Books, blog and other blather
Typhoon Neoguri (“Raccoon”) looks like it is turning into quite a storm – currently a level 4 and heading toward level 5. Fortunately, it looks like it will bend eastward and miss Korea. At the moment my weather forecast says Okinawa and Kyushu are right in its path. Hopefully it will lose some power before making landfall.
Here is a wonderful pic I found at Weather Underground of Neoguri from high in the atmosphere. It almost looks beautiful, if only it weren’t so terrible.
There’s a very fun story in the Korea JoongAng Daily about the movie The Attorney coming on Monday. I’m really looking forward to linking to it. But in the meantime, here are a few things I’ve found interesting recently:
Meanwhile, the weather outside is frightful. No, we’re not experiencing brutal cold or a winter snowstorm. But we are in the middle of a huge chemical fart from China. Thanks China for messing up the air!
From the KMA:
Strangely, if appropriately, the Korean website for those color maps of the pollution is called “Kaq“, for Korea Air Quality. But it sounds like “cack“, because that’s pretty much the air quality today.
I just chanced across the website of Kim Young Suh, a physicist who has been teaching at the University of Maryland for some time. Kim was born in Korea in the 1930s, under the Japanese colonial government. As part of his website, he was quite a long and fascinating section on the music of Korea and Asia when he was growing up. It’s really fascinating, with hundreds of links to singers and music from Shanghai, Korea, and around the region, from the pop standards of the day to his classical favorites. It also talks a lot about Japanese propaganda songs and life in that period before independence. Just great stuff. You could spend hours listening to all his links.
As much as I love Korea’s indie music scene, it is always good to be reminded just how much other great music is being made all over Asia. And I don’t just mean Japan and China. Southeast Asia seems to be flourishing culturally these days, thanks in part to its continued economic growth.
If you are interested in Southeast Asia’s rock music, there is a great blog called Sea Indie (SEA Indie?), which features music from Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, etc. Along with news and reviews, Sea Indie puts out Soundcloud compilations, year-end best-ofs and other good packages for finding the best music of the region. For example, here is their article about the best songs of 2011. Did you know Indonesia had a great folk-rock band called Bangkutaman? Well they do, and the band is quite good.
Here is Sea Indie’s first compilation, featuring rock from Indonesia:
You can download their Filipino collection here and their Malaysian compilation here. But I quite like this regional collection.
The website kind of gets at one of my points in POP GOES KOREA — that Korea’s great musical accomplishments aren’t just because Korea is so special, but they are in part a sign of how the world is changing thanks to the continued effects of globalization. Korea did it first in Asia, but young people around the region are traveling more and growing more wealthy, and as they do, they want to participate in modern pop culture. Sometimes that will be very mainstream culture, but other times it will be more indie and ground-up. And that is a very good thing.
Oh, it is worth noting that this is not just a new thing either. Here is a fun blog post at Tofu Magazine with plenty of music links featuring some great Hong Kong and Singapore rock-pop from the 1960s. I quite liked this album by Teddy Robin & the Playboys:
Here is their version of “A Little Bit of Me, A Little Bit of You“.
I just had a new story about K-pop — “Bringing K-Pop to the West” — appear in the International Herald Tribune (first page of the business section) and New York Times (last page of the biz section, or so I’ve been told). It is kind of interesting to be running in the business section, instead of my usual Arts & Culture, and interesting to co-write a story with someone. I mean, having written for Billboard and other trade magazines for so long, I am quite familiar with culture business writing; but getting into the IHT‘s business pages felt a bit different. Anyhow, I’m happy with how the story turned out and the feedback it has been getting.
There have been a lot of stories appearing in the Western media asking “What is K-pop?”, but for this story I more wanted to ask “Why now?” Artists from all over the world are constantly trying to break into the American and Western market, and usually they don’t have much to show for it. Even Korean pop labels have tried several times.
I also talk a bit more about my thoughts and music in general over at Korean Indie, if you are interested. But there is so much more to address, especially about how the world’s music and culture markets are changing these days. Hopefully I should have some more stories coming soon talking about globalization and other big trends.
– Amazing to see that the New York Asian Film Festival is 10 years old already. And ever better to see the fest getting such strong reviews in the mainstream press. A key quote:
But whatever it lacks in red carpets and seafood towers, it makes up for in the quality, quantity and variety of films. As it celebrates its 10th year with a program of 40 features, showing Friday through July 14 at the Walter Reade Theater and Japan Society, it’s time to acknowledge that this outsider actually belongs in the top tier of New York’s film festivals, next to some very serious, very inside gatherings.
– What is there to say about TRANSFORMERS 3? Everyone knows it is going to be bad and everybody knows it will also be spectacular. And T3 is definitely the most bad and most spectacular of the series. Once again, Michael Bay presents a world where everyone — young people, adults, robots — act like 20-year-old coke-heads. Basically, it is the cultural equivalent of sucking down too much Slushee (or frozen Margarita) too fast.
But all things considered, T3 is the worst of the bunch — surprisingly humorless and murderous. TRANSFORMERS 1 had the advantage of novelty: it was amazing to see giant cgi robots that felt so heavy. TRANSFORMERS 2 was terrible, but for reasons I cannot explain, I found it mildly amusing and did not hate life when I left the theater. But TRANNY 3 is just terrible, with the deaths of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) casually ignored, and all the “heroes” grimly promising to kill their foes throughout the film.
(Well, there are at least two Spock-related jokes, included because the main new robot is voiced by Leonard Nimoy… they are kind of witty, I guess).
A great article in this weekend’s New York Times about the rise of Asia in classical music, in particular in opera. While I knew about Korea’s pianists and violinists, not to mention coloratura soprano Jo Sumi, I had no idea Korea was producing so many top opera singers these days (or that China was coming along so strongly).
Increasing numbers of Western conservatories seek to cash in by recruiting the best young Asian opera singers — particularly those from Korea, Taiwan and China. Last year, in Germany’s prestigious Bertelsmann competition, all three top finalists were Korean, while in America’s top competition at the Metropolitan Opera, one of the four finalists was the Korean tenor Sung Eun Lee. A majority of new tenors hired in Berlin, Stuttgart and a number of other important German opera choruses are Koreans.
I have been spending more time recently listening to Barcelona’s local orchestra (the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and National Orchestra of Catalunya). It is interesting to be in a place where classical music is so deeply ingrained … and so overlooked at the same time. The local orchestra is maybe 10 percent Catalans, and many of them are alternates. Going to the symphony here is such a different experience than it was in American cities, like Baltimore or Philadelphia, and different than the faux grandness that one usually experienced in Asia. Or maybe I am a different person than I was then.
Pop Goes Korea: Behind the Revolution in Movies, Music and Internet Culture (2nd edition) is the only English-language book to examine the whole of Korea's entertainment industry and how it became such a powerhouse over the past 20 years. With profiles of many of Korea's top stars (including Lee Byung-hun and Rain), Pop Goes Korea features chapters on movies, music, television, comic books, the Internet, and more.
On sale now at:
Amazon.com
Kobo eBooks
And hopefully more ebooks stores very soon.
The original edition of Pop Goes Korea is now out of print.
K-Pop Now! takes a fun look at Korea’s high-energy pop music, and is written for its growing legions of fans. It features all the famous groups and singers, and takes an insider’s look at how they have made it to the top.
You can buy at:
Amazon.com
Chapters Indigo
Tuttle (my publisher)
Kyobo Books (in Korea)
Goodreads (not for buying, but still a good link)
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