Hallyu Now

The ATEEZ 'BAD' Inkigayo win on Sunday, September 13 is the odd kind of music-show trophy: the group was not in the building, the song came out on June 26, and its official promotions (활동) had already wrapped, as Tenasia put it. Korean outlets ran the story Monday morning KST under nearly the same headline. Hankyung went with "발매 석 달째인데…또 음방 1위" (three months after release, and another music-show No. 1), and the "또" (again) is the part worth reading past. This is at least the third trophy 'BAD' has taken with no ATEEZ on stage. Three Trophies, Zero Stage Appearances Here's the run, pulled from the Korean coverage rather than the English recaps. 'BAD' is the title track of the fourteenth mini album "GOLDEN HOUR : Part.5," released June 26. On July 10 it took KBS "Music Bank" over SEVENTEEN unit V8 (Vernon and The8)'s "singasong," with ATEEZ absent from the broadcast, per Star News . On August 22 it w...

NCT WISH just put a date on their next era. The six-member group confirmed their fourth mini album, "I SPY," for October 12 at 6 p.m. KST, dropping a trailer alongside the announcement this morning, per Soompi . No tracklist yet, no concept explanation, just a date and a mood. The trailer's first chapter is subtitled "Confused Boy" — I checked the upload against NCT WISH's own channel before trusting it, since teaser leaks this early tend to circulate from anywhere. A Fast Follow-Up to Their Biggest Album Yet If "NCT WISH" doesn't immediately ring a bell, here's the fast version: six-member unit, the sixth NCT sub-unit, debuted February 28, 2024 with the single "Wish" (after a stage debut a week earlier at SMTOWN Live 2024 in Tokyo) following the survival show "NCT Universe: LASTART," and jointly run by SM Entertainment and Japan's Avex Trax — built from day one to work hard on both sides of the Korea-Japan mark...

RIIZE used their own third-anniversary fan meeting to drop news bigger than the party itself. Onstage at Incheon's Inspire Arena on September 12, the group confirmed a new digital single landing October 26, plus a second full-length album, "EMOTIION," coming in spring 2027, per Soompi . Two comebacks, announced from one stage, on the night that was supposed to just be about turning three. The Setting Was a Party, Not a Comeback Show The event itself was called "Ch. RIIZE: ON AIR," styled as the launch of a fake TV channel built just for the group and their fandom, BRIIZE — a two-night run, September 12 at 5 PM and September 13 at 4 PM KST, per RIIZE's own announcement post . Both nights sold out at Inspire Arena, so if you weren't already holding a ticket, the news reached you the same way it reached me: through a recap, not the room. That's not quite the end of the access story, though. Weverse Shop sold online livestream passes for both nights...

BTS is taking two more stops of the Arirang world tour to the movie theater, and this time the destination is South America. The Korea Times confirmed this week that the group's Buenos Aires and São Paulo shows will screen live in cinemas worldwide, and if last spring's Goyang and Tokyo broadcasts are anything to go by, ARMY outside those two stadiums are about to flood a ticketing site the second it opens. Here's the short version: Buenos Aires screens October 24, São Paulo screens October 30, and both will run live for audiences across the Americas before rolling out with a one-day delay everywhere else. Tickets go on sale worldwide on September 17. What's Actually Screening The two concerts being filmed aren't random tour stops. Buenos Aires marks BTS's first-ever performance in Argentina, and readdork reports it's also the group's first cinema broadcast from South America, period. The full South American leg runs deeper than these two cities: t...

PLAVE walks onstage at Incheon's Munhak Stadium tonight, September 12, for the first of two shows opening "2026 PLAVE World Tour [KEEP IT MANIC]." Their last multi-city run, 2025's "Dash: Quantum Leap," was billed as an Asia tour. This one is the first tour PLAVE has called a world tour, per Sports Khan and Soompi's coverage of the June announcement. The venue backs that framing up. Munhak is a 2002 World Cup stadium built for roughly 49,000, not the 16,000-to-18,000-seat domes the group has used up to now. If you don't already know PLAVE, here's the one-sentence version you need before the rest of this makes sense. Five Members Who Have Never Once Appeared as Humans PLAVE debuted under the agency Vlast in March 2023 as a five-member boy group — Yejun, Noah, Bamby, Eunho, and Hamin — performing entirely as motion-captured virtual characters, never as the real people behind them. It's not a gimmick that stayed small. Per Wikipedia , they ...

