I might just be the opposite. I tend to listen and love the osts of dramas I have never watched or would even ever watch. I don't tend to watch thrillers but Signal and Fores of Secrets have one of the best osts and there are several other shows that I have dropped but the good osts have stayed like Cheese in the trap.

I love "What is Love" too, I have always playing it when I want to lift my mood up before I go to work :)

Yay, thrilled to see Hogu's Love get a mention! It was one of the first dramas in which I really paid attention to the peppy, upbeat little sounds of the different soundtracks that's so prevalent in romcoms now, so it's particularly memorable to me. Wishing you best of luck in watching Moon Lovers! 😊

I love "If It Was You". It's absolutely beautiful. The Oh Hae-young Again is generally quite beautiful, but that's the highlight.

Perfect, just perfect

This is beautiful. I choose my shows by it's OST and still love Cheese in the trap (although I can't watch Goryeo again, I return to the songs regularly and think of Lee Jung-ki). I will try Hogu's love, thaks for the tip.

Great read! Yay for mentioning Jung Seung-hwan! He's got an awesome voice for ballads. I love the whole Oh Hae Young OST album.

I like your essay so much! Esp the part about how OSTs can call you back to the emotions you were feeling as you watched. Sigh. Thank you, kdrama OSTs!

I loved the ost for Moon Lovers and rewatched the show, I think you won't find it as awful as you might fear. It was better for me the second time, with a solid grounding in the music.

Well said, @ohhaeyoung! Being a newbie to K-dramas, I didn't understand how critical the OST was to creating the mood of the shows. Your essay and others here confirm that the music is a critical part of K-drama's magic.

I was unprepared for how much I would love the OST of Live Up To Your Name. *looks furtively at repeating LUTYN Spotify playlist*

The emotional recall these songs evoke is not unlike falling in love to specific soundtrack. I especially adore ALWAYS (Hyolyn), Not Gonna Wait (Park Jae-jung) and Dream or Reality (Car, the Garden). Oh, how these songs make me ache for Heo Im and Choi Yeon-Kyung!

Secret garden OSTs would be perhaps the BEST korean drama ALBUM ever. It had songs, which would make you cry your heart out, and some songs which would make you feel so happy. 'That woman ' by Baek JI young, was the first korean song i am able to sing really well. ' Reason OST' would make you cry so much, it just brings you tons of emotions. I would tate this drama OST 10/10

Even Another Oh hae young has great music..

Very nice. I have watched many of the dramas you mentioned and didn't notice those songs. I don't really rewatch dramas but I wonder if the same thing would happen to me! Perhaps for me, because of the language barrier, I rarely am significantly drawn to kdrama OSTs. I think the ones that have stuck out to me the most are the ones that we all know well (Almost Paradise, etc), the songs with at least a little english, and then this one, which I love, Fool by Kim Jong Kook from The Man Living in Our House. :) (It's so darn happy!!!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW_tQsPrjbk&index=4&list=PL5DyXpZ6iUiJOfiFwFsQuBzqQJrqqXvSa

Ohhh, @ohhaeyoung, you have mentioned some of my favorites! I think 4MEN's "Here I Am" made me cry more than 4 times ... and SALTNPAPER just oozes creativity ... I looped their "Satellite" song more times than I can count ツ ... and Ben's voice is simply unmistakable and I knew she was singing "Like Destiny" in My Sassy Girl's episode before the OST was out ...

And you are right, the way music connects us to the story and the feelings portrayed is simply magical ... Believe me, I have watched tons of Brazilian, Chinese and Spanish dramas ... yet none of them use music as the powerful enhancer & connector that it is ... And that's one of the main reasons why I love Korean dramas! ❤

What an excellent piece! I enjoy reading it.

A few years back when I was an avid watcher of US shows, in addition to pop songs, my playlist include songs I fell in love with while watching shows like Vampire Diaries, Veronica Mars, Gossip Girl, etc but now that I'm a full-blown K-drama addict, more than 90% of my playlist are K-drama OSTs (especially my fav genre: sad sappy love songs). And everytime I hear them, they bring me to the exact moment I fell in love with the song in the show. It evoke such strong emotions that sometimes I couldn't help but tear just by listening to them - this often happens when I listen to I Remember You/Hello Monster OST Remember by Dear Cloud or recently 7-Day Queen OST Dreaming by Fromm. Or it reminds me of a show's wasted potential - Uncontrollably Fond's Golden Love by Midnight Youth. Or made me smile and lift up my mood when I hear Task 38 OST Cool.

So thank you kdrama! In addition to making me a drama addict, I have also become an OST addict 😆

As a whole Cheese in the Trap has probably one of my favorite soundtracks. But individually
It's probably Lovesome from Jealousy Incarnate

Because of the picture you chose, the Oh Hae-young one, I'm bound to comment something here!

I just adore this show so much that I like all the OST songs of it. I also like If it is you but the one I love the most is the song from the Black Skirts I think it's the ost no.7. I think it's a very bitter-sweet song.

I agree with you @ohhaeyoung. I only saw this post today and I can't believed I missed this. I envy you for being able to put into words such thoughts. Wow. 👏👏

Secret Garden was my first drama too. Yeah and Kim Won Bin singing That Man is reaaaally gold. For Moon Lovers, no matter what they say that this dramas has too many flaws, I just can't hate it though and that's because of the OST. Along with Can you hear my heart, I was enchanted by the voice of Lee Hi in My Love OST. I have this feeling that you'll not hate Moon Lovers too because of its OST so be free and don't hesitate to watch it soon. Hwaiting! 😊😊