BTS named one of 10 best bands of all time

BTS has been named one of the 10 best bands ever by US magazine Esquire. The popular men’s magazine, with an 87-year history, revealed its list over the weekend. “While K-pop as a genre has been around for decades, BTS is arguably one of the vanguard acts to pioneer K-pop’s immeasurable worldwide success,” Esquire said. “With a fan base that is aptly described as ‘ARMY,’ BTS’s beloved septet has rapidly redefined boy bands, fandoms, and pop m

Feb. 1, 2021

BLACKPINK goes back to basics in first livestream concert

At a time when online concerts featuring live communication with fans and state-of-the-art technology have become a new norm in the K-pop industry, BLACKPINK decided to go back to the basics in its first livestream concert Sunday, urging the audience to focus solely on its music and performance. The 90-minute gig, livestreamed for subscribers of a paid YouTube membership, showed the act's four members -- Jennie, Jisoo, Rose and Lisa -- singing some of their best hits and previously unperformed

Jan. 31, 2021

Big Hit partnership with Naver, YG Plus a win-win for entertainment industry

On Wednesday, Big Hit Entertainment, the label of global K-pop sensation BTS, announced its partnership with one of the nation’s biggest tech conglomerates Naver and fellow K-pop powerhouse YG Entertainment. Big Hit stated the firm and its affiliate beNX will invest 30 billion won ($26.8 million) and 40 billion won, respectively, in YG subsidiary YG Plus. “We highly anticipate synergy between YG Plus’ expansive network in music distribution and the merchandise industry and Bi

Jan. 31, 2021

Private messages from your favorite K-pop star

Communicating freely with K-pop stars is every fan’s dream. The dream came true for many fans in February last year, when S.M. Entertainment launched a new service called “DearU bubble,” often shortened to just bubble, on community app Lysn. The service provides a private space that looks a lot like a private chat room, connecting fans with the artists they love. When an artist sends text messages, voice messages, photos and videos through this service, all fans who subsc

Jan. 31, 2021

NCSoft’s K-pop platform Universe kicks off globally

South Korean game maker NCSoft launched its K-pop entertainment platform Universe in 134 countries on Thursday. The all-in-one platform allows users to access exclusive content such as music videos, entertainment shows K-pop groups appear on and celebrity photos, while also allowing artists and fans to interact. Fans can also share their creations on the platform. One of the platform’s most noticeable features is a private messaging and call function powered by artificial intelligence

Jan. 29, 2021

How far has AI come?

Terrestrial broadcaster SBS’ newest entertainment show “Battle of the Century: AI vs Human” will have experts in six different fields pitched against the latest artificial intelligence programs in a competition, starting with the first episode at 10 p.m., Friday. The producers were inspired by the famous competition between Korean Go master Lee Se-dol and Google’s artificial intelligence program AlphaGo in 2016. “I enjoyed watching AlphaGo vs. Lee Se-dol in 201

Jan. 29, 2021

Violinist Kim Dong-hyun to perform at Kumho Instrument Bank series recital

Violinist Kim Dong-hyun will kick off the 2021 Kumho Instrument Bank series with a recital on Feb. 4 at the Kumho Art Hall Yonsei in western Seoul. The Kumho Asiana Cultural Foundation has been running the Kumho Instrument Bank program since 1993, lending musical instruments to young artists through an open audition. The program currently owns 10 instruments, including a piano, cello and eight violins. It aims to allow up-and-coming artists to focus on their performances without worrying about

Jan. 29, 2021

Never the same, HyunA returns with ‘I’m Not Cool’

Singer HyunA dropped her seventh mini album “I’m Not Cool” on Thursday, singing of the ups and downs of being the “cool girl” on stage. “I had to be perfect on the stage, not just because I needed look good but because I’d been supported by so many people. I thought about how ‘uncool’ I was in struggling to be cool. The lyrics say exactly this,” HyunA said about the album’s title track during a livestreamed press conference held

Jan. 28, 2021

BTS agency Big Hit to invest W70b in K-pop giant YG

Big Hit Entertainment, the agency behind global star BTS, announced on Wednesday that it plans to invest 70 billion won ($63 million) in YG Entertainment, one of the biggest K-pop agencies in South Korea. Under the deal, Big Hit and its affiliate beNX will invest 30 billion won and 40 billion won, respectively, in YG affiliate YG Plus, the agency said in a press release following a board meeting. With the investment, Big Hit and beNX will 7.7 percent and 10.2 percent stakes, respectively, in

Jan. 27, 2021

Youn Yuh-jung bags 20th trophy in US for her role in ‘Minari’

Youn Yuh-jung bags 20th trophy in US for her role in ‘Minari’ Veteran actor Youn Yuh-jung took home her 20th best supporting actress trophy in the US for her performance in “Minari,” an American film written and directed by Korean American filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung. She was recognized by the National Board of Review on Wednesday for the realistic portrayal of a Korean grandmother who comes to a farm in rural Arkansas to babysit her two grandchildren, while her daughte

