Korean agency SM Entertainment was left red-faced after it failed to include the photo of a member in K-pop boy band NCT 127’s latest album.
NCT 127 came back with their new studio album “2 Baddies” on Sept. 16. However, fans became angry when the photo of NCT 127 member Doyoung was missing on the back cover of the digipack version.
The cover of NCT 127's "2 Baddies" digipack album cover showing only eight members without Doyoung (Photo from strawberry doyoung account on Twitter)
“???????? WHERES DOYOUNG” one fan posted on Twitter along with a photo of the digipack cover with only eight members without Doyoung.
Fans posted messages on Twitter to criticize SM Entertainment for failing to thoroughly check the album before printing and releasing.
“Disappoint for your work. You are the big company how dare you don’t check everything before release. What about your QC why they didn’t do their jobs. That’s so mean and unprofessional,” one fan wrote.
Another posted, “Embarrassing. Really unprofessional. You are sabotaging 127's hard work, not to mention the bare minimum pre-comeback promotions.”
“Well you had whole year and at least 1 month to check all the albums and see what is wrong but you just like to sabotage 127 again and again we are tired,” one commented.
A fan wroted, “You constantly brag about hiring the best employees in your company but apparently they can't count up to 9???”
“Please make sure this doesn’t happen again. Respect DOYOUNG and his fans,” another said.
After SM Entertainment was called out for the huge blunder, the agency issued an apology.
“We have confirmed that the image of DOYOUNG in the Digipack version of NCT 127's 4th album 2 Baddies is missing,” it said on Sept. 16.
It added, “We sincerely apologize to the fans, DOYOUNG, and the rest of the NCT 127 members for failing to check all parts meticulously in the album's jacket design process.”
The agency said, “After checking the omission of the image, we tried to find a way to replace the image in the album released today (the 16th). However, we found that it was difficult to retrieve the albums that are already in the process of being delivered to vendors and customers.”
“The booklets will be re-printed and sent out to those who have received the Digipack album with the missing photo as soon as possible, and the details will be announced separately as soon as they are finalized. Once again, we deeply apologize to the fans for our mistake and the inconvenience,” SM Entertainment said.