#16 - "Sudden Shower (소나기)". ECLIPSE, 2024

A Story of the Song… Story behind the Song by Jacky Watt (Monash University)

ECLIPSE, a four-member K-pop band, is one of South Korea’s hottest new talents. Demonstrating their sudden and growing popularity, ECLIPSE is dominating the music charts with their debut single ‘Sudden Shower’. At time of writing (June 2024), ‘Sudden Shower’ charted at a peak of number 3 on Korea’s Melon Top 100 Chart (Melon 2024), but maybe even more impressively, ECLIPSE managed to break into the global music charts, with ‘Sudden Shower’ charting for three consecutive weeks on the Billboard Global 200, peaking at number 167 (Billboard 2024).

Figure 1: K-pop band ECLIPSE. Image source: X

You may be asking, so what? The popularity of K-pop outside of East Asia may not be particularly newsworthy in 2024. Since the international success of K-pop groups like BTS and BLACKPINK, among many others, it is arguably indisputable that K-pop has made its mark on the global music scene (Ramirez 2019; Eggertsen et al 2024). However, what is notable about ECLIPSE’s current success is the fact that this K-pop group does not exist. ECLIPSE is a fictional band from the K-drama Lovely Runner, which aired on South Korean television network tvN from 8 April 2024 to 28 May 2024. While not uncommon for a K-drama’s OST (original soundtrack) to achieve commercial success, particularly given OSTs are considered an important aspect of a K-drama, and as many K-dramas OSTs are performed by established K-pop acts or Korean soloists, ‘Sudden Shower’ is not a typical K-drama OST. In contrast, ‘Sudden Shower’ is used throughout the drama as a plot device, helping to move the narrative of the drama forward, rather than adding emotional emphasis to a scene.

**Beware – spoilers ahead**

Figure 2: Kim Hye-Yoon as Im Sol and Byeon Woo-Seok as Ryu Sun-Jae in tvN’s drama Lovely Runner. Image source: Rakuten Viki

Lovely Runner is a romantic, coming-of-age drama with a time-travelling twist. Im Sol (Kim Hye-Yoon) is devastated by the death of her favourite K-pop idol, Ryu Sun-Jae (Byeon Woo-Seok). However, Im Sol finds herself able to magically travel back in time and makes it her mission to change the future and save Ryu Sun-Jae from his untimely fate (Rakuten Viki 2024).

In Lovely Runner, ‘Sudden Shower’ is written by the drama’s male lead, Ryu Sun-Jae, and is a sweet, romantic ballad that expresses affection for his first love. However, in contrast to a typical K-drama OST, ‘Sudden Shower’ is used throughout the drama as a plot device, connecting the two main characters and driving their story. In the drama, Sol creates different timelines when she travels back in time to save Ryu Sun-Jae’s life. In the original timeline, Ryu Sun-Jae, as a member of ECLIPSE, confesses in a radio interview that the song was written about his first love, which is later revealed to be Im Sol, unbeknownst to her. In an earlier version of the timeline, before ECLIPSE formed and released ‘Sudden Shower’, Im Sol accidently sings the lyrics in Ryu Sun-Jae’s presence, who is shocked that she knows a song he has only just written. And in another version of the timeline, where the song does not exist, Im Sol inserts ‘Sudden Shower’ into a film she is writing and which Ryu Sun-Jae will be starring, bringing the song to life once again. Although crudely described here, ‘Sudden Shower’ is a plot device beautifully used by the drama’s writers to connect the two main characters, even through space and time.

Lovely Runner was not expected to be a great success. The drama was stuck in production limbo for three years due to casting difficulties, with many actors rejecting the role of the male lead until model-turned-actor Byeon Woo-Seok was finally cast, in his first role as a K-drama lead (Burt 2024). Further, unlike many recent successful K-dramas, Lovely Runner did not have the backing of media behemoth Netflix as its global distributor, instead streaming globally on niche Asian media platform, Rakuten Viki. Despite this, the drama defied expectations and became both a local and global success, with Raukten Viki reporting that the drama ranked no. 1 for six consecutive weeks in 109 countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Brazil, Mexico and more (Kim 2024).

The unexpected popularity of Lovely Runner makes the global popularity of ‘Sudden Shower’ even more impressive, particularly as it began to gain fans and accolades in its own right. As mentioned, the song charted in the top 5 on Korea’s Melon Chart, alongside well-known and established K-pop acts like NewJeans, Aespa, Jennie (of BLACKPINK) and Zico (of Block B). Although the inclusion of a K-drama OST on the Melon Chart is not unusual, its inclusion on the Billboard Global 200 Chart is quite notable, particularly given the chart focuses on streaming and/or sales activity from across more than 200 regions globally (Billboard 2024). The release of Lovely Runner’s full OST at the conclusion of the drama also set a new record for the highest number of pre-orders achieved by any Korean OST album in history (Lim 2024).

