Netizens Recall Soyou's Criticism to LE SSSERAFIM Sakura's Skills: 'Her singing was off beat...'

Amid LE SSERAFIM's controversy over its music show encore stage, Soyou's remark to Sakura resurfaced, where she criticized her idol skills.

Earlier on February 29, the girl group LE SSERAFIM took home a No.1 trophy from Mnet's music show, "M!Countdown" with its new hit track, "Easy."

While FEARNOTs genuinely congratulated the quintet, they weren't able to fully enjoy this achievement after the team faced backlash for their encore stage.

Amid criticism, its member Sakura's skills were re-examined after she received massive hateful comments for poor singing.

LE SSERAFIM Sakura Fails to Impress With Vocals

In particular, LE SSERAFIM's encore stage became the talk of the town after a netter took the video to the X platform and wrote criticism about the members' lacking live singing skills.

Originally, encore stages are meant for artists and fans to celebrate their win and have fun jamming with their winning song.

But recently, it has become a big deal for fans how various new-gen K-pop groups can't sing well without backing track or live. This is unlike the first and second-gen idols who were equipped with outstanding live vocals despite performing complex choreography.

ALSO READ: LE SSERAFIM K-Pop Supremacy Unveiled — KNETs Decode the Secrets Behind Their Dominance: 'It is because...'

In LE SSERAFIM's video then, various K-pop fandoms shook their head in frustration hearing that most members can't reach the high notes, not even sing the song correctly contrary to how their studio version sounded.

Currently, the video has 32.3 million views with over 21k quoted retweets, and among the comments, similar opinions are claiming that Sakura really is the group's weak link.

They pointed out that she's truly off-tune and is actually "ruining" the song with her bad pronunciation and melody.

Soyou's Past Remark About Sakura's Skills Resurfaced

Amid this, the past remark of Soyou on Sakura's skills became a hot topic as well, wherein the top-tier second-gen singer criticized the idol for her poor performance.

The clip was taken from when Sakura joined Mnet's "Produce 48," the show that also let her debut in the K-pop girl group, IZ*ONE.

Watching the video, Soyou exclaimed:

"Her pronunciation was bad, and her dance was off-beat. Her singing was off-beat as well, but she rapped. She's in the center, and she's not good."

The video which has amassed 3.3 million views gathered sentiments that Sakura shouldn't take the criticism as hate, but rather, try to improve herself even more.

Among idols, Sakura has the longest experience, starting from when she debuted in 2011 in HKT48 and later on in Japan's biggest idol group, AKB48.

In 2018, she re-debuted in IZ*ONE and joined LE SSERAFIM in 2022, her second K-pop girl group.

Fandoms were raising their brows against her for not improving despite consistently being scolded for her skills, and people also claiming that she robbed her current position from other aspiring idols with more skills than her.

On the flip side, Sakura's fans also defended her, stating that the hateful comments posed as "positive criticism" didn't help but rather lowered the idol's confidence even more.

READ MORE: LE SSERAFIM Earns Backlash For 'EASY' Encore Stage on 'M Countdown' — Here's Why

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Written by Eunice Dawson.