A couple of weeks ago, rookie girl group ILLIT released a music video for “Lucky Girl Syndrome”, one of the tracks off of their debut album, Super Real Me.

The song has been met with a lot of praise, similar to their viral debut title track, “Magnetic”. However, in the last couple of days, netizens have starting accusing the group (or rather, their producers) of plagiarism over “Lucky Girl Syndrome” for sounding similar to another song.

Wonhee (ILLIT)

The song it’s being compared to is “Favorite Liar” by American pop-rock band The Wrecks. In particular, the intro and beginning melody of “Lucky Girl Syndrome” do sound quite similar to that of “Favorite Liar”. You can compare them yourself with the video below, which is what has sparked the conversation.

The video started a heated discussion on an online forum, with many Korean netizens agreeing that the two songs sound too similar for it just to be a coincidence.

“Why is this really happening?” “It feels exactly the same in some sections.” “No, it’s too similar…?” “It’s the same..? The melody line is too identical.” “The melody and the beginning are similar.” “Oh, it’s really similar.” “It’s exactly the same.” “I’m sure they sampled it when they were making the song, but of course they didn’t agree on the copyright to sample it – that’s plagiarism.” “The intro is too much the same.” “The melody is the same????” “I liked this song because I thought this part was good… Oh my gosh…” “Huh, it’s too similar, isn’t it?”

These accusations come in the wake of ILLIT as a whole being compared to NewJeans, from their concepts to their outfits and the type of music they’ve released so far. It seems like ILLIT’s members just can’t catch a break!

 They just can’t escape controversy.