“Why did this song suddenly reach No. 1?”

The keyword on today’s music charts is ‘narrative’. Popularity is no longer explained by simple reasons such as being a star’s new release or suiting the season. Whether tied to the singer who performs it or to the work that features it, songs with their own backstories are occupying the very top of the charts. Most of these tracks first spread by word of mouth on YouTube or social media, then are consumed by climbing back up the rankings on music platforms.

Car, the Garden’s ‘Be My Small World’, which recently took No. 1 on Melon’s ‘Top 100’ chart, was released in 2021. After appearing on the TVING dating reality program <Transit Love 4>, it shot straight to the top of the rankings. <Transit Love 4> features former couples who either reunite or find new partners; a couple who conveyed their feelings through this song they used to listen to while dating ultimately got back together, and the track’s popularity rose along with them.

On the 25th of last month, Car, the Garden wrote on his Instagram, “All sorts of things happen as you live,” adding, “It seems the tender feelings the two (contestants) have for each other helped carry my song to many people. Thank you.” Viewers of <Transit Love 4> left comments congratulating the No. 1 news, saying, “Please sing it as a celebratory song at the two contestants’ wedding.”

Han Roro’s ‘I Will Come to Love’ (2023) climbed back up and has since held steady near the very top of the charts. Han Roro had built a name among indie-music fans, then entered a full upswing after a July last year appearance on Mnet’s <Live Wire> drew widespread attention.

Han Roro’s tracks are especially noted for their literary Korean lyrics. Though it may sound at first like a romance, ‘I Will Come to Love’ is in fact a song that proclaims love toward oneself. In “And yet/ I forgive you/ I will come to love,” the ‘you’ is ‘myself’.

This connects with his own narrativehe majored in Korean literature rather than practical musicadding to the appeal. As an ordinary college student, Han Roro reached out cold to his current label Authentic (then Studio MOS). Using a free composing program, he completed two demo tracks in four months. The following year, 2022, after signing with the company, he released his debut song ‘Ipchun’. He also became an author, publishing a book last July. His novel <Grapefruit Apricot Club>, which shares a universe with an album of the same name, became a bestseller at major bookstores such as Kyobo Bookstore.

Lim Hyun-jung’s ‘Love Like Spring Rain, Farewell Like Winter Rain’, included in the film <If We>, also entered the charts. Released in 2003, the song was beloved then as background music (BGM) for Cyworld mini-homepages. Used in its original form in the film this time, it helped deepen immersion in the story of the protagonists Eun-ho and Jeong-won, who are from the college class of ’06.

A representative of distributor Showbox said in a phone call on the 10th, “Back in the early 2000s when the protagonists were dating in the past, weren’t Cyworld mini-homepages all the rage?” adding, “The (filmmakers) seem to have judged that using the original rather than a remake was the right choice to capture the sensibility of the era.”

WOODZ (birth name Jo Seung-yeon)’s ‘Drowning’ (2023), which rebounded last year to seize No. 1 on a terrestrial music show, continues a prolonged reign on the charts. The starting point of the rebound was his Armed Forces Day special stage on KBS’s <Immortal Songs 2 Sing the Legend>, which as of that day had racked up 26.83 million views. His ‘track record of failures’ since his 2014 debut came back into focus, and the stage by ‘Corporal Jo Seung-yeon’, singing with nothing to hide, deepened the emotion.

Hwasa’s ‘Good Goodbye’ (2025) reached the top of major music charts one month after release, as a celebratory performance video with actor Park Jung-min at the Blue Dragon Film Awards last November drew major buzz. The video was re-edited into numerous short-form (short-length) clips, extending its popularity. The official ‘Good Goodbye’ music video featuring the two surpassed 100 million views on YouTube.

Popular-music critic Im Hee-yoon said in a phone call that day, “The pathways or contexts by which songs become hits seem to keep changing,” analyzing that “after an artist’s or song’s narrative is compressed into short-form content and recognized by the public, the track gains popularity when it also has a beginning-middle-end as a listening-focused sound recording.” In other words, “a lot of virality does not automatically mean a song will blow up; the song has its own power, with virality providing support.” ‘Viral’ (viral) refers to word-of-mouth spreading rapidly like a virus.

This also shows a change in how music is consumed. As the ways to enjoy music have diversified, existing services such as Melon have become ‘listening’ platforms. As a result, ‘listening’ music is loved more than ‘viewing’ music, and unlike the past when popular idol groups dominated the charts, songs that have strength in and of themselves are now entering the rankings.