Rosé Cried Singing His Song. Bang Si-hyuk Won His Contest. Who Was Yoo Jae-ha?

Part 1 of 10 in The One Album K-pop Learned From: Yoo Jae-ha

The song BLACKPINK’s Rosé couldn’t finish without tears, the contest HYBE chairman Bang Si-hyuk won a prize at, and the song HYBE’s new boy group CORTIS sang again all lead back to one man. Yoo Jae-ha was a singer-songwriter who released a single album in the summer of 1987 and died three months later, at 25.

Rosé – “Because I Love You” (Sea of Hope, JTBC, 2021) — 7.59 million views

Rosé, Su-hyun and Keonho sing the same album

On JTBC’s Sea of Hope on July 20, 2021, Rosé closed the night’s set with Yoo’s “Because I Love You,” and teared up partway through along with some of the guests (Herald POP, July 21, 2021). That clip now has 7.59 million views. AKMU’s Lee Su-hyun sang the same song on JTBC’s Begin Again 3, and that video has 12.36 million.

Su-hyun (AKMU) – “Because I Love You” (Begin Again 3, JTBC) — 12.36 million views

Keonho of CORTIS, HYBE’s new boy group, sang “Reflection in My Heart” on M2, and that clip has 1.6 million views. fromis_9’s Jiwon posted a cover of “Because I Love You” on the group’s official channel (1.57 million). And the song AKMU’s Lee Chan-hyuk chose for his first-ever solo vocal performance was also “Reflection in My Heart” (Part 9).

CORTIS Keonho – “Reflection in My Heart” (M2) — 1.6 million views

fromis_9 Jiwon – “Because I Love You” (cover, Official fromis_9) — 1.57 million views

Also read: K-pop News Today (Oct 27, 2026): IVE's EP Drop, ILLIT 'You're Under Arrest', LISA's 59M

Bang Si-hyuk and Park Jin-young both name him

After Yoo died, his father used the album’s earnings and donations to set up a scholarship foundation in his son’s name, and in 1989 it launched the Yoo Jae-ha Music Contest (OhmyNews, Nov. 1, 2012). The contest became the front door for Korean singer-songwriters: Cho Kyu-chan (1st contest), You Hee-yeol (grand prize, 4th), Lucid Fall (5th), Kim Yeon-woo (7th), Sweet Sorrow (grand prize, 16th). And the bronze prize at the 6th contest went to Bang Si-hyuk, the man who built BTS (OhmyNews, Nov. 1, 2017; MBN, Oct. 29, 2015). The 36th contest in 2025 drew a record 785 entries (Kyunghyang Shinmun, Nov. 25, 2025).

JYP’s Park Jin-young hung Yoo’s LP on his office wall and said, “I think Korean music is divided into before Yoo Jae-ha and after” (OhmyNews, Nov. 1, 2018). The two men who built Korea’s idol industry point to the same name.

He wrote, arranged and played it himself

Yoo was a composition student at Hanyang University in 1984 when he was picked as keyboardist for Cho Yong-pil’s band, the Great Birth. In 1986 he played keys in Kim Hyun-sik’s band, Spring Summer Fall Winter (Money Today, Nov. 1, 2016). In August 1987 he put out his own album, Because I Love You: eight songs and one instrumental. He wrote the words, music and arrangements of every track and played almost every instrument except drums and bass. It cost 8 million won to make, about $10,000 at the time (Munhwa Ilbo, Oct. 28, 2003).

Critic Im Jin-mo called it “the first complete realization, in Korean pop history, of the musical independence a musician dreams of” (Kyunghyang Shinmun, Aug. 23, 2007). Classical harmony, jazz chords, flute, violin and cello, and vocals that came in off the beat sounded nothing like Korean pop in 1987. That worked against him. He sang at the piano for a panel of MBC producers who screened songs for broadcast, and they turned him down as a singer who couldn’t keep time (Munhwa Ilbo, 2003).

The verdict only climbed with time. In surveys of the greatest Korean albums, his ranked 7th in 1998 and 2nd in 2007. In 2018, a Hankyoreh and Melon poll of 47 critics and producers put it at No. 1 (Hankyoreh, Sept. 28, 2018).

Three months later, Nov. 1

At about 5:30 p.m. on Oct. 31, 1987, Yoo kissed his older brother, who was home recovering from surgery, on the cheek and said, “A school friend came by because I’m a singer now. I’ll be quick” (Yonhap, Feb. 3, 2017). Early the next morning, Nov. 1, he was a passenger in a car driven by a drunk friend. On Gangbyeon Expressway in Seoul it crossed the center line and hit an oncoming taxi head-on (Dong-A Ilbo, Oct. 31, 2017). The album was less than three months old. His death ran as a short item in the papers (Yonhap, Jan. 21, 2014).

His songs went to No. 1 after that. By the next April, “Past Days” and “Because I Love You” were trading the top two spots on the music-café DJ chart (Chosun Ilbo, Apr. 9, 1988). On the same date three years later, Nov. 1, 1990, the senior who had loved him most, Kim Hyun-sik, died, and Shin Seung-hun made his debut that same day (Kyunghyang Shinmun, 2007).

The nine Yoo Jae-ha songs YouTube picked

I set the order on Oct. 25, 2026, by adding up the YouTube views for each song: Yoo’s original plus remakes, covers and TV performances by other singers, 34 to 75 videos per song. He left nine songs: the eight on his album, plus “Forever With You,” which he gave to Lee Moon-sae.

Rank	Song	Combined views	Part
9	Empty Tonight	about 230,000	2
8	Our Love	about 1.63 million	3
7	Gloomy Letter	about 2.64 million	4
6	Past Days	about 4.3 million	5
5	Forever With You	about 4.67 million	6
4	In My Arms	about 10.5 million	7
3	Hidden Road	about 16.9 million	8
2	Reflection in My Heart	about 18.9 million	9
1	Because I Love You	about 55.2 million	10

No. 1 is nearly three times No. 2 and 240 times No. 9. His brother and friends say every song on the album was written with one woman in mind (Yonhap, 2017; Hankook Ilbo, Nov. 8, 2014).

Next, No. 9: “Empty Tonight.” Ten years after he died, Shin Hae-chul sang it for him.

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Sources: Herald POP (July 21, 2021); OhmyNews (Nov. 1, 2012; Nov. 1, 2017; Nov. 1, 2018); MBN (Oct. 29, 2015); Kyunghyang Shinmun (Aug. 23, 2007; Nov. 25, 2025); Money Today (Nov. 1, 2016); Munhwa Ilbo (Oct. 28, 2003); Hankyoreh (Sept. 28, 2018); Yonhap (Jan. 21, 2014; Feb. 3, 2017); Dong-A Ilbo (Oct. 31, 2017); Chosun Ilbo (Nov. 1, 2025, quoting its Apr. 9, 1988 edition); Hankook Ilbo (Nov. 8, 2014). View counts as shown on YouTube, Oct. 25, 2026. Exchange rate: about 820 won to the dollar in 1987.