IU Sang Him. AI Brought Him Back. Who Was Kim Hyun-sik?

Part 1 of 13 in The Man Who Hit No. 1 After He Died: Kim Hyun-sik

Kim Hyun-sik died on Nov. 1, 1990, at 32, and the next year his song went to No. 1 on Korean TV music charts six times. A rough recording by a dead man topped the charts. Thirty-five years later, IU still sings that song, and artificial intelligence is rebuilding his voice. I love that voice so much that, 35 years after he left, his songs are still the first thing I reach for on a rainy day.

IU & Yoo Hee-yeol – “My Love by My Side” (2017 SBS Gayo Daejeon) — 7.68 million views

The No. 1 song IU picked

On Christmas night 2017, the theme of the SBS Gayo Daejeon at Gocheok Sky Dome was “Number One”: artists re-sang past No. 1 hits from SBS’s Inkigayo. IU, one of the hosts, sang Kim Hyun-sik’s “My Love by My Side” to Yoo Hee-yeol’s piano (Insight). That clip now has 7.68 million views, among the most-watched Kim Hyun-sik videos on YouTube. “My Love by My Side” was Inkigayo‘s No. 1 song in December 1991, and by then the man who sang it was already gone.

IU isn’t alone. EXO’s Baekhyun sang “Like Rain, Like Music” at the 2015 SBS Gayo Daejeon, and LE SSERAFIM’s Huh Yunjin sang the same song at the 40th Golden Disc Awards. MAMAMOO, SF9’s Inseong, INFINITE’s Nam Woo-hyun, WINNER’s Kang Seung-yoon and TWS’s Youngjae have all put his songs on stage.

Baekhyun (EXO) – “Like Rain, Like Music” (2015 SBS Gayo Daejeon) — 470,000 views

Huh Yunjin (LE SSERAFIM) – “Like Rain, Like Music” (40th Golden Disc Awards) — 570,000 views

In 2025, Netflix’s When Life Gives You Tangerines released Hong Isaac’s “My Love by My Side” as an Act 3 soundtrack song (iMBC, March 22, 2025). Another track on the same album was IU’s “Night Walk.”

Also read: IU and BTS's Suga Both Sang Him. Who Was Kim Kwang-seok?

The man AI sang again

Kim was one of the first Korean singers whose voice was brought back with AI. In December 2020, Mnet’s One More Time used AI voice technology to have him sing “Behind You,” a 1994 song by Park Jin-young (JYP) that came out four years after Kim died.

AI Kim Hyun-sik – “Behind You” (Mnet One More Time) — 1.7 million views

A year later, then-President Moon Jae-in heard the performance at a government event and called it “astonishing,” saying it “reproduced even his singing style perfectly, so that in some parts it felt even more like Kim Hyun-sik.” Kim’s younger brother, Kim Hyun-soo, who joined by video, said that when he first heard his brother’s voice singing another artist’s song, “I cried for a long time” (Chosun Biz, Dec. 2, 2021). In 2022, JTBC’s Hidden Singer 7 used AI to pull his voice out of the old recordings and put a singer who had been dead for 32 years into its impersonation contest (Asia Economy, Dec. 6, 2022).

A voice from the underground

Kim was born in Seoul in 1958 and debuted in 1980 with his first album, led by “Spring Summer Fall Winter.” It went nowhere, and for a while he sang in hotel nightclubs. His second album, I Loved You (1984), made his name, and his third, made in 1986 with his own band Spring Summer Fall Winter, sold more than 300,000 copies once “Like Rain, Like Music” took off a year late (Chosun Ilbo, Nov. 1, 2025). He almost never appeared on TV and was called “the singer without a face.”

His voice got rougher every year. After his 1987 arrest on a marijuana charge, he leaned harder on alcohol and his cirrhosis worsened. Hankyoreh21 wrote that his life fading away was “broadcast in his own voice,” a voice that “sank a little and grew slowly rougher with every recording” (Jan. 29, 2010). That cracked voice is what made him Korea’s gagaek of love, an old word for a wandering singer.

The same day as Yoo Jae-ha

On Nov. 1, 1987, Yoo Jae-ha, the younger musician who had played keyboards in his band, died in a car crash at 25. Kim wept aloud at the funeral. Three years later to the day, on Nov. 1, 1990, Kim died of cirrhosis (Dong-A Ilbo, Oct. 31, 2017). It was also the day Shin Seung-hun made his debut (Kangwon Ilbo, Nov. 10, 2021). How Kim picked one song out of ten by Yoo Jae-ha for his fourth album is in Part 7 of our Yoo Jae-ha series, “In My Arms.”

KBS News – “Today: Singer Kim Hyun-sik dies (Nov. 1, 1990)” — 24,000 views

Two hours before he died, he called the head of his record label: “I’m fine, so I’ll record tomorrow” (Hankyoreh, Jan. 22, 2021). His sixth album, put together from the rough takes he left, came out in January 1991 and sold more than a million copies (Seoul Shinmun, Nov. 30, 2020). His son, not yet 10, accepted the 1991 Golden Disc grand prize for him.

Kim Hyun-sik’s top 12, as chosen by YouTube

I ranked the songs on Oct. 25, 2026, by adding up YouTube views for each song: Kim’s own original plus other singers’ remakes, covers and TV performances (36 to 79 videos per song). Different songs that only share a title, such as Lee Jae-min’s “Alley,” were left out, and “The Hidden Road,” written by Yoo Jae-ha, belongs to the Yoo Jae-ha series.

Rank	Song	Combined views	Part
12	Spring Summer Fall Winter	about 1.5 million	2
11	Love Love Love	about 1.5 million	3
10	One Rainy Evening	about 1.6 million	4
9	Always by Your Side	about 2.2 million	5
8	Dreams in Summer Night	about 2.2 million	6
7	The Darkness, That Starlight	about 2.6 million	7
6	Watercolor on a Rainy Day	about 3.2 million	8
5	Making Memories	about 5.7 million	9
4	I Loved You	about 10.5 million	10
3	Alley	about 20.2 million	11
2	Like Rain, Like Music	about 22.7 million	12
1	My Love by My Side	about 78.7 million	13

No. 1 has more than three times the views of No. 2. It was a recording he never got to finish. I love all of that voice, even the unfinished parts.

Next, Part 2: No. 12, “Spring Summer Fall Winter.” His debut song at 22 became the name of his band.

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Sources: Insight (SBS Gayo Daejeon, Dec. 25, 2017); Wikipedia “Kim Hyun-sik” (1991–92 chart No. 1s); iMBC (March 22, 2025); Chosun Biz (Dec. 2, 2021); Asia Economy (Dec. 6, 2022); Chosun Ilbo (Nov. 1, 2025); Weekly Kyunghyang (Nov. 8, 2005); Hankyoreh21 (Jan. 29, 2010); Dong-A Ilbo (Oct. 31, 2017); Kangwon Ilbo (Nov. 10, 2021); Hankyoreh (Jan. 22, 2021); Seoul Shinmun (Nov. 30, 2020). View counts as shown on YouTube, Oct. 25, 2026.