November 14, 2025
SEOUL – Korean traditional music, or gugak, has many faces. Even within its vocal traditions, it can be broadly divided into three regional lineages: Gyeonggi minyo from the central provinces, Seodo minyo from the North, and the narrative art of pansori mainly from the South. Each carries its own rhythm and emotional tone.
Today, a new generation of artists is reimagining how these traditions can speak to contemporary audiences. Rejecting the easy labels of “fusion” or “crossover,” they define their own genres, whether it’s Korean shamanic folk pop, alternative pop, or simply the music they want to make. These self-styled descriptions aren’t just marketing; they’re declarations that their music is one of a kind.
Gyeonggi minyo, folk songs of Seoul and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province, are known for their bright timbre, lilting rhythms and supple ornamentation with melodies that rise and fall like the gentle undulation of speech.
Among the genre’s most celebrated contemporary voices is Song So-hee, who began studying traditional Korean music at the age of five. As a fifth-grader in 2008, she appeared on “National Singing Contest” aired on KBS TV. Her clear tone and poise earned her first prize in the year-end competition and the nickname “the gugak girl,” a title that has followed her ever since.
For more than a decade, Song has been a familiar face on television, a young performer carrying the torch of Gyeonggi minyo. So when she joined an independent music label in 2022, the announcement prompted both curiosity and skepticism. Why would a traditional folk singer step into the world of indie pop?
Her answer was one of self-division and liberation.
“I decided to separate my identities,” she said at the time. “One part of me will always be rooted in minyo, reinterpreting its essence in new ways. But the other part — the singer-songwriter — is free from duty, responsibility or expectation. That’s the version of me that just wants to create.”
Song said she turned to Western music in search of something unresolved. She began studying songwriting, arranging, mixing and sound production — skills she would later put to use in composing her own material.
The breakthrough came sooner than expected. On Jan. 9, Song uploaded a self-written and unreleased track, “Not a Dream,” to YouTube. It soon became a phenomenon: critics called it “an event,” as the video amassed over 8.7 million views by late February, doubling in just a few weeks. As of Wednesday, it has surpassed 17 million views.
“While traces of traditional Korean music are naturally embedded in her phrasing and tone, such as the delicate control of ‘sigimsae,’ the Korean ornamentation technique that decorates tones before and after a note, the overall structure and sensibility are much closer to contemporary pop,” said music critic Seong Hye-in.
That synthesis had already begun with her 2023 single “Infodemics,” a rock-inflected track that marked her first original work. Her latest EP, “RE:5,” released just last month, continued in that direction.
“People might think it’s a crossover between gugak and rock because of how my voice sounds. But there are actually no traditional elements in it at all,” Song said on her YouTube channel.
“What I make are pop songs. But people still say they feel something Korean in them. If you analyze it musically, there’s only one reason and it’s my voice. It’s soaked in Korean soul, and I want to use that well.”
In the vast landscape of Korean traditional music, one area remains geographically and culturally cut off: the music of North Korea.
That absence has become the creative ground for Ak Dan Gwang Chil (ADG7), a nine-member band that calls its sound “Korean shamanic folk pop.” Formed in 2015, the year Korea marked the 70th anniversary of liberation from Japanese colonial rule, the group draws from the shamanic and folk traditions of the northern provinces, particularly Hwanghae Province.
Though separated from its roots, the group has become one of Korea’s busiest and most visible traditional bands, touring across the world each year.
The ensemble features two vocalists and six instrumentalists, performing on traditional instruments such as the daegeum (bamboo flute), ajaeng (bowed zither) and gayageum (plucked zither). Though grounded in tradition, their performances pulse with modern energy.
While ADG7’s early albums reworked northern folk and ritual melodies, their later works increasingly feature original compositions. Yet, every performance retains the theatrical and participatory spirit of a modern-day “gutpan,” a ritual stage reimagined for the concert hall.
Although ADG7 performs exclusively with traditional instruments, the band doesn’t cling to tradition. For contemporary audiences unfamiliar with the intricate rhythms of traditional Korean music, the group strives to balance authenticity and accessibility.
“Traditional Korean rhythms are often in compound meters of three-beat or five-beat patterns that can be hard to follow,” said Kim Hyun-soo, the group’s leader and daegeum player. “So we often reframe them into four-beat structures, closer to pop or rock, while keeping the percussive spirit intact.”
“The fact that they’ve chosen to work with music from the North is meaningful in itself,” said Park Jun-woo, a music critic. “But they don’t stop there. Their performances are visually striking, rhythmically engaging and genuinely fun. It’s music that audiences anywhere can enjoy.”
Leenalchi is back. The seven-member band that shook the country with the viral hit “Tiger Is Coming” in 2020, with the video drawing over 53 million views on YouTube as of Wednesday, returned last week with the release of its long-awaited second studio album, “Heungboga.”
Once again, the group turned to one of the five surviving pansori epics: the folk tale of Heungbo-ga, in which the kindhearted younger brother Heungbo helps an injured swallow and is rewarded with fortune, while his greedy elder brother Nolbo meets ruin after trying to imitate him.
Leenalchi’s signature groove remains unmistakable: buoyant, danceable basslines and hypnotic hooks that make shoulders move almost involuntarily. Repetition becomes trance; rhythm becomes story.
“For a sorikkun (a pansori singer) performing with a band like Leenalchi means exploring a different spectrum of sound,” said Ahn Yi-ho, one of the group’s four vocalists and an original member alongside bassist and music director Jang Young-gyu. “It’s not about doing two different kinds of music. It’s about finding the right point for each.”
The band has consistently resisted the label of “fusion gugak,” a term they say lumps together vastly different approaches to tradition-based music. “We want to step outside those cliches and the prejudice that comes with them,” Ahn said.
Leenalchi’s music isn’t pansori, but for it to work well, the vocals need to do pansori well, according to Ahn. “It seems that Leenalchi was born out of this very challenge, and we continue to wrestle with it,” said Ahn.
“At its core, what we want to make is pop music,” they’ve said — music that speaks to the present.
In fact, at the 18th Korean Music Awards in 2021, Leenalchi earned five nominations, including Best Modern Rock Song. “The album ‘Sugungga’ as a whole could be seen as crossover,” said critic Jeong Jin-yeong, a member of the award selection committee. “But the song ‘Tiger Is Coming’ carries a strong modern rock aesthetic.”
Music critic Kim Yoon-ha noted, “Leenalchi’s work defies genre — it stands out as a breakthrough achievement across several categories.”
Following a recent three-week European tour with a refreshed lineup, Ahn reflected on how audiences abroad have changed.
“We always go with high expectations, and the response is usually even better than we imagine,” he said. “But this time, it felt different because people weren’t treating our music as an ‘event’ or curiosity. It was simply something they enjoyed, just like any other song on their playlists.”