While streaming and sales do speak to the popularity of ‘Sudden Shower’, what is most interesting is the instances of fan culture evident with respect to the song. In the drama, ‘Sudden Shower’ is performed by the male lead, Ryu Sun-Jae, as lead singer of ECLIPSE. Byeon Woo-Seok, the actor portraying the male lead, also performs the song in both the drama and for the OST. Many fans were shocked to discover that Byeon Woo-Seok himself sang the OST, and as popularity for the song grew, fans began demanding that ECLIPSE actually debut and begin real-life promotions, despite not being a real band (Allkpop 2024). Although in jest, Korean pop culture websites began treating ECLIPSE like they would an actual K-pop group, discussing the fictional characters as though they were real K-pop idols and reporting on “exclusive news” of the group (Soompi 2024). And music chart groups/fan pages began posting about ECLIPSE’s streaming statistics and number of listeners, as seen in Figure 3.

Figure 3: ECLIPSE streaming numbers on Spotify. Image source: X

The drama and song also propelled Byeon Woo-Seok to stardom, with his popularity skyrocketing since starring in Lovely Runner. The fanfare surrounding Byeon Woo-Seok’s sudden rise is comparable to what is known as ‘Yonsama syndrome’ following the success of K-drama Winter Sonata in 2002 and the resulting popularity of its male lead, Bae Yong-Joon (Jung 2011; Chae 2014). What has been dubbed as ‘Sun-Jae Syndrome’, Byeon Woo-Seok has experienced fan culture to its extreme, including gaining millions of new Instagram followers, fans taking over a billboard in New York’s Times Square to exhibit his photos, and being greeted by hordes of fans at airports and in public places (Park 2024; Koreaboo 2024).

The above instances of fan culture are illustrative of the fact that fandom is integral to the success of K-culture. As technological advancements continue to blur physical and cultural boundaries, and mostly significantly in the age of social media, fandom has become a complex phenomenon and driver of the Korean Wave. K-pop fans, in particular, can no longer be viewed as simple consumers or audiences of popular culture, with such terms failing to represent their true role and power (Choi 2015). The scope and impact of K-pop fan culture is far too significant, with this article having only begun to scratch the surface of the role K-pop fans play as ‘trailblazers, expanding the cultural breadth and depth of K-pop products’ (Choi and Maliangkay 2014:10). Rather, the participatory culture of digitally empowered K-pop fans, in creating, uploading, and sharing K-pop content online with global audiences, results in ‘significantly shaping the production, distribution and reception of the Korean Wave cultural contents’ (Kim 2013:12-13). Fans are evidently powerful players in the promotion and success of K-pop.

However, K-pop fandom can also arguably be viewed as a manufactured marketing tool of the K-pop industry. Formal K-pop fan groups are often established by K-pop entertainment companies to create and sustain consumer interest (Marinescu 2020; Kim 2008). Such influence becomes glaringly evident in the form of certain fan activities, for example, when fans are induced to purchase multiple copies of the same album to increase their chances of being selected to attend fan events, with management companies even producing multiple versions of an album to increase consumption, knowing fans feel compelled to buy every version to support their favourite group (Lee 2015). Fans are also encouraged by these formal fan groups (and unofficial fan groups/accounts) to extensively purchase, stream, and vote for their favourite groups to ensure their music tops charts, breaks YouTube records, or to win awards on Korean music shows (Fadhila 2021; Bui 2021).

While such fan activities detailed above can successfully achieve broader awareness and recognition for K-pop groups and their music, these activities and practices may also have the effect of exaggerating a song or album’s popularity, as streaming and sales figures are essentially being artificially inflated. The lack of this kind of fan activity is what makes the success of ‘Sudden Shower’ even more impressive. In contrast to real K-pop groups, ECLIPSE is not a real band – there is no company promoting the consumption of its music nor an established fan base purposefully streaming their music. The popularity of ‘Sudden Shower’ is due to the unexpected and organic fandom that has formed from the show and its accompanying OST. This serves to demonstrate the influence of K-pop fandom as a powerful shaper of popular culture. The success of ‘Sudden Shower’ also serves to demonstrate how music and a K-drama’s OST can be an integral part of the viewing experience.

Jacky Watt is a PhD Student at Monash University, with a focus on Korean studies and gender studies ©, please do not reproduce without prior permission.

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