Jan. 27, 2021

‘L.U.C.A.: The Beginning’ offers action-packed chase

Kim Hong-sun, the director of multiple hit OCN dramas, is back Monday with a tvN action drama titled “L.U.C.A.: The Beginning.” “L.U.C.A.: The Beginning” centers on an experimental cell, Ji-O, that was created through the L.U.C.A. project. The aim of the project was to create the Last Universal Common Ancestor -- the cell that holds the secret to all life forms in existence. Ji-O takes human form and has supernatural powers, but loses his memory after escaping the faci

Jan. 27, 2021

TXT tops Japan's Oricon weekly albums charts with 1st Japanese

K-pop boy band Tomorrow X Together (TXT) has topped the latest Oricon weekly music chart with its first full-length Japanese album, its management agency said Wednesday. Released on Jan. 20, the 10-track album "Still Dreaming" landed in the top spot on the weekly albums chart this week with TXT's all-time high first-week album sales of 86,892 units in Japan, according to Big Hit Entertainment. The album has also stayed in the top spot on the daily albums chart for seven consecutive d

Jan. 27, 2021

Original musicals to light up stage in February

Though the theater scene is still suffering as a result of the social distancing rules imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, the month of February may be a turning point as a number of original South Korean musicals are lined up for premieres.   “The Adventure of the Final Problem” is slated to run Feb. 15 to May 9 at the Dream Arts Center. 　 The production tells the story of British writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who attained huge success with his “Sherlock Holmes&rdquo

Jan. 27, 2021

BTS earns five nominations for 2021 Korean Music Awards

Superstar BTS has earned five nominations for the 2021 Korean Music Awards with its record-breaking albums and songs released last year. BTS has been named in the Musician of the Year, the Album of the Year, the Song of the Year, the Best Pop Album and the Best Pop Song categories, becoming one of the five acts with the most nominations, the awards' selection committee said in an online press conference held Tuesday. The four other most-nominated acts were Leenalchi, a sensational alternative

Jan. 27, 2021

Studio for virtual music, drama performances to open in Seoul

With the COVID-19 pandemic pushing the art industry to shift online, the Seoul Metropolitan Government plans to launch a studio for online streaming in central Seoul to make way for virtual performances. The former Namsan Creative Center, which shut down last year, will be turned into a new studio for production and streaming of virtual art performances. According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the new studio will officially open in April 2022 after a test period. The studio will be eq

Jan. 26, 2021

Kakao TV’s ‘No, Thank You’ rank on Wavve top-10 drama list

Kakao TV’s original series “No, Thank You” placed in the top 10 most popular dramas’ list on streaming platform Wavve, the first such feat for a Kakao TV original drama, according to Wavve on Tuesday. The drama list is compiled based on the number of minutes played in total on Wavve in the fourth week of January. “No, Thank You” ranked 10th while SBS megahit drama “The Penthouse: War in Life” took the top spot and SBS’ “Delayed Justic

Jan. 26, 2021

COVID-19 deals blow to S. Korea's indie, arthouse film scene

As the protracted novel coronavirus pandemic has affected every cultural sector in South Korea, the independent and arthouse film circle is on the verge of losing ground amid closures of festivals and corporate restructuring. Organizers of the Mise-en-scene Short Film Festival (MSFF) announced that it will no longer hold the annual festival starting this year, saying that it is the time to seek ways to navigate the fast-changing media industry. The 19th edition of MSFF was held online in June

Jan. 26, 2021

Cinema closures in S. Korea hit 12-year high in 2020 on coronavirus

The number of cinema closures soared to a 12-year high in 2020 in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, data showed Tuesday. A total of 81 movie theaters closed shop across the nation last year, nearly double from the 43 shutdowns a year earlier, according to the data from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety. The number was the largest annual tally since 2008, when 88 cinemas in Asia's fourth-largest economy went out of business amid the US-originated global financial crisis. In the Seoul

Jan. 26, 2021

NCT 127 to drop new EP in Japan next month

NCT 127, a sub-unit of the popular K-pop boy band NCT, is set to release a new EP in Japan next month, its agency said Tuesday. The band will be releasing the Japanese EP "Loveholic," its first new Japanese album in two years, on Feb. 17, according to SM Entertainment. The six-track album features five songs themed on love -- all sung in Japanese -- in addition to "Kick It," the lead track of the act's recent full Korean album "Neo Zone." The lead track is "g

Jan. 26, 2021

IKON’s Bobby sings the bliss and sorrows of his 20s in ‘Lucky Man’

IKON’s Bobby dropped his second solo studio album Monday. In “Lucky Man,” he sings of the diverse emotions he experienced in his youth. “The key was threading the tracks into an agreeable story. I worked on arranging the order of the songs and the lyrics so that they could make listeners want to listen to the next song when they finish the previous song on the track list,” Bobby said during a press conference held in Seoul on Monday ahead of the album’s rele

Jan. 25, 2021