The Korea Times

K-indie music heads to Berlin with Chang Ki-ha, Catch The Young

Korean indie musicians will take the stage in Berlin this weekend, as a festival there sets out to show European audiences that Korean music stretches well beyond K-pop. The Korean Cultural Center in Germany will hold the K-INDIE ON Festival 2026 — No Borders, Just RocK! during the weekend (local time) at Saalchen, a concert venue in the German capital, featuring indie acts Catch The Young, Bongjeingan, Kim Seung-joo and Chang Ki-ha. Now in its fourth edition, the festival has been held annually since 2023 to introduce the wide range of genres and styles in Korean music. Five-piece indie band Catch The Young, formed in 2023, and alternative rock trio Bongjeingan will open the festival at 7 p.m. on Saturday. On Sunday, Kim, a singer-songwriter who gained attention with the 2023 song "Shonen Manga," will perform before Chang closes the festival. Chang, who helped bring Korean indie music into the mainstream as the frontman of rock band Kiha & The Faces from 2008 to 2018, plans to perform songs from his first solo studio album, "Sansanjogak," released Sept. 9. Last year's edition drew abou

1d agoBy Pyo Kyung-min

K-indie music heads to Berlin with Chang Ki-ha, Catch The Young

K-pop

Shine, scandal, survival define K-pop boy band PENTAGON's 1st decade

In 2023, seven years after debuting as the leader of K-pop boy band PENTAGON, Hui returned to trainee status. He competed alongside aspiring male idols on Mnet's audition program "Boys Planet" for a place in a new project group as his own group's contracts with Cube Entertainment approached their end. Three years later, he is back onstage with six fellow PENTAGON members for the group's 10th debut anniversary. PENTAGON, which debuted on Oct. 10, 2016, has reunited for an anniversary project organized by NAKED, the label founded by member Kino. It comes after most of the participating members left the company that formed the group and pursued careers under separate agencies. The group's first decade illustrates how uncertain success can remain for a K-pop act, even one recognized for producing its own music. Its breakthrough arrived a year and a half after debut, only for a dating controversy to disrupt its momentum months later. Its first music show victory took four years, while military service and expiring contracts eventually scattered the members. That PENTAGON has regrouped under a

1d agoBy Pyo Kyung-min

K-pop

What K-pop concert venues will look like in 2027

Next year will reshape where and how K-pop is staged, with a purpose-built arena opening in northern Seoul, the country's largest stadium returning from a three-year overhaul and the city of Goyang spending money on upgrades to hold on to the business it's built while other venues have been under construction. The clearest change will be Seoul Arena, the 28,000-capacity venue under construction in Dobong District, northern Seoul. It began accepting official rental applications this month for live performances in the second half of 2027, with submissions closing Friday. Alongside the main arena, the complex will house a mid-size hall seating about 7,000, and promoters can book either space or combine the two depending on the scale of an event. The venue is being built as a build-transfer-operate project with Kakao as lead investor. Ownership will transfer to the Seoul Metropolitan Government on completion, after which a Kakao-held operating company will run the site for 30 years. Opening is targeted for the first half of next year. One major booking is already locked in: Fanomenon, the g

Sep 15, 2026By Pyo Kyung-min

K-pop

Beyond choreography: K-pop performance directors step into spotlight

As K-pop acts take on increasingly ambitious performances at home and abroad, the people turning their music into a live spectacle are now stepping out from behind the scenes. Performance directors oversee nearly every visual element of a performance, from choreography and dancer formations to costumes, lighting and stage sets. Once largely seen as an extension of choreography in K-pop, the job is increasingly being recognized as a creative role of its own. That distinction has become visible enough to form an entire television competition. Mnet’s “Street World Fighter: Directors’ War,” which premiered Aug. 18, puts 10 established choreographers in competition not simply over who can create the best dance, but over who can best direct a complete performance. Instead of competing with their own dance crews, contestants vie to have their names credited as performance directors. The format reflects a distinction that has long been blurry in K-pop. Choreographers create the movements that make up a routine, while performance directors are tasked with deciding how those movements and

Sep 12, 2026By Pyo Kyung-min

K-pop

Who is Seungri?

Born in 1990, Seungri debuted in 2006 as the youngest member of BIGBANG, the YG Entertainment boy band behind hits including "Lies" (2007), "Haru Haru" (2012) and "Bang Bang Bang" (2016). He began solo activities in 2008 with "Strong Baby," produced by bandmate G-Dragon, and released his first full-length solo album, "The Great Seungri," in July 2018, holding his first solo concerts in Seoul the following month. His image as a young entrepreneur unraveled in early 2019, when reports of an assault at Burning Sun, a nightclub in Gangnam District where he served as a director, snowballed into allegations of drug use and police collusion, followed by media reports suggesting he had tried to arrange sexual services for foreign investors. Police booked him on charges of brokering prostitution on March 10, 2019. He announced his retirement from show business the next day, and YG terminated his exclusive contract on March 13. Indicted in January 2020, he enlisted in the military about a month later and stood trial in a military court, which sentenced him to three years in prison in August 2021.

