were being manipulated illegally. These lesser known artists moved up the chart overnight and during the early morning hours, which is usually when the general public isn’t using the streaming service and songs of idol groups with strong fanbases take over the chart instead.

However, the artists denied this to be the case. They stated that they adopted methods such as viral marketing via social media, but what resulted was purely the public’s decision to listen to their songs, not by altering the chart in any way.

Some experts also suggested the possibility of chart manipulation, and an investigation is currently underway. The results of this investigation is expected to come out next year.

Out of girl groups, Black Pink had the highest play count with their song “DDU-DU DDU-DU”, coming 5th on the chart.

While BTS songs didn’t make it to the top 10 in terms of play count, BTS did take away the title of most songs within the top 200. They had a total of 7 songs placed in the top 200: Fake Love, DNA, Spring Day, Idol, Undelivered Truth, Go Go, and Anpanman.