Twelve Years After He Left, Korea Gave Shin Hae-chul Its Highest Honor of the Night

Featured photo: Shin Hae-chul at the showcase for his album Reboot Myself Part 1, June 20, 2014. Photo: MBC PD Note via YouTube / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.

On the evening of October 29, 2026, at the Haeoreum Theater of the National Theater of Korea in Seoul, the late Shin Hae-chul received the Silver Crown Order of Cultural Merit, the top honor at this year’s Korea Popular Culture and Arts Awards. The government hands out these medals every year through the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency, and no one among the 36 honorees this year ranked higher. His son, Shin Dong-won, walked up to accept it for him (Kyunghyang Shinmun; Sports Today).

I’ll be honest: as a fan, I teared up reading the news. “Two days ago marked 12 years since my father left us,” Dong-won said on stage. “To everyone who has remembered and loved his songs for so long, thank you from the bottom of my heart” (Star News, Oct. 29, 2026).

This is where it started: a 20-year-old philosophy student and his band, Infinite Track, at the 1988 MBC College Song Festival.

What happened on the night

• The honor. The Silver Crown is the highest grade handed out this year. The Bogwan (Precious Crown) Order went to broadcaster Yoo Jae-suk, singer Han Young-ae, musical producer Park Myung-sung, voice actor Park Young-nam and jazz pianist Shin Kwan-woong, and the Okgwan (Jade Crown) Order went to all four members of BLACKPINK (Kyunghyang Shinmun).
• The citation. The ministry honored him for leading the popularization of Korean rock: he won the grand prize at the 1988 MBC College Song Festival with Infinite Track, then built an experimental musical world with the band N.EX.T (NewDaily; Kyunghyang Shinmun).
• The son on stage. “When I was little, I knew nothing,” Dong-won said. “Now that I’ve grown up a bit, I’ve realized, late, that every one of his songs carried a deep meaning.” Listening to songs about love, comfort and empathy, values that don’t change with time, he said, “I’ve come to respect Shin Hae-chul the musician, beyond my father.” He believes his father, watching from above, “would surely be happy and proud,” and dedicated the honor to the fans (Star News).
• An old friend. After the ceremony, Kim Tae-won of the band Boohwal, who received a Presidential Commendation the same night, congratulated Dong-won (News1 photo).

Shin died on October 27, 2014. The courts later found the surgeon who operated on him guilty of professional negligence resulting in death, and the Supreme Court upheld a one-year prison term in 2018 (Hankyoreh, May 11, 2018). The honor came two days after that 12th anniversary.

Also read: The Lonely Night Shin Hae-chul Sang for Him: "Empty Tonight"

Filmography of a voice: from Infinite Track to the Demon King

Year	Work	Role	What it meant
1988	“To You” (Geudaeege), Infinite Track	Singer-songwriter	Grand prize, MBC College Song Festival; still the anthem of Korean college festivals (Hankyoreh, Oct. 24, 2024)
1990	First solo album, “Don’t Look So Sad”	Solo singer	Turned him into a teen star (Busan Ilbo, Oct. 21, 2015)
1992	Formed N.EX.T	Leader	“New EXperiment Team,” rock with orchestral layers (Busan Ilbo)
1997	“Lazenca, Save Us,” N.EX.T	Leader, writer	Began as a cartoon theme; became the high-note test of Korean singing contests
1999	“Dream of a Freshwater Eel”	Solo	The song he said he wanted played at his funeral (OhmyTV)
2000s	Ghost Station radio	Host	Where the “Demon King” nickname stuck
2024	“To You” in Squid Game Season 2	Songwriter	The cheering song in the three-legged race (Nocut News, Feb. 9, 2025)

N.EX.T at full volume on SBS. This is the stage the “Demon King” nickname was made for.

Three turning points

1. 1988, the intro. He studied philosophy at Sogang University and was 20 when Infinite Track took the grand prize. The head judge, Cho Yong-pil, is said to have known it was the winner from the intro alone (Hankyoreh, Oct. 24, 2024).
2. 1992, walking away from the teen idol. After a solo debut that put him in sneaker ads, he formed N.EX.T and bet everything on heavy, orchestral rock. That gamble is exactly what the government honored tonight: the “experimental musical world” in the citation.
3. 2024, the world finds “To You.” When Netflix’s Squid Game Season 2 came out on December 26, 2024, five players with their legs tied together ran to his 1988 song. The show’s music director said the song had been in the script from the start (Nocut News, Feb. 9, 2025).

The world heard the cheering song. Here is the version with the words in English.

Why he still matters so much

He wrote nearly everything he sang. Of the 10 songs this blog counted down in its Shin Hae-chul series, he wrote both words and music for all but one, and even that one, “Don’t Look So Sad,” has his lyrics (Melon). That’s why his son’s line about the songs’ “deep meaning” hit so hard: the meaning was his own, start to finish.

He was also kind to the people who came after him. Moon Hee-joon of H.O.T. recalled that when he was buried in hate comments for playing rock as an idol, Shin, whom he had never met, called him, bought him dinner and told him to keep making music. PSY learned sound in Shin’s studio as a rookie and said that is what fed “Gangnam Style” (Newsis, Oct. 4, 2024). I find that side of him so lovable: the fierce Demon King on stage, the big brother off it.

And the younger singers keep coming back to him. On December 31, 2014, two months after he died, Shin Sung-woo and N.EX.T led younger singers through “To You” on the MBC Gayo Daejejeon stage.

Want the whole story, song by song? This blog’s 11-part series starts here: IU, DAY6 and Squid Game All Brought Him Back. Who Was Shin Hae-chul?

Where to listen: Shin Hae-chul’s and N.EX.T’s albums are on Melon and other Korean streaming services, and “To You (Squid Game Season 2 version)” was released as a single in March 2025 (Melon). Squid Game Season 2 streams on Netflix (US and Korea, checked October 29, 2026).

Twelve years is a long time to miss a voice. Tonight, though, the country said out loud what his fans have known since that 1988 intro. Somewhere, I hope, he’s grinning that mischievous grin. We’ll keep playing the songs.

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Sources: Kyunghyang Shinmun (Oct. 29, 2026); NewDaily (Oct. 29, 2026); Sports Today (Oct. 29, 2026); Star News (Oct. 29, 2026); News1 (photo, Oct. 29, 2026); Hankyoreh (Oct. 24, 2024; May 11, 2018); Busan Ilbo (Oct. 21, 2015); Nocut News (Feb. 9, 2025); Newsis (Oct. 4, 2024); Melon (song credits).