Category: Korean music (Page 2 of 11)

‘C’est si bon’ with English subtitles

February 4, 2015 / Mark / 2 Comments

Well, it looks like Ode to My Father has just about finished its run in the theaters in Korea. Or at least an end to the screenings with English subtitles.

Fortunately, something potentially a lot more interesting is taking its place — a new movie about Korean music history titled C’est si bon. The movie is the story of the C’est Si Bon club, one of the more famous music clubs from the 1960s and ’70s, and one of the more famous acts of the period, Twin Folio.

Twin Folio was a folk duo, comprised of the classically trained Song Chang-sik and medical student Yoon Hyun-joo. Their first recording was a Shin Joong-hyun cover on the soundtrack to the movie Green Apple (which I believe has gone missing). They did a split album with the Pearl Sisters in 1969 and then an album of their own in 1970, but by then they had already broken up. Song went on to have a good solo career, becoming a noted songwriter.

Given that Twin Folio was a duo, but the movie has changed them to a trio for “dramatic purposes”, that’s a pretty big red flag. And I was pretty excited about Go-Go 70s, too, but that was a letdown. But who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky this time.

Anyhow, if you want to see the movie with English subtitles, it is playing at the CGV theaters in Shinchon, Yeouido, Yongsan and Cine de Chef in Apgujeong.

Shinchon:

Feb. 7 (Sat.) – 5:55pm

Yeouido:

Feb. 7 – 5pm

Yongsan:

Feb. 8 – 7:05pm

Cine de Chef:

Feb. 7 – 10:10pm
Feb. 8 – 10:10pm
Feb. 9 – 3:30pm
Feb. 10 – 10:10pm

Here’s the trailer, with English subtitles:

The sad shambles of K-pop contracts

December 4, 2014 / Mark / 0 Comments

The nice folks at Eat You Kimchi have bravely waded into the muddy waters that are K-pop contracts. And their answers are more than a little depressing — a large “break even point” for training costs that artists must repay, while getting 40 percent or less of their revenues, all the while more expenses pile up, and there’s little transparency.

It’s a good overview, but I will add a couple more points:

Bad K-pop contracts have been in the news since long before 2009 (even if the JYJ/TVXQ problem took it up a level). In fact, Time magazine did a big takedown on the K-pop industry in 2002 — here (about payoffs and corruption, free) and here (about contracts and salary, but you need to sign in)
While the K-pop artist contracts are pretty sketchy, it is worth remembering that a lot of these companies have many trainees they are working on at any given time, which can be quite a cash-eater.
K-pop “stars” aren’t really stars the way we think of them (at least in accounting terms), but are more like employees. And pretty much everyone in the Korean entertainment industry works crazy long hours for terrible pay.

So, I guess to me the problems with K-pop are not because working conditions are so atypical for Korea; but for too many people, they are all too typical. Or typical of a kind of Korea that much of the country has outgrown — and it’s way past time for K-pop to catch up.

With more artists fleeing their production companies than ever, certainly the time is right for a big shift in the industry. In the past, though, when artists became moguls, they usually just repeated the same terrible business structure. But I’d like to think that sooner or later, some visionary will see the many, obvious weaknesses and try setting up a label that works for the artists.

Play that Funkafric music

November 17, 2014 / Mark / 0 Comments

Friday night I checked out a concert by one of my favorite Korean groups, the Jimmy McGriff-like organ funk of Funkafric. The show was held in the Hongdae club Strange Fruit, a small venue that has a surprising good sound system. For whatever reason, the turnout was pretty light.

Here are a couple of closeups, of the main man behind Funkafric, Lim Ji-hoon, as well as his current drummer Heo Curly (sorry about the poor quality of the pics).

Sadly, I don’t have any good photos of the violinist playing that evening, Echae Kang. But she was very good, too. She and guitarist Ranhee Sun were particularly fun singing backup on their reggae-tinged cover of “La-La Means I Love You”.

This was one of those Funkafric shows where they teamed up with a pansori singer (sadly, I did not catch her name) — I gather they do that sort of thing from time to time. Usually I’m not a big fan of “fusion” music, but this mix actually worked out surprisingly well.

Honestly, there were a few people there. Not sure why all my photos are making places look so empty.

To get a sense of Funkafric’s sound, here’s a video of them playing on EBS last year.

Anyhow, I do believe Funkafric will be playing at Mudaeruk on Dec. 20, with My Way Killing and some other excellent groups. You should check it out if you are in town.

The end of K-pop?

October 1, 2014 / Mark / 0 Comments

So, Jessica is out of Girls’ Generation. That makes three major SM Entertainment artists to leave their groups this year, along with Kris leaving Exo and Sulli taking a “haitus” from f(x), not to mention Sunye leaving Wondergirls and other high-profile shakeups.

Now, any pop music industry is going to be inherently volatile — fans and artists are young, careers are short — but the increasing troubles that K-pop seems to be going through has me wondering if we could be seeing the beginning of the end of K-pop.

As with so many things about Korean pop music, Motown is in interesting comparison. It had a very similar business model as K-pop and it did very well for a number of years before eventually burning out in the early 1970s. What led to the end of Motown?

The biggest issue was probably control, as artists got tired of being completely controlled by management.
Money was also a big (and related) issue, as artists and songwriters felt like they were not getting their fair share.
Tastes were changing.
The creators of Motown wanted to do other things (like Berry Gordy moving to Los Angeles).

