Netizens Accuse Lee Chaeyeon Of Copying SHINee Key’s “Gasoline” Designs
WM Entertainment announced mid-September that Lee Chaeyeon would be making her long-awaited solo debut with a mini-album, HUSH RUSH on October 12.
Since the announcement, her company has steadily released teaser images, giving fans their first glimpse at Lee Chaeyeon’s solo debut concept.
As more teaser images were released, suspicions were raised about similarities between HUSH RUSH‘s concept and product designs and SHINee Key‘s designs for his second studio album, Gasoline, which was released in August of this year.
A netizen on a popular Korean online forum made a post compiling the comparisons, and in less than an hour, the post had over 45,000 views and 795 comments.
Netizens first noticed similarities between the font used for HUSH RUSH‘s product teaser photo and Gasoline‘s teaser poster, as well as the color combination of purple and green.
It was also noted that the layouts of their teaser posters had similarities.
Netizens pointed out a connection between the layout of the text used for Lee Chaeyeon’s HUSH RUSH tracklist teaser and Key’s Gasoline tracklist teaser and the lightning bolt background.
The lightning bolt design was seen in HUSH RUSH‘s “Air- KiT” design as well, appearing similar to a different design from Key’s Gasoline.
In Lee Chaeyeon’s concept trailer, there is a scene with a cloud-filled, eerie night sky, with a full moon and bats flying over a mansion. Text in the corner mimicked the look of an old home video.
In Key’s Gasoline album jacket, Key is seen standing in front of a castle with a full moon behind it and bats flying around. The text in the corner of the album jacket photo also appeared to be that of an old home video.
The final similarity was the design of the CD, which both feature a heart.
After viewing the list of comparisons, netizens reacted to the similarities.
- Ah first I thought it was a similar concept, but after seeing the heart illustration on the C.D., I thought this is going too far…
- Even though we can overlook other things, the C.D. is too similar.
- So annoying…we’ve been waiting for this first solo album for years..what is the company doing.
- It looks the same to me? It looks like the same album just a different version…
- What is going on…
- This is plagiarism. They need to make it all over again.
