South Korean Music Chart Rankings Temporarily Halt Due to Sewol Tragedy

Due to artists halting promotional activities and comebacks schedule, charts remain unusually stagnant.

Apr 23, 2014 11:29 AM BST

TAGㆍBernard Parkㆍ Yoon Gun

All K-pop artists have halted their promotional activities following the unfortunate Sewol Ferry tragedy. With this, no significant activities in chart rankings have been tabulated.

The rankings and figures on MelOn's real-time chart today are similar with the results from yesterday. As of this moment, no change has been made to the rankings.

Rankings on other websites also remain still without huge differences. However, Bernard Park's "Because I Love You", released on April 21, and Yoon Gun's "I Love You Too Much" ranked high on Bugs and Soribada's real-time listings.

Rankings on real-time charts changed every hour so this sort of stagnancy is not a usual occurrence. Sources say the lack of movement is caused by artists' postponement of comeback and promotional activities to pay respects to the ferry accident.

However, with Bernard Park and Yoon Gun's releases, people weren't as enthusiastic about it as expected. A representative said, "Bernard Park's 'Because I Love You' and Yoon Gun's 'Because I Love' are both singles, so they could just release it as originally as planned. Releasing articles and doing promotional activities under this current situation are almost impossible, that's why the songs are not getting as much reaction as expected."

The rep added, "The ferry accident shook our nation, and it seems this emotional climate will continue until late in April. Furthermore, there is a long holiday in May, so it may take some time until everything goes back to normal again."

TagㆍBernard Parkㆍ Yoon Gun