The Reason Why Koreans Didn’t Want Any More Girl Group Songs From J.Y. Park

JYP Entertainment founder and CEO, J.Y. Park made headlines for a surprising reason.

J.Y. Park started to receive negative comments on his social media accounts following the release of ITZY‘s song “Mafia in the Morning”. When ITZY released their highly anticipated mini-album GUESS WHOthe response from Korean fans was not as welcoming as anticipated. With divided opinions on their title track, ITZY’s Korean fans have flocked to J.Y. Park’s Instagram account and expressed their disappointment. Most of the comments requested that he stop participating in girl group song creations.

• “Jinyoung-hyung nim, I hope you stop writing ITZY songs…they’re tacky.”
• “Please take your hands out of ITZY’s songs. The lyrics are so old…”
• “Seriously, what were you thinking when you were writing ITZY’s lyrics?”
• “Stop writing lyrics.”
• “Please give ITZY good songs……”
• “Please stop writing lyrics for girl groups, please. Starting last year with the taktaktak ssakssakssak (lyrics from “Not Shy”) you are ruining ITZY’s amazing future. Why are you doing this.”
• “Please stop writing ITZY songs. They’re really bad. The lyrics starting from the last album, I have no words.”

These comments asking J.Y. Park to stop his song producing were not just on his Instagram account, but over different online communities in South Korea. This was a surprise due to the previous praise he received for his song-writing and producing abilities. He is the mastermind behind hit songs, such as “Bad Girl, Good Girl” by loose“24 Hours” by Bored“Very Very Very” by IOI“More & More” by TWICEand more. His song creating abilities and choreographing skills have been given credit as the reason behind his groups’ successes.

The requests he received for his participation in ITZY’s album was one of the first times such a request was made, as this may be the first time J.Y. Park has been asked to stop producing in his 30-year career. While the JYP Entertainment founder has been the center of backlash and criticisms before, his song-writing and producing abilities were almost always left untouched.

While Korean fans were less than impressed with ITZY’s comeback song, international fans have been expressing their love for the funky tune. ITZY also trended worldwide on Twitter following their comeback, signaling a successful comeback.

Following the feedback from netizens, ITZY’s three title tracks following “Mafia in the Morning” — “Loco”, “Sneakers”, and “Cheshire” were not produced by J.Y. Park. However, it is not clear if there is any connection between the feedback he received from Koreans and these title tracks.