25. Byul.org - Secret Stories Heard From a Girl in an Opium Den
Byul.org are kind of an odd entity. Part band, part design collective, part drinking team. Despite having a decent following before its release, Secret Stories is their debut album, and it took five years to record. Mixing elements from shoegaze, electronica, new wave, art rock, and more, Secret Stories Heard From a Girl in an Opium Den remains one of the best albums of the 2010s.
24. Lee So Ra - Eyebrow Moon
In Korean music history, few artists command the kind of presence that Lee Sora does. Her voice carries a rare duality—fragile yet powerful—that allows her to channel melancholy in ways most singers simply cannot. What sets her apart is her bold emotional honesty paired with a wholly original artistic vision, cementing her status as one of the genre's most significant figures. Eyebrow Moon showcases her at her peak: contemporary rock ballads meet daring production choices and profound lyricism, creating something truly essential.
23. Electron Sheep - Day Is Far Too Long
Blending invitingly lo-fi textures, pastoral melodies, and occasionally dark overtones, Day Is Far Too Long is Electron Sheep at their most profound — nostalgic, strange, and quietly moving. What makes Day Is Far Too Long so affecting is its understated emotional resonance; each song hums with a subdued pain. The standout track "Full Moon" encapsulates this tension beautifully, its whispered vocals and bedroom-recorded acoustic guitar used to incredible effect. It's an album that doesn't demand attention but rewards deep listening.
22. Meaningful Stone - A Call from My Dream
Meaningful Stone's debut album, A Call from My Dream, captures a rare balance between wistful joy and soaring catharsis. What makes the album so special is how it channels youthful uncertainty into something luminous, where a softer sound meets the harder rock that Meaningful Stone would go on to make later. The shimmering guitars, swelling synths, and Meaningful Stone's ethereal vocals weave together to make something that feels quite cinematic.
21. Say Sue Me - Where We Were Together
Another very tough decision, this time between this and Say Sue Me's 2014 debut, We've Sobered Up. Whilst the previous effort has an appealing raw, youthful charm, we're going for the band's international breakthrough, Where We Were Together. Here, the band find themselves and show a sense of confidence in their songwriting, though their subdued, tender delivery hides that confidence well. Where We Were Together is also the album where the band started to diversify their sound, drawing on a bigger range of influences such as punk and Americana.
20. Aseul - Echo
The delicate electronic dream pop of 2012's Echo has seen it become an album of surprisingly enduring praise, that is perhaps as popular and influential today as it ever has been. The chillwave and shoegaze inspiration make it feel somewhere between M83 and Washed Out. It's brilliantly crafted, fuzzy electronic production elevates Aseul's introspective songwriting.
19. Jannabi - LEGEND
LEGEND weaves folk rock ballads with playful pop melodies into a nonlinear coming-of-age narrative. Jannabi's much-loved lyricism has earned comparisons to legends like Kim Kwangseok, Sanulim, and Yoo Jaeha. Through their reworking of '70s and '80s Korean sounds and their obvious love of The Beatles, Jannabi created something that was entirely them. Breakout single For Lovers Who Hesitate harks back to '80s ballads by Lee Moon-Sae, and saw the band become a genuine mainstream crossover.
18. Rollercoaster - In Everyday Matters
It would have been really difficult to choose between this album and Rollercoaster's equally brilliant debut album except that the latter came out in 1999, making the choice easy, and this sentence basically useless. In Everyday Matters brings a large palette of musical influences, combining the soft jazz that's ever-present in Korean indie with funk, disco, rock, and '90s electronic pop. With In Everyday Matters, the three-piece band of guitarist Lee Sang Soon, vocalist Joe Won Sun, and bassist Choi Jin Woo created something so cheerful we couldn't not include it.
17. Kim Doo Soo - Free Spirit
Free Spirit is Kim Doo Soo's dark folk masterwork, a treatise on profound melancholy, animistic nature, and hermetic devotion. Kim's powerful songwriting confronts political oppression, alcoholism, and suicidal despair, informed by his decade spent living in seclusion after the release of his third album, Bohemian. Raw, unhinged, and spiritually devastating, it's no surprise that this album saw him gain comparisons to Syd Barrett and Nick Drake.
16. Kirara - 4
Not sure what to say about this album that we didn't say in our in-depth (if incredibly overwritten) 9.9/10 review of it. Whilst the also excellent Sarah boasts several of Kirara's biggest hits, we have gone for 4. There's a ferociousness to this album that makes it unignorable. As Kirara described, "4 is an album about a kid expressing their frustration with the world." With that said, it's still a Kirara album, so there's still plenty of dancefloor nastiness here.
15. Apollo 18 - The Red Album
Any one of Apollo 18's colour trilogy would be a worthwhile inclusion on this list, but we've gone for the beautifully unsettling experimentalism of The Red Album. What makes Apollo 18 such a special band is not just the sweeping, harder-hitting moments (of which The Red Album has plenty). It's the reflective and sombre soundscapes in between them that somehow work as both relief and tension-building moments.
14. Danpyunsun and the Moments Ensemble - Hail to the Music
Hail to the Music is one of those rare albums that seems to get better every time you listen. Whilst Danpyunsun has been recording music for a good long while with various line-ups, the debut album from the Moments Ensemble was his first that really broke through to the mainstream, with an unprecedented six nominations and two wins at the Korean Music Awards. Hail to the Music brings together the orchestral experimentation of his earlier work with robust, lush songwriting and the outstanding musicianship of his band.
13. Mukimukimanmansu - 2012
The radical DIY aesthetic is not for everyone, but Mukimukimanmansu's 2012 is one of the most unique and endlessly creative folk albums, not just from Korea, but ever. From the ritualistic wailing of album opener Andromeda, and right through this 12-track release, 2012 is pure art — shocking, funny, profound and well-made. Despite its relentless weirdness, the album became a surprise hit, being one of the first indie albums to be number one on Naver's real-time search list.
12. 250 - Ppong
Lee Oh Gong is a master at turning the forgotten sounds of the kitsch past into something entirely new. Whether it's his UK Garage revival work with NewJeans or the Korean retro futurism of 250, Lee understands how the musical past can shape the future. On Ppong, 250 earned critical acclaim for his audacious reinterpretation of ppongjjak and trot, genres often dismissed as old-fashioned or tacky, transforming them into hot dance music. By reinterpreting the ppongjjak rhythm that's been buried deep within K-pop's DNA since the 1960s, 250 created something both nostalgic and full of absolute fresh-sounding bangers.
11. Silica Gel - Silica Gel
The inclusion of Silica Gel's self-titled debut over the massively popular POWER ANDRE 99 is not a decision we've taken lightly. It's cult classic vs. bestseller. The latter has become so dominant in the Silica Gel-osphere that they rarely even play anything from Silica Gel live. Still, it's our list, and the punchier, raw chillwave-psychedelia of the first album gets our nod. It's a beautiful and often very weird kaleidoscope that shows the band on the path to being Korean indie's creative powerhouse.