LE SSERAFIM’s Poor Live Singing Skills At Coachella Sparked Controversy

The girl group prepared an unreleased song called “1-800-hot-n-fun” for this Coachella event and invited American musician Nile Rodgers to feature on the “UNFORGIVEN” stage, but it was the members’ poor live singing skills that made headlines.

LE SSERAFIM’s controversial live singing skills are still being discussed a lot on social media and in online communities. As videos of LE SSERAFIM at Coachella spread widely on the Internet, many netizens expressed disappointment and poured criticism over the members’ skills. There was no disagreement in terms of performing skills, but reviews criticizing the members’ weak live singing dominated social media.

A netizen with the ID Bos* left a review of LE SSERAFIM’s Coachella debut, saying “Congratulate the group on entering the Coachella in the shortest time, but it was obviously a stage with poor vocal skills”, adding “The first half of the performance was still acceptable because the members danced continuously without resting but from the song ‘Smart’, the performance became so bad. This is the obstacle that a team created hastily by the big corporation HYBE emphasizing on visual only and performance needs to overcome”.

After LE SSERAFIM’s show, netizens began to compare them to BLACKPINK, the first K-pop girl group to perform at the Coachella Festival in 2019 and presented a stage praised by the music industry worldwide back then.

Many believed that if LE SSERAFIM had gradually built up their skills on big stages such as world tours, like BLACKPINK did, before appearing at Coachella, such controversies wouldn’t have occurred. On April 15th, HYBE’s label Source Music said through the media, “LE SSERAFIM successfully completed their performance at Coachella and the audience enjoyed it while cheering loudly”.