Lim Young Woong, No.1 Trot Singer in K-Brand Index... Continuing a Journey Beyond Genres

Lim Young Woong ranked first in the trot singer category of the K-Brand Index for September 2026, announced by the Asia Brand Research Institute, with a total score of 181 points. Following were Lee Chan-won in second place with 163 points and Seongri in third place with 162 points. PARK JI HYUN, Young Tak, Park Seo Jin, Kim Yong Bin, Jang Hanbyul, Kim Da-hyun, and Jang Yun Jeong also made it to the top ranks. Additionally, Lim Young Woong took first place in the ’Which male trot singer would you like to walk the ginkgo tree road with?’ vote conducted by Ten Asia from the 5th to the 12th. From September 4th to 6th, Lim Young Woong held a solo concert, ’IM HERO - THE STADIUM 2,’ at the Goyang Sports Complex Main Stadium, attracting about 95,000 spectators over three days, and has reached a cumulative audience of 1 million since debuting in 2016. On the 8th of last month, he released the special digital album ’IM HERO 10.’ This album includes a total of 10 tracks, featuring new songs such as ’Moise,’ ’Baila,’ ’TtoTto,’ ’Please Be Happy,’ ’To Us Who Have Lived,’ and ’New York,’ as well as new arrangements of previous hits. The new song ’TtoTto’ was written and composed by Lim Young Woong himself and ranked first on Melon’s weekly popularity chart for four consecutive weeks. He premiered new songs like ’TtoTto,’ ’New York,’ and ’Please Be Happy’ at the concert. Lim Young Woong’s recent musical activities are expanding into various genres. Melon classified the ’IM HERO 10’ album under ’Dance, Ballad, Rock/Metal,’ while Bugs categorized it as Ballad and Dance/Pop. In a 10th anniversary interview, Lim Young Woong stated, ″I still don’t focus on one genre when making music,″ adding, ″For me, genre is just a way to describe music.″ The 2025 full-length album ’IM HERO 2’ includes multiple genres such as adult contemporary, ballad, dance/pop, folk/acoustic, and rap/hip-hop. Lim Young Woong debuted in 2016 with ’I Hate You’ and gained public recognition by winning first place on TV Chosun’s ’Mr. Trot’ in 2020. In a 2020 interview, he said that achieving good results in trot competitions ″felt like my own path.″ Afterwards, he showcased the ballad ’Can We Meet Again,’ written by Lee Juck, as the title track of his first full album ’IM HERO,’ and expanded his musical range to pop, folk, dance, and hip-hop. Meanwhile, on the Ten Asia website, voting is ongoing on themes such as ’Female singer you want to go watch autumn baseball with at the stadium,’ ’Male singer,’ ’Female trot singer,’ and ’Male trot singer.’