Refund Sisters repeat Ssak 3 success

Refund Sisters’s debut single “Don’t Touch Me,” released at 6 p.m., Saturday, swept major online music charts within the first 24 hours, topping both BTS’ “Dynamite” and Blackpink’s “Lovesick Girls” for the top spot.

Refund Sisters is a quartet of singers with strong personalities brought together in MBC’s “Hangout with Yoo.” The group -- consisting of Lee Hyo-ri, Uhm Jung-hwa, girl group Mamamoo’s Hwasa and rapper Jessi -- was named Refund Sisters as they were seen as being capable of getting refunds at any store they desired, alluding to their fierceness. The group came into being when Lee proposed forming the group during her participation in the trio Ssak, with singer Rain and entertainer Yoo Jae-suk.

The group members took on alter ego names: Chun-ok (Lee hyo-ri), Man-ok (Uhm Jung-hwa), Sil-bi (Hwasa) and Eun-bi (Jessi). Yoo joined the show as a producer this time around with the alter ego Jimmy Yoo.

“Hyo-ri. Every day is fun and happy these days because I met this fun project. Thank you for asking me to be a part of this,” posted Uhm on her social media on Monday after the song swept the music charts.

Hit composers Jun Goon and duo Black Eyed Pilseung, who has composed songs for girl groups Twice and Sistar, joined Yoo to make “Don’t Touch Me.”

“Don’t Touch Me” is a groovy song asking people to respect different personality and to let them be. The unofficial music video hit over 2 million views as of Monday.

Each weekly episode of “Hangout with Yoo” has followed the making of the group as well as the song since the end of August.

With the viewership ratings of Refund Sisters episodes were higher than those of Ssak 3 episodes, the quartet was expected perform equally well in the music charts.

As was the case with Ssak 3, all proceeds from Return Sisters’ songs will be donated at the end of the year, “Hangout with Yoo” announced.

By Lim Jang-won (ljw@heraldcorp.com)