RISENNÉ's 'LOVE ATTACK' hits #1 on Melon — nearly 2 years after charting at #900

RISENNÉ's LOVE ATTACK hit #1 on Melon's TOP 100 on December 8. The track had been sitting around 900th place when it dropped in August 2024.

As of 10 PM on December 12, it was still at the top. Other RISENNÉ songs—Deja Vu and Runaway—entered the chart during the same stretch.

It all started with a viral moment. On March 20, the group uploaded a self-produced YouTube video. One scene became a meme online: "Geoje Ya-Ho (거제 야-호)." Melon searches for RISENNÉ spiked 6,550% by April 4 compared to March 20. Member Won posted a follow-up video on her personal channel Anwonjalbu (안원잘부) on March 10. Two million views in two days.

Solfa Studio produces RISENNÉ's content. The same company runs the ODG YouTube channel, which has over 3 million subscribers. The group also ran roughly 200 self-produced live broadcasts as a cheap way to stay visible. (That's a lot of streams for a group most people hadn't heard of six months prior.)

The climb hit some bumps. Member Won got caught in a controversy over dialect expressions in YouTube content. Allegations surfaced that she used terminology tied to Ilbe, the far-right online community. Political figures weighed in. The group moved past it.

This reverse-chart story sits inside a bigger problem for smaller K-pop acts. In the first half of 2026, 14 groups sold over a million albums in their first release week. Only two came from small or mid-sized agencies. Small agencies operate on a budget roughly 1/29th the size of a major label. RBW CEO Kim Jin-woo was blunt: "Large corporations spend 100 billion won per album now. Then the probability that only artists from these large corporations survive increases."

Entertainment-format content costs 10–20 million won per episode. Standard behind-the-scenes footage runs 4–5 million won. Some agencies cut costs by splitting views and ad revenue with production companies instead of paying upfront.

Other reverse-chart cases exist. EXID's Up and Down went viral in October 2014 after Hani's fancam blew up. Brave Girls' Rollin' caught fire in 2021 when a military base performance video hit the YouTube algorithm. The pattern is real but hard to sustain. Brave Girls followed Rollin' with Chimatparam, which hit #1 on music charts and broadcasts and landed on Melon's annual chart. Their 2022 comeback Thank You couldn't hold that momentum. The group later restarted as BBGirls after leaving Brave Entertainment. Member Yujeong, known as "Kkobukjwa," left the group.

The government is currently reviewing a tax deduction system for music production costs to support sustainable K-pop growth.