LISA's first documentary, "Always Lalisa," had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, landing in TIFF's Gala slot, the same category screening Peter Farrelly's Sylvester Stallone biopic "I Play Rocky" this year. Directed by Sue Kim , whose last film, "The Last of the Sea Women," followed Jeju's haenyeo divers rather than anyone famous, the 97-minute film isn't a career-highlight reel. It's a year of BLACKPINK's biggest solo star stepping outside the group for the first time since childhood, and the trailer alone makes clear she doesn't come off looking comfortable doing it. Kim's background matters here: this wasn't handed to a music-video director looking to flatter a client. A Gala Slot Is Not a Small Deal TIFF's Gala program is reserved for the festival's biggest names, and a K-pop member's solo documentary landing there, rather than in a smaller music or mid...

LE SSERAFIM's second single album, "Made My Night," landed in Korea at 1 p.m. KST today, with the title track's music video arriving at midnight. If you're reading this outside Korea and already refreshed Spotify looking for it, here's the part nobody put in the teaser copy: you're not getting it there yet, and depending where you live, maybe not for another month. Start with what actually happened. The MV pairs LE SSERAFIM's five members with 3D-animated Overwatch heroes D.Va and D.Mon, who launch a rescue mission after hearing the group has gone missing. The twist: the "kidnappers" turn out to be devoted fans wanting autographs. It's the group's second Overwatch tie-in, Just Jared reports ; the first was tied to "Perfect Night" back in 2023, so this is a three-year-later reunion, not a one-off. The partnership doesn't stop at the video: Inven Global reports collaboration skins go live September 13 at BlizzCon's ...

KPop Demon Hunters has spent 55 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's Top Soundtracks chart. Seven more weeks there and it ties the all-time record — a mark Disney's Moana set back in 2016 and has held ever since. I pulled up Billboard's own running list Tuesday morning to check the math myself, and it holds up. The Record It's Chasing Billboard's Top Soundtracks chart has existed since June 2001, and in that time exactly 12 albums have logged 25 or more weeks at No. 1. Moana tops the list at 62 weeks, a run that started the day after Christmas 2016 and simply never got dislodged. Frozen II sits at 51. Barbie: The Album managed 33. KPop Demon Hunters , which first hit No. 1 on July 5, 2025, has already passed every one of them except Moana itself, per Billboard . It hasn't been a clean sweep the whole way. The soundtrack has actually spent 59 weeks total on the chart, and lost the top spot for exactly four of them: one week each to Wicked: For Good , the pere...

KOZ Entertainment posted the full HOME: DELUXE tracklist to BOYNEXTDOOR's own SNS at 10 p.m. KST on September 8 — fourteen tracks total, two of them brand new, and the lead single carries Zico's name on the production credits. The repackage lands September 28 at 6 p.m. KST, three weeks out. This one's a genuine repackage, not a bare rerelease with a bonus track tacked on. The original HOME , out since June, already did real numbers: No. 16 on the Billboard 200 and a No. 1 on both Oricon's weekly and combined album rankings, according to The Korea Herald . DELUXE takes those nine tracks and builds a real second half around them. What Got Added Five tracks join the original nine, and they're not filler. "ANIMAL" is the new lead single. "CLICHE" is the second new song. Korean-language versions of two tracks the group already released in Japan — "Count to Love" and "Boom Boom Boom" — round out the set, and the fourteenth slo...

Nobody who typed "why did Evan leave ENHYPEN" into a search bar on Monday got a straight answer, and Evan was the one declining to give it. A few hours before his first mini album DEATH OF ME dropped, the former Heeseung stood in front of press at Kyung Hee University's Grand Peace Palace in Seoul (September 7, KST) and said, more or less, that the full story isn't his alone to tell. So here's what he did say, plus the six months of receipts that got us to Monday. The answer he gave, and the one he didn't The quote that travelled fastest came when a reporter asked the obvious thing: why couldn't he release solo music and stay in the group? Evan's reply, in Sports Kyunghyang's translation: "Many people were involved in the process of transitioning to a solo career, so I ask for your understanding that it is difficult for me alone to answer for every step." That's a no. A polite, well-rehearsed no, but a no. What he would commit...

The Xdinary Heroes comeback is on for October. JYP Entertainment confirmed it Monday (September 7, KST), telling Soompi the band "is preparing for a comeback next month" with a concert to follow in November. That is 25 days after they lost their drummer and leader, and one day after they played their first show without him. Not quite five months since DEAD AND , five members instead of six, and a drum stool that currently belongs to a guy who was recording metalcore albums in 2002, nineteen years before this band debuted. Not the comeback anyone had penciled in back in April. Three weeks, one festival, one borrowed drummer Saturday, September 6, Paradise City in Incheon. Xdinary Heroes walked onto the Sound Planet Festival stage as a five-piece for the first time, with Choi Hyun-jin on drums as a session player. Ilgan Sports put it at "barely three weeks" (my translation) after the lineup shrank, and the band got through the set. If that name means nothing to...

On September 4, 82MAJOR hit No. 1 on a real-time chart for the first time since their October 2023 debut. Two days later, on September 6, they're on the performer lineup for the 2026 SPOTV K-Pop Awards at KINTEX in Ilsan, and they just wrapped a comeback stage on SBS's Inkigayo earlier today. If you don't follow the six-member Great M Entertainment group closely, this is the week to start. You're forgiven for not knowing them well yet. 82MAJOR isn't a rookie group riding debut hype. They've been out since 2023, released five EPs, and sold out shows in Hong Kong and Bangkok, and none of that translated into a real-time chart win until this specific comeback. That gap between "internationally touring" and "never topped a chart" is the real story this week, more than the comeback itself. The chart numbers, and why they matter more than they look "HEAT," 82MAJOR's second single of 2026, dropped September 1 with the title track ...

Park Eun Bin turned 34 on September 4. Instead of a quiet birthday, she released a 12-track album she helped write, timed to the anniversary of the year she started working as a child model in 1996. Thirty years later, on that same date, "SHOOTING MY LOVE" landed on streaming platforms, and the official music video for "DREAMS COME TRUE" is already making the rounds among her international fanbase. If you know Park Eun Bin only from Extraordinary Attorney Woo , the autism-representation legal drama that spent 20 weeks on Netflix's Global Non-English Top 10 , the idea of her fronting a pop album might sound like a stretch. It isn't a pivot. It's a 30-year debut anniversary gift to her fans, and she's treating it exactly like that. Why "30 years" and not "34 years" The math looks odd at first. She's turning 34, but the anniversary being marked is 30 years, not her age. The clock starts in 1996, when she began working as a ch...

BTS crossed 8.68 billion Spotify streams for 2026 this week, breaking the group's own record for the biggest streaming year any Asian act has ever had on the platform. The old mark was 8.65 billion, set in 2021. Back then, all seven members were still active, years before six of them disappeared into mandatory military service. That's the part worth sitting with for a second. This isn't a comeback year edging out a quiet one. Suga, the last member to finish his service, was only discharged in June 2025, barely nine months before this year's one big release even landed, and 2026 has still outrun the group's own pre-hiatus peak. The count, reported this week by outlets including ARY News and Geo News drawing on Spotify's public streaming data, also has BTS becoming the first group and the first Asian act in Spotify history to put 149 songs past 100 million streams apiece. Four months of 2026 are still on the calendar. Whatever the final number ends up being i...