I have been studying Korean for a while and been looking into Korean language music. Of course every country seems to mostly have some light pop on their top lists, but I don’t feel like I have had problem finding diverse genres and bands from other countries. But when I have been searching for Korean bands and especially artists singing in Korean language the exceptions to k-pop and “soft” music seem far and wide between.
And it’s not like there isn’t any skill or interest, I can find even gayageum covers of rock songs showing how awesome that is, but that isn’t being utilised for original modern songs like it is in the neighbouring countries.
I guess it’s because this music sells all over the world and other doesn’t because there haven’t been big artists who play other types in Korea. And kpop is produced in the lab and they cracked the formula to be able to re-record the same song over and over again with different people dancing to it.
Commenting on this old thread because I actually have some insight for you. There is a decent amount of original rock/punk/metal Korean music, but most of it is performed in English. But that style of music just isn’t as popular in Korea. I spent several months in Korea last year and it wasn’t easy to find local rock music at first.
Two bands off the top of my head that do perform in Korean are Method (metal) and Harry Big Button (hard rock).
Thank you for commenting. I had forgotten I wrote this post, but I still occasionally try to see if there are any new breakthrough artists and I don’t think I have come across neither of those.
The one band I knew was Cherry Filter, which seems to have been quite successful, but sadly there hasn’t been more in that vein.
Cherry Filter is one that I hadn’t heard before, I’ll have to add them into my playlists.
If you’re interested in diving further, the method that’s worked the best for me is to find a venue that plays at least close to the style of music and then just search up each band that they advertise to see how they sound. Then when I find a band I see what venues they advertise that they will be playing at. Most of it seems to be available on instagram.
For a good start, I’d look at Club AOR’s Insta and go from there.
Happy Hunting!
Thank you so much! I have never needed to look into small and underground indie bands, so I had no idea how to find them even here. Just finding Club All of Rock and LIVE&LOUD Music Company immediately yielded interesting results.
