A 2023 B-Side Just Broke Melon's All-Time Chart Record. Its Artist Is Still in the Military.
On May 15, WOODZ's "Drowning" hit 70 consecutive weeks in the top 10 of Melon's Top 100 - the longest run by any song in the platform's history. The previous record was 49 weeks, held by NewJeans's "Hype Boy." BTS's "Dynamite" stands third at 36 weeks. WOODZ broke his own industry's ceiling by 21 weeks.
He was not available to celebrate. Cho Seung-youn, who records as WOODZ, is currently serving in the South Korean military and is scheduled for discharge on July 21.
"Drowning" was released in April 2023 as a b-side on WOODZ's fifth mini album, OO-LI - not even the title track. It entered the Melon daily chart at No. 951. For over a year, it went nowhere. Then, in October 2024, KBS2 aired a special Armed Forces Day episode of Immortal Songs featuring active military personnel. WOODZ performed "Drowning" in his Corporal's uniform. The clip hit 13 million YouTube views. The song re-entered Melon's daily chart at No. 983 on October 2, 2024, then climbed to No. 246 by October 10. By May 2025, it had reached No. 1. It never left the top 10 again.
In 2025, "Drowning" topped both Melon's and Circle's year-end charts - the definitive streaming records in the Korean market. No new release. No promotional cycle. No music show appearances. The chart run was powered entirely by a performance that the artist himself filmed in uniform, on a military base, for a public broadcast he had no say in scheduling.
Melon has over 28 million users and is the dominant music platform in South Korea. A top-10 run on its chart typically belongs to actively promoted releases from major agency groups. WOODZ is signed to Edam Entertainment. He is not a top-tier name in K-pop's commercial infrastructure. "Drowning" is a self-written, self-composed track about grief - not a choreography-forward idol single. What Melon's algorithm and Korean streaming behavior rewarded, in this case, was a viral performance clip and what fans recognized as a genuinely good song.
WOODZ released his first solo studio album Archive. 1 in March 2026 while still enlisted. A four-city European tour - Berlin, London, Frankfurt, and Paris - is scheduled for next month. His discharge is five weeks away.