Sep 11, 2026By Pyo Kyung-min

Former BIGBANG members face police probe, concert cancellation

People & Events

Sunfull Movement marks 19th year with push against AI deepfakes

Anti-cyberbullying campaigners, lawmakers and foreign diplomats gathered in central Seoul on Wednesday to declare a nationwide campaign against artificial intelligence (AI) deepfakes and malicious online comments, as Korea's Sunfull Movement marked its 19th anniversary. "Malicious online comments have killed so many people," Min Byoung-chul, Sunfull Foundation's chairman, said during the ceremony held at The Grand Lotte Seoul. "If we can practice one day of leaving kind messages, it will save many." Founded in 2007 in memory of people who died after being targeted by cyberbullying, the movement took its name from the Korean word for a kind reply, and the foundation romanized it as "sunfull," a play on a cyber world full of sunshine. Organizers said the nature of the threat has changed. AI-generated deepfakes, hate speech and group bullying now amount to a "national danger" to personal dignity, and Wednesday's declaration was labeled as a starting point for Korea to set a global standard on digital rights in the AI era. The event named its first class of 2026 Sunfull Human Rights Ambassad

Sep 10, 2026By Pyo Kyung-min

Sunfull Movement marks 19th year with push against AI deepfakes

People & Events

Inside Spotify House Seoul — 3 floors built around the listener

A vending machine is stocked with snacks the performers picked themselves. A telephone receiver that plays back a message recorded by whichever artist's number you dial. A Jenga set that assembles a playlist as it comes apart. Spotify has crammed all of this into a three-story building in Seongsu-dong in Seongdong District, one of Seoul's most bustling, trendiest neighborhoods. Spotify House Seoul, the streaming platform's largest Seoul edition to date, opens Thursday at Anderson C and runs through Sunday, with six themed zones spread across the three floors and a separate stage visible from each. Reporters were walked through the finished space Wednesday, the day before the doors were set to open. Live performances fill the first three nights, divided by genre; the closing day drops the concerts and keeps the rooms open. The building is basically a walk-in version of the app. The functions listeners tap through on their phones — Mixes, Blend, Jam, daylist — have been rebuilt as rooms to stand in, with the Spotify Code, the platform's scannable barcode, linking nearly every stop back

Sep 10, 2026By Pyo Kyung-min

Inside Spotify House Seoul — 3 floors built around the listener

K-pop

Deaf K-pop group Big Ocean returns with 'Love Sign,' most mature release yet

The world's first Deaf idol group, Big Ocean, dropped its digital single "Love Sign" on Wednesday, its first release in about four months.. The trio — PJ, Chanyeon and Jiseok — put the track out on major streaming platforms. The title plays on the idea of star signs and astrology, layering it over the group's identity rooted in sign language. American, British and Korean sign languages appear in the chorus hook, according to Parastar Entertainment. Set to a nu-disco groove with lyrics mostly in English, the single targets listeners abroad. A revival of late-1970s and early-'80s dance music, nu-disco pairs a steady four-on-the-floor beat with funk basslines and synthesizers, and has become a recurring choice for K-pop acts with strong overseas audiences. The agency described the track as the group's most mature work to date, built on "gaze, mood and moments where silence carries the strongest presence" rather than direct declarations. Big Ocean heads to New York Fashion Week next, launching the "Big Ocean × Andy Yu Debut Collection" with designer Andy Yu on Thursday (local time). The

Sep 9, 2026By Pyo Kyung-min

K-pop

&TEAM's 2nd Korean EP leaves deep mark

For nearly four years, &TEAM has told the same story from the same vantage point — nine wolves learning to survive as a pack — and built some of the most physically demanding choreography in HYBE's catalog to sell it. On its second Korean EP, released Tuesday evening, the group reaches the chapter where those wolves meet someone, and the sound softens to match. "Mark on Me," out at 6 p.m. through YX Labels, arrives some 10 months after "Back to Life," the mini album that served as the Japan-based group's official Korean debut last October. Where that record traced nine members rediscovering their instincts, the new one follows a lone wolf who begins to change after meeting a loved one. "Until now, the story was mostly about wolves who had been alone finding each other and growing together, but this time, it's about the wolf boys meeting one person," Harua said at a media showcase at SBS Prism Tower in Seoul's Mapo District on Tuesday, hours before the release. "Because that person understood the scars they were carrying, they open up and grow. That's the change we focused on." The ti

Sep 8, 2026By Pyo Kyung-min

K-pop

H.O.T. at 30: How 5 teenagers helped build K-pop

The idol-group blueprint that K-pop now exports to the world, with its casting and training pipeline, its fixed member roles and its official fan club color designations, was drawn up in under five years through a group of teenagers who introduced themselves to the nation on live TV. That was 30 years ago. On Sept. 7, 1996, a group of five male high school students — Moon Hee-jun, Jang Woo-hyuk, Tony An, Kangta and Lee Jae-won — stepped in front of viewers as H.O.T. and performed "Age of Violence." Viewers went wild, teenagers in particular. The name stood for "High-five Of Teenagers," and the group was the first act SM Entertainment, a top K-pop conglomerate, planned and built from scratch. Their timing was almost too perfect. Earlier that year, another boy band, Seo Taiji and Boys, had retired, and teenagers installed H.O.T. in the vacancy the trio had left behind. Where Seo Taiji and Boys had been a self-made phenomenon, H.O.T. were assembled on purpose. The group was the product of meticulous planning and strategy at SM, which set a concept first and then filled it by casting and

Sep 8, 2026By Pyo Kyung-min

Pyo Kyung-min

Read more

K-indie music heads to Berlin with Chang Ki-ha, Catch The Young

Shine, scandal, survival define K-pop boy band PENTAGON's 1st decade

What K-pop concert venues will look like in 2027

Beyond choreography: K-pop performance directors step into spotlight

Who is Seungri?

Sunfull Movement marks 19th year with push against AI deepfakes

Inside Spotify House Seoul — 3 floors built around the listener

Deaf K-pop group Big Ocean returns with 'Love Sign,' most mature release yet

&TEAM's 2nd Korean EP leaves deep mark

H.O.T. at 30: How 5 teenagers helped build K-pop

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