The 12 Worst K-Pop Album Cover Designs Of 2022, According To Fans

Despite the growing digitalization of the music world, physical album sales are still booming in the K-Pop industry, with a record number of them sold in 2022 at over 75 million. Because of this, it’s still important to have well-designed album covers that are pleasing to the eye for fans to look at and display! However, there are some albums that were released in 2022 that fans think fell short of what they could have been, and a recent Reddit thread has them discussing what the worst K-Pop album covers of the past year were. Here are their top 12 choices.

1. Dopamine by ONEUS

Between the solid blue color that seems to be the opposite shade of what would create dopamine, and the extremely plaint text, fans weren’t impressed with this design!

2. CANDY by NCT DREAM

At first glance the CANDY album seems totally fine… But when you try to actually read the letters, the way they’re arranged can make if confusing!

3. WHO AM I by CRAXY

Some commenters think that the default-looking text paired with the oddly edgy background image for this album just don’t work together.

4. After LIKE by IVE

Everything about this IVE album cover is pretty alright… Except for the garish green shade they chose as the background color that no fan seems to actually like!

5. Needle & Bubble by NU’EST

Pairing white text with a barely-there gray outline against a white background seems to be a questionable design choice, and very difficult to read.

6. Checkmate by ITZY

ITZY actually changed the album cover from the more royal concept they originally teased CHECKMATE with to the colorful design that better suits the title track “Sneakers”… But it’s still not a fan favorite, it seems.

7. Girls by aespa

There are several different versions of aespa’s Girls album cover, but the one featured above that shows up on Spotify just doesn’t do it for a lot of fans.

8. ANTIFRAGILE by LE SSERAFIM

Both FEARLESS and ANTIFRAGILE were actually mentioned on the Reddit post, due to their almost too-simple designs according to some!

9. We Need Love by STAYC

We’re not sure what it is about this STAYC album design that just seems a bit off, but the somewhat clashing colors and thread-like design just don’t seem to work well together for some people.

10. MIC ON by MAMAMOO

MAMAMOO’s albums have pretty much always had a very simple and minimalistic style, but some fans think MIC ON just looks a little too “low-effort”. Plus, the colors are very similar to BLACKPINK!

11. GOT7 by GOT7

GOT7’s self-titled album seems to have a similar problem to IVE’s After LIKE, just with a slightly less blinding green shade than the girl group.

12. FLASHBACK by iKON

And finally, iKON’s FLASHBACK album follows a similar trend in the album covers on this list in that fans think it’s too simple, not on trend, and unpleasant to look at.