You know, if you want to get to know about some of Korea’s best up-and-coming/indie artists and designers, but you don’t speak Korean, one of the best sites I’ve seen is the Korean section of the Creators Project. With profiles and interviews with Chang Kiha, DJ Soulscape, EE and more, they really have done a good job at profiling some of the coolest names in Korea today.

The contrast to, say, Billboard magazine is quite striking. Emmanuel Legrand, former global editor of Billboard, wrote a not-so-fond farewell to Billboard last December, when the magazine was shutting its UK office and downsizing much of its international footprint. But the thing is, of all the trade publications I wrote for over the years, Billboard was probably the most frustrating, backwards, and parochial. Not terribly surprising, I guess, for a professional magazine to such a frustrating, backward, and parochial industry. Billboard never really got Korea, and they never really understood how technology was changing the Korean music industry (in much the same way it has since changed the West).

Which, if I may digress, is why it is so stunning to me, to see Lou Hau now one of the magazine’s top editors, with the Wondergirls getting serious attention on the Billboard website. Granted, I’m sure I was not Billboard’s favorite stringer either; but I bet I would have fit in with the current regime much better. Assuming they even pay stringers anymore.

Anyhow, point is, just as the music industry slowly seems to be coming to grips with how technology is changing the business, I think Billboard is coming to grips with its place in the future of music news.

But the folks at the Creators Project are even more on the ball. Great to see them showcasing so many interesting Korean artists.