I think it is pretty clear that several of those issue apply to K-pop. Management companies that are the most controlling over their artists are also having the most problems these days, while Jay Park and Drunken Tiger and the like are enjoying their independence.

Are tastes changing? I’m not a teenager, so it is a bit hard for me to talk to that point. However, when I take a look at the Melon charts, “idol K-pop” certainly does not dominate. I see a lot of ballads, hip hop and other genres. Maybe those genres don’t sell themselves or their singers as well as K-pop does, but clearly the music people enjoy in Korea is much more diverse than most music websites would have you believe.

Of course, the end of idol K-pop would not mean the end of Korean popular music. Korea had a thriving music scene long before Seo Taiji and Boys or H.O.T came along. YG Entertainment snapping up Akdong Musicians or CJ signing Busker Busker are signs that the music industry knows tastes are going to keep changing. So I’m not worried about the long-term success of Korean music. But it is very possible that the structure of it and the types of music we hear about could be changing.

I do wonder, though, if I’m going to have to change the title of K-POP NOW to K-POP THEN.

(Btw, I quite like this Soompi article for insights about what happened to Jessica. There’s a good post in the comments translating the latest by Dispatch).

About that TVXQ thing…

June 30, 2014 / Mark / 0 Comments

A reader writes:

Dear Mark

I’d like to know why you left out the fact that TVXQ started off as a 5 member group? You included their discography from 2004 which was when they were a 5 member group. You included the fact that Jay Park was an ex-member of 2pm but you failed to include the fact that TVXQ started off as a 5 member group.

It’s distressing and disheartening for me as a long time fan from when TVXQ used to be a 5 member group to read what you wrote. I can accept JYJ not being included in your book but it’s upsetting to think that new comers to kpop may very well think that, after reading your book, TVXQ has always been a duo and that’s far from the truth.

Sincerely

Thanks much for writing. That is a very fair question and, as it has come up in pretty much every review of the book, one I think I’ll address now.

So, K-POP NOW! was conceived of as a positive, fun look at Korean pop music, something designed for the fans. I was asked to write it in April 2013 by Tuttle Publishing, so we put together a list of groups that we thought needed to be covered, as well as other subjects fans might like to read about.

Then I approached the K-pop labels about getting their help (for photos and information about the groups). Some never answered, a couple just said “no,” while most were very nice about the process. Of those who said “yes,” some just sent me photos and disappeared, while others had a few small comments about the write-ups. SM Entertainment was the most active in the process.

Which I totally understand. SME is the biggest company in K-pop, and their groups are the label’s lifeblood. SME was very active in checking for errors big and small (which, given the 4 Minute typos, I really appreciated). They also had strong opinions about how they wanted their groups presented.

Now, I was not interested in embarrassing anyone or making anyone look bad, and I know that the whole TVXQ history is a very sensitive one, so I tried to write a very positive article on the band, which mentioned them starting as a five-member unit, then transitioning to a duo. I did not mention anything controversial about what happened and just looked at the positive — i.e., that everyone is doing well now, and fans have a lot of great music to choose from.

However, SM Entertainment did not like that approach. They were worried that any mention of the group’s history would upset the fans. I tried being flexible, and repeatedly pointed out that not addressing the group’s history at all would likely just draw attention to what happened and upset people more. But, in the end, SME had its approach and was firm. So that is how we ended up with the book the way it is.

Oh, and I clearly do like JYJ, as I specifically mentioned Joonsu’s “Incredible” in my look at 2013 K-pop. But they slipped through the cracks when I was writing and did not make the book. Originally, I intended to have a big section briefly looking at the history of K-pop and all the big groups that have come and gone. Unfortunately, securing photo rights for older acts turned into a nightmare, so the whole section was dropped. Which I think made the book a bit unbalanced.

K-pop is constantly changing, with new groups rising up, while former leaders often settle down and become more established, with a core group of long-time fans. There are many groups I would have chosen differently had I been writing the book now and not in the middle of 2013, as I’m sure I would change again in 2015.

Anyone who feels that their band was overlooked or shortchanged, well, I never intended to hurt your feelings. What I wrote was one person’s view of K-pop at a specific moment in time. Someone else might write something very different, as I would if I were writing today (and, as I did in 2008 with POP GOES KOREA, a book that was more serious and explored issues with idols and their labels more in-depth).

Anyhow, if we ever make a 2nd edition of K-POP NOW!, I’m sure there will be plenty of changes. In the meantime, I’ve switched my focus into fiction, and am excited to have my first novel on the way (coming in early 2015, I think). But for anyone who has read or bought my first books, I’m really thankful.

Musical Notes

March 2, 2014 / Mark / 0 Comments

It’s been a nice stretch for music in Hongdae lately — or at least for my kind of music. So I thought I might mention a few groups I’ve seen and venues I’ve been to.

Back on Feb. 22, I caught Hwang Bo-ryung=Smacksoft and Vigulgi Ooyoo playing at Strange Fruit, accompanied by bellydancers Eshe and her troupe. While I find Smacksoft a bit uneven, when their songs are good, they are very, very good. And this particular show was a good one — capped off with a great performance of their song “Horizon.”

No pics of Vidulgi