K-pop Source Wire

We kept comparing Korean reports, Chinese posts and English summaries of the same K-pop story — and finding different pieces. An artist’s own words. Why a plan changed. The detail that made the announcement make sense. We’re a group of fans who wanted those pieces in one clear English feed. So we made K-pop Source Wire. Korean reporting on Naver. Accessible originals on Weibo and Xiaohongshu. Releases, statements and stories across artists and generations, with the context worth keeping. Follow us and share the feed with your K-pop friends. Found an original post or a correction? DM us.

Kim Dong-ryul led with his band at October’s ‘Old Song’ concerts, dropping the full orchestra for the first time while keeping strings and brass.

🎬 Lim Young-woong’s anniversary concert film opens at South Korea’s CGV cinemas on 18 November. ScreenX and 2D bookings began rolling out by cinema this week.

At KGMA’s Artist Day, CRAVITY’s Jungmo pulled off a blindfold a year after his racing helmet reveal at the same awards. CRAVITY performed AWAKE and LOUDER at Seoul’s Gocheok Sky Dome, opening with movements that looked like pages turning. Last year, taking off the helmet revealed the racer’s face. This time, the blindfold put the focus right on his eyes, which made the same trick feel more intimate.

I.O.I are due back at the Melon Music Awards on Saturday for their first appearance at the ceremony in a decade. Kakao Entertainment says the group’s stage will unfold like a film, moving through I.O.I’s past, present and future. The organizer’s preview leaves the song choices for the Gocheok Sky Dome performance a surprise. After ten years away from this stage, the part worth watching is how they show where I.O.I could go from here.

MAMA’s final Osaka lineup puts CL on the opening night and BIGBANG on the second. The opening night at Kyocera Dome also has BABYMONSTER, TREASURE and ENHYPEN, while the second brings in Nayeon, Hwasa and LE SSERAFIM. Park Bo Gum is listed as host, but the lineup leaves the setlists and running order open. Anyone tuning in for both acts will need to set aside two evenings.

tripleS released I Want You To Know today after giving the song its first live performance at the opening night of their North American tour in Toronto. All 24 members take part, trading the melody over a Latin rhythm on the electronic pop track. The release sits alongside Andless on the second part of ASSEMBLE26 LOVE&POP, tying the new music to the full-group tour. Listen for the handoffs as one voice picks up the melody from another.

JYP Entertainment says Lee Know is working on a solo album and aiming to release it in early 2027. Newsen reported that he shot the album artwork and filmed part of a music video in October. JYP has yet to announce a release day or tracklist. For fans who know Lee Know from Stray Kids’ group performances, the next thing to watch for is how he chooses to open his first album under his own name.

ATEEZ released GOLDEN HOUR : Part.6 today, with Hongjoong and Mingi credited as lyric contributors on all five tracks. The lead single, UP, uses brass and bass to drive home its theme of pushing past your own limits. It also includes the previously released Drip alongside ANEMIA, FAITH and Hollow Victory. For a second listen, go from the brass on UP to the already familiar Drip and follow Hongjoong and Mingi across the rest of the EP.

MAMAMOO’s Solar has released To My Twenties, a ballad she wrote as a letter to her younger self. She wrote the lyrics and co-composed the song with Lee Hoo-sang, while singer-songwriter Harim played harmonica. The video pairs footage from her twenties with scenes from her life now, including a walk in a park. Her advice to the younger Solar lands just as well for anyone chasing a goal now: it’s okay to go a little slower.

LUCY released Dasi! this week, their first new record since the album Childish in April. The title track is about trying again after a setback, while the second song, 아마 괜찮을 너에게, sits with the regret of missing someone. Bassist Jo Wonsang worked on the lyrics, composition and arrangement for both tracks. Played in order, the second track feels like a pause after the first song’s push forward.

JUST IN: ITZY’s Chaeryeong previews her first solo mini-album, with a writing credit on the closing track 💿 ITZY member Chaeryeong has just shared a first listen to all four songs on “Lovesick” ahead of its Monday release. The title track opens the mini-album, followed by “Moonlit Club” and “Scent.” Then comes “Favorite Reason,” the song Chaeryeong helped write the lyrics for. She’s also started a blog about making the record, giving listeners a glimpse of how her first solo release came together. Chaeryeong follows Yeji and Yuna as the third ITZY member to make a solo debut. She’s scheduled to appear at the Korea Grand Music Awards in Seoul on Sunday, then host a countdown livestream on Monday at 5 p.m. KST. “Lovesick” drops an hour later at 6 p.m. KST (4 a.m. ET).

Sangwon’s varsity jacket is giving K-drama school crush.

SURPRISE: 🥐 RESCENE’s convenience-store bread sold 2 million packs before the K-pop group’s bank ad even aired. The first bread in RESCENE’s range for Korean convenience-store chain CU was Woni’s corn cream bun. Nearly all 30,000 packs supplied for launch day sold that day. The other four members each have a bread of their own, including Minami’s melon bread and Liv’s chocolate hotteok, a sweet filled pancake. You can pick your flavour, but the clear photo card inside each pack is randomly drawn from 27 designs. The two-million figure counts packs across the range, including repeat purchases by shoppers who come back for a favourite bun or another card. RESCENE are part of the shop even when you walk out without buying bread. CU uses the members’ voices for store announcements, with Woni’s voice telling shoppers when an item they’re buying is on promotion. After people asked online for brands RESCENE modelled for to work together, the makers of Narangd Cider and the Korean distributor of Casaverde vinegar teamed up on a recipe mixing the fizzy drink with red wine vinegar. RESCENE took part in short videos for the project. Woori Bank gives the group a different job, using their voices for a jingle built around a Korean phrase that can mean “we can do it” and sounds like the bank’s name. Samsung puts them in a live shopping show for a foldable phone, where the group has time to talk through a product that takes more explaining than a cream bun. At CU, you can pick a member’s bread, eat it on the way home and still have a card to trade.

JUST IN: 🎤 TVXQ’s Max Changmin opens his first solo concert run in South Korea with a live band. Changmin’s *Resonance* tour opens today at Yes24 Live Hall in Seoul, three weeks after he returned with *All Of My Life*, his first Korean solo mini-album in nearly five years. Changmin had already toured Japan on his own with *The First Dining*, so the Seoul milestone is a first for his home audience. The link between the new record and the show starts with a choice Changmin made in the studio: he wanted the sound of a band across the whole album. He said he usually spends three or four hours recording a new song, but he spent about eight on the title track, going back over parts he wanted to improve. He took a different route with “Yeah We Go,” writing the lyrics around the moment an athlete has to shake off the nerves in the locker room and run out to compete. The Seoul run lasts three nights. Changmin singled out another track from the record, “Hot Blood,” as one he wants to sing with the crowd.

JUST IN: 🎬 EXO opens a sold-out Seoul encore run with Sunday’s finale headed to 757 cinemas worldwide. EXO starts three nights at Seoul’s KSPO Dome today, with two different shows available to people who couldn’t get an arena ticket. Saturday’s concert streams on Weverse and Beyond LIVE at 6 p.m. Seoul time. Weverse says there’s no replay. Sunday’s tour finale starts an hour earlier, at 5 p.m. Seoul time, and goes out to cinemas across 23 markets. The distributor lists bookings from the Philippines to Argentina and gives the programme a running time of three and a half hours. The encore closes a tour that began in April and sold out all 27 shows across 14 markets before returning to Seoul. EXO had gone two and a half years between group comebacks before releasing its eighth studio album, *REVERXE*, in January. The cinema screenings give people a chance to watch that tour’s last show together, even if it never came to their city.

BOYNEXTDOOR really gave that raccoon a crime-show reveal.

JUST IN: BLACKPINK’s Jisoo performed “ADDICTED” in her Show! Music Core solo debut.

#Jennie JUST IN: The official music video for “Someone to Hold” from Netflix’s animated film “Steps” is out now. 🎬

JUST IN: TREASURE wins Grand Song at today’s Korea Grand Music Awards in Seoul. Artist Day winners include RESCENE/AND2BLE (Grand Honors Choice), TUIDE/AND2BLE (IS Rising Star), and xikers/CRAVITY/DAY6’s Young K (Best Artist).

HOMECOMING: 🌙 i-dle’s Minnie took her first all-Thai EP home to Bangkok for her birthday. On October 23, 2026, Minnie marked her birthday by releasing *i love you to the moon and back*, a three-song EP she helped write and compose in her first language, Thai. Minnie made her solo debut with *HER*. For this release, the i-dle vocalist built three songs around the different things you can mean when you tell someone how much you love them. On “to the moon :)”, a bright guitar riff and light synths give the simplest wish on the EP room to breathe: Minnie wants to stay with the person she loves for a long time. “insomnia” takes that same desire for closeness into a night spent waiting for a message, with a repeating melody that makes the wait feel like a thought she can’t put down. By “เมฆขาว (white clouds)”, the person she misses has drifted away. Over acoustic guitar, Minnie imagines a cloud carrying her feelings to them. The title promises love big enough to reach the moon, but the songs find it in things small enough to picture: a wish to stay, a message that hasn’t arrived and a cloud that can go where you can’t. Minnie carried the record into her hometown with a pop-up built around moons and cats. The people who came to celebrate her birthday in Bangkok got to hear her sing the songs she’d helped write in Thai.