YG Plus came under criticism after fans received NU’EST’s disbandment album with torn pages
This is NU’EST meaningful last comeback, yet torn albums were distributed.
On March 15, NU’EST released the last album “Needle & Bubble” featuring the title track “Spring, Again” to officially wrap up their 10-year journey in Kpop.
This album carries special meaning as NU’EST members bid farewell to fans before officially parting ways. Therefore, the physical album means a lot to NU’EST fans and would be something they want to keep and treasure to remember the group. However, the albums came in awfully torn when fans unboxed them, making fans bewildered and disappointed.
On Twitter, NU’EST’s fans shared photos of their album with torn photo books, even missing a few pages with Aron’s face on. Fans claim this is not due to delivery, but the fault of the album’s production unit, most likely YG Plus.
In January 2021, when Big Hit had not officially rebranded itself as HYBE, the entertainment giant announced an investment of 70 million won in YG Plus and empowered YG’s subsidiary to produce all relevant artists’ publications as well as distribute them to the market. Since then, albums of idol groups under Big Hit and its acquired labels such as BTS, TXT, NU’EST, SEVENTEEN were mostly distributed by YG Plus.
Therefore, NU’EST fans are lashing out at YG Plus instead of HYBE. According to fans, NU’EST’s physical album quality since their debut has always been good until YG Plus took over. Not only the photobook is torn, but the design and printing are also poor-quality, sometimes the CD and photocard are missing, or even worse, photocards of other boy group members are found inside NU’EST’s albums.
This is not the first time YG Plus has been under fire for its sloppy work in producing albums. Fans of BLACKPINK’s Lisa were angry when the company did not produce enough albums compared to the needs of fans, and continuously canceled orders for no reason, affecting the results of Lisa’s solo debut.
BTS fans also claim the physical album quality of the global boy group has gone downhill since Big Hit invested a whopping amount of money in YG Plus. Photocards looking like fakes that are sold everywhere on the internet, poor colorings, misspelled artists’ names, loose photobooks,… are among many reasons why fans are dissatisfied after unboxing their albums.
It can be seen that two “BIG 4” entertainment companies, HYBE and YG, working together does not make fans happy.
- NU’EST’s last comeback was supposed to be perfect. The album is not cheap either but the quality sucks. As someone who always cherishes each physical album, I’m angry just looking at it!
- What is YG Plus doing? Photocard error, photobook error, cover error, CD error,… Fans swear at them every time but still no improvement.
- It’s not just NU’EST, the inside of BTS’s albums also has many problems. The photocards look like fakes. Criticize YG Plus, not HYBE.
- It’s YG Plus so this is not surprising. This happened to BLACKPINK and TREASURE too.
