Hwanhee tops StarTrend ballad weekly vote with 14.7M votes, backed by April remake

Hwanhee took 1st place in the StarTrend ballad category weekly vote for the 5th week of June with 14,768,941 total votes. Her daily chart performance that same period backed it up: she topped the ballad daily vote on July 4 with 1,833,920 votes, then again on July 8 with 1,513,602 votes.

The run started with her April release of 사랑은 생명의 꽃 ("Love Is the Flower of Life"), a remake of the 2009 Patti Kim original. Yang Jun-il placed 2nd on both daily charts, Jang Min-ho 3rd. The gap between them narrowed over time: Yang Jun-il drew 972,693 votes on July 4 but only 740,230 on July 8.

Fans kept circling back to her voice. "You can tell it's Hwanhee just from hearing one verse." "She changed the texture of the song with just her voice." A KBS2 Immortal Songs behind-the-scenes clip with Hwanhee and Choi Soo-ho aired on June 29, giving fans another reason to tune in during the voting window.

A remake sitting at the top says something about where her fanbase's loyalty lives right now. The full top five on July 8: Hwanhee, Yang Jun-il, Jang Min-ho, Kim Ki-tae (222,921), and Park Chang-geun (143,732).