Korea’s Most Streamed Song in 2026 Is A Sleeper Hit From Three Years Ago
It climbed charts steadily since November 2025 and remains at the top in 2026, beating K-Pop juggernauts: it’s HANRORO’s (한로로) “Landing in Love” (사랑하게 될 거야), released in 2023.
A singer people find comfort in
The song has fans in every demographic, her song is sung everywhere, especially in Korean private music classes which, according to a report on the surprising success of the sleeper hit published last August by The Korea Times, is a dependable “barometer of what young Koreans actually want to sing and play”.
The aforementioned article recounts the experience of a music instructor who trains students for their musical college auditions. The instructor was reached by a call from the mother of a student who asked them to look out for her child, who was under heavy stress from having dropped out of college after experiencing social isolation and wanted to apply again.
When the instructor met the student, the girl asked to sing a HANRORO song, “0+0”, because the song brought comfort to her, a song deemed “easy” by music instructors, but that would allow that student to sing in her own voice and get through a difficult time.
HANRORO Beating All Major Labels in 2026
The same article reports how in a recently released chart of the top 200 songs streamed in the first half of 2026 by Circle Chart,’s songs "Landing in Love" and "0+0" ranked No. 1 and No. 2. This ranking combines data from all major music streaming platforms in Korea, and started publishing its reports in 2018: since then, no song by a female rock artist has ever ranked as the most-played track - until HANRORO’s.
Who is HANRORO?
Born Han Ji-su, HANRORO is a singer-songwriter and novelist signed to the label Authentic. Korean media has dubbed her a "Gen Z rock star" who built her music on literary lyrics combined with a rock sound, and in 2026 she was honored with the "Musician of the Year" award at the 23rd Korean Music Awards.
Her rise has been especially notable in concert scale: her sold-out debut solo concert at Sangsangmadang Live Hall in Hongdae in 2023 was followed by sold-out shows every year since, including at Nodeul Island Live House in 2024 and Yes24 Live Hall in January 2025. Her most recent tour, titled 자몽살구클럽 (Jamong Salgu Club) after her third EP (released in 2025), marked a huge leap in scale. It was held at Korea University's Hwajeong Gymnasium and was her largest solo concert yet, showing roughly twentyfold growth in audience size compared to her first solo show two years earlier.
HANRORO’s “Landing In Love”
The song was first released in August 2023 as a track from Take-Off, without much buzz. It was only through a steady stream of live performance clips being released and shared, reels on social media, and word of mouth that the song kept popping up in the charts, until it reached the digital Top Ten in November 2025, never to leave it.
“Landing In Love” is a song about heartbreak after a breakup, a soft contemplation of the uncertainty of love: it’s not bold in the themes nor the arrangement or the vocal delivery, yet it spoke to people’s feelings for years, gaining traction slowly.
The music video has now reached over 12 million views on YouTube, and it’s as simple and relatable as the song itself: images captured on a mobile during trips abroad, showing a young woman exploring places, making memories.
HANRORO’s latest releases
In March 2026, the singer announced on her Instagram page that she was going to release a new single titled “LOVE&HATE” (애증), explaining the meaning of the song as follows: “Love cannot remain love forever, nor can hatred remain hatred forever. We exist in a space where we hate and are hated, love and are loved. In this nauseating world, we strive, somehow, to understand 'ourselves'. As long as we live this life, the solitary struggle of 'ourselves' — from which we can never escape the cycle of 'love and hate' — begins."where we hate and are hated, love and are loved. In this nauseating world, we strive, somehow, to understand ‘ourselves’. As long as we live this life, the solitary struggle of ‘ourselves’—from which we can never escape the cycle of ‘love and hate’—begins.
She also released an OST for the K-Drama Perfect Crown, titled “Our Goodbye”, and then the single “You and I,” which has almost a million streams on Spotify.
Have you already caught the HANRORO wave?