On March 28 KST, Starship Entertainment's ongoing boy group survival show 'Debut's Plan' aired its third episode, pitting the contestants against one another in the second competition round. 

On this episode, one trainee garnered attention for his comments about the division of parts in a song. Part division is pertinent issue not only in the case of idol survival programs, but more broadly in the K-Pop industry in general. As a result, the issue has struck up a heated debate among netizens. 

Baek Joon Hyuk, who participated in the second round as a member of the "Girls" team, said on this episode, 

"I personally think that if you don't have the skills, you should give up the parts you can't handle to those who do have the skills." 

He reiterated his position during the team meeting, saying, 

"In my opinion, the parts don't have to be divided evenly among the team members. The members with the better skills should take more parts. I don't think I'm at a skill level where I should have such few parts. So I want to ask you guys to give me more parts." 

As Baek Joon Hyuk said, should parts in a song be distributed based on skill, rather than evenly among all members of a group?

K-netizens shared their opinions on the matter, writing, 

"The quality of the song escalates when the talented members are there pulling off the good parts. The quality becomes crap when the untalented members try to get through the parts they were given and fail miserably."

"I mean, ideally, every member of the team should be talented and able to pull off their given parts but... I get what he's saying."

"Of course the talented members should have more parts. If someone can't pull it off, why give them the part?"

"If we're talking about an idol group that's already debuted, part division should definitely be based on skill. That's the only way the song is going to make it onto the charts."

"I prefer it when the main vocalists have more parts in a song. Makes the song easier to listen to."

"There's a reason that the K-Pop system has positions like main vocal, lead vocal, and sub vocal. K-Pop songs are literally designed so that the talented members carry the important parts, and the less talented members carry smaller parts but still shine if they can pull them off."

"I think during a group's debut days, it's important to establish their sound by giving the main vocals the most important parts and improving the overall quality of the song. Once the group has a strong fanbase, the part distribution should be more fluid."

"K-Pop idols are singers too. They need to make sure they can release songs that people want to listen to."

However, others who felt differently argued,

"I get what he means, but if you're really a team, then the parts should be divided evenly so that the whole team can shine."

"I think this is different for a survival show and for a fixed, debuted team. On a survival show, the parts you get in a song and the amount of screen time you get is brutally decisive. Anyone who tries to outshine others by claiming more parts in a survival show, they're not being fair."

"If it's a survival, shouldn't the parts be distributed evenly? The whole point is for people to see who's good and who's not."

"For me, if it's an already debuted idol group, then it should be a good mix of the two. Even if the main vocals are good, the songs can get redundant if they all have the same structure. And if the less talented members never try and never get the chance to improve, then that's a problem too. Different songs should have different part distributions for variety."

"People can say that giving more parts to the talented ones is the 'right' thing all they want, but we all know that fandoms can raise hell over parts. If the parts aren't distributed evenly, it'll cause fights among individual member fans, lead to mistreatment rumors, and create gaps between the 'popular' members and the 'unpopular' members." 

"My question is, can these trainees even differentiate between who's actually good and who's just pretending to be good? That's why parts should be distributed evenly so that outsiders can decide who's really good and who's not."

Meanwhile, new episodes of 'Debut's Plan' air every Fridays at 9:30 PM KST on YouTube. 

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