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HANRORO performs at her solo live performance at Korea College’s Tiger Dome in November 2025. Courtesy of Genuine
HANRORO, a 26-year-old indie singer-songwriter is reshaping Korea’s music scene by dominating streaming charts, promoting out arenas and touchdown on bestseller lists concurrently.
Debuting in March 2022 with the one “Let Me Love My Youth,” HANRORO has seen a meteoric rise in latest months. Her 2024 observe “Touchdown in Love” noticed a powerful resurgence on the charts late final yr, climbing to No. 2 on Melon’s day by day chart in mid-January. On the weekly chart for Jan. 12-18, she secured second place, intently trailing Hwasa’s “Good Goodbye.”
Her success extends past streaming. In late December, her three EPs swept the highest three spots on the weekly album gross sales chart of main on-line retailer Yes24 — a uncommon feat for an indie artist.
Her literary debut, the novel “Jamong Salgu Membership,” even climbed to No. 4 at Kyobo Ebook Centre, the nation’s premier bookseller. Regardless of its darkish themes, the guide’s gross sales surged alongside the recognition of her music.
From small halls to arenas
HANRORO is more and more seen as an artist who graduated from indie star standing to idol, evidenced by her explosive live performance development.
In 2023, her first solo live performance was held at a 400-seat corridor in Hongdae. By November 2025, she carried out two sold-out reveals at Korea College’s Tiger Dome, a venue with a 5,000-seat capability. Tickets for the world reveals bought out immediately, with the viewers dominated by males of their teenagers and 20s.
HANRORO / Courtesy of Genuine
A key issue behind the rise is what some individuals name the “Okay-pop-ification” of indie music. Her company, Genuine, used a Okay-pop trainee-style system to assist develop her music. CEO Kim Gained-ho, a veteran of indie label Pastel Music and Okay-pop big SM Leisure, put HANRORO by a yr of structured coaching and branding, together with the discharge of behind the scenes content material, a typical a part of idol group advertising and marketing.
“HANRORO has resonated with younger listeners who need one thing outdoors the mainstream,” music critic Kim Do-heon mentioned. “She blends comforting melodies with the skills of a creator who writes lyrics, composes music and writes novels.”
A defining voice for Gen Z’s anxieties
A Korean literature main, HANRORO writes all her personal lyrics, crafting narratives that seize Gen Z’s feelings, from anxiousness and battle to frustration.
Her breakout hits embrace “Let Me Love My Youth,” which compares youthful insecurity to the arrival of spring, and “Touchdown in Love,” which delves into a mixture of feelings, from like to resentment to forgiveness, that observe a breakup.
She additionally drew consideration with “Don’t Be Afraid to Fall,” that includes the lyrics, “A scar on the brow is a badge of youth. We’re one another’s good band-aids.” These poetic traces, broadly praised by followers, resonate deeply with their very own experiences.
HANRORO performs on the Pentaport Rock Competition in August 2024.
Courtesy of Incheon Pentaport Rock Competition
HANRORO’s rise has been fueled by her creative abilities, serving to her go viral on social media and win celeb endorsements from the likes of BTS’s RM and Le Sserafim. Whereas her official music video for “Let Me Love My Youth” has taken two years to achieve 3 million views, a reside efficiency clip of the music on Mnet’s “LIVE WIRE” broke data with 4.5 million views in solely six months.
“Her reputation appears to have skyrocketed because of the craze for melodic pop-rock, a thirst for feminine solo singer-songwriters and the algorithmic unfold of short-form movies,” mentioned music critic Lim Hee-yun.
HANRORO ranked fourth on YouTube Music’s weekly high artist chart in mid-January, trailing solely Kenshi Yonezu, DAY6 and IU. She is now set to increase internationally, along with her first abroad solo live performance scheduled for Jan. 31 in Taipei.
This text from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Occasions, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Occasions.
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