Indieful ROK was launched on Blogspot in January 2008 by Anna (helikoppter) and orienkorean as one of the first English language blogs dedicated to Korean indie music. While featuring news snippets of various kinds it was also intended as a manual blog aggregator of sorts to gather links to whatever related contents showed up in English elsewhere on the Internet.
Because of health reasons orienkorean left Indieful ROK and most of the online world (including his popular YouTube channel) in November 2008 while Anna continued to run the blog alone. Indieful ROK came to also host a number of interviews and other more content heavy posts. Just as regular activity on Indieful ROK discontinued, in December 2011 it was selected Blog of the Month by 10 Magazine. The February 2013 edition of Lonely Planet’s Korea guide mentions Indieful ROK as a source to find out more about K-Indie.
After a 2 year hiatus with Anna focusing most of her blogging efforts on koreanindie.com, Indieful ROK resurfaced on its own domain in March 2014. Although still with a focus on Korean indie music, it is no longer updated as frequently as it once was and the new contents is no longer as news oriented. Hopefully you’ll find Indieful ROK 2.0 to be a welcome addition to your blog reads anyway. And if you prefer to go digging into the archives, all the old posts and some are still available.
In addition to this site, you can find Indieful ROK on Facebook and Twitter. E-mails can be sent to indiefulrok@gmail.com.
About Anna
Very fond of music from a young age, Anna first got in touch with Korean music in spring 1996 as her best friend had received a cassette tape with Kim Gun Mo‘s 3rd album from a Korean penpal. Thanks to her own Korean penpal, Anna spent most of her teenage years as a fan of H.O.T and Turbo after realizing that the language barrier enabled her to listen to perfect pop music without having to be bothered by cheesy lyrics.
As both H.O.T and Turbo disbanded in 2001 Anna’s interest in Korean music faded. Attempting to reconnect a year later, few artists interested her beyond BoA and Jang Nara and she ended up seeking out music more similar to the Swedish music which she had come to listen to. Thanks to the forum at Soompi Anna found a few names to get her started and after that began digging on her own. Amazed by what she found her interest in Korean music returned wholeheartedly and remains till this day.
In her daily life Anna does engineering things in the Stockholm branch of a tech company. After visiting Korea for the first time in 2009, Anna returns to the country for vacation at least once per year. She still doesn’t know Korean all that well, but has been alleged to speak with some fluency while drunk.
Blog History
2014 – now: Indieful ROK 2.0
2011 – 2014: koreanindie.com
2008 – 2012: Indieful ROK
2007 – 2010: London Korean Links (irregular contributor of interviews)
2005 – 2008: stuck with free music (mp3 blog)
Interviews
2019-10-04: (인터뷰)서태지·넬·잠비나이…11년 ‘한국 록 전도사’ 자처한 스웨덴 여성, Newstomato (Korean Internet newspaper)
2017-10-06: 아름다운 이 아침 김창완입니다: 임희윤 기자의 제목없음 #180, SBS Power FM (Korean radio)
2017-09-11: 20년전 김건모에 꽂혔던 북유럽 여인, The Dong-a Ilbo (Korean newspaper)
2016-03-01: Big Bang’s ‘Bae Bae’ awarded Song of the Year at KMA, The Korea Times (Korean newspaper)
2013-09: Loverholic Robotronic – En reportagebok om k-pop, fans och Sydkorea (Swedish book)
2013-08-16: 세계를 흔들어라 K-밴드 영국 진출기, EBS (Korean TV documentary)
2013-03-27: A stroll through the blogosphere of Korea, korea.net (Korean website)
2013-03-05: Korea’s musicians honored at KMAs, korea.net (Korean website)
2013-02-05: koreanindie.com on bringing K-indie to an international audience, Beyond Hallyu (British webzine)
2011-03-16: 1013 Main Street, tbs eFM (Korean radio)
2011-03: ROK Heavy, KoreAm (US magazine)
2009-10: 해외블로거 “인터넷 韓流 우리손으로”, Korea Herald (Korean newspaper)
2009-10-22: On the Pulse, tbs eFM (Korean radio)
2009-06-15: on3-Radio (German radio)
Other
2016-01-03: Listed favorites from 2015 for Sounds From The Korean Underground, 93.3 CFMU
2014-03: Swedish translation and narration for Hollow Jan‘s “Day 1: Perfect Ending”
2012-06-07: Comment about Electric Muse for 5th Anniversary Electric Muse booklet
2012-03-02: Opinion on music criticism for weiv restructuring: 아오, 이 음악 비~평_3
2011-03-20 – 2012-10-07: “Indieful ROK Spot” on Indie Afternoon, tbs eFM
2010: Asia Voice Independent Music Awards (AVIMA) 2010 judge
2010: Voice Independent Music Awards (VIMA) 2010 main judge
2009: Asia Voice Independent Music Awards (AVIMA) 2009 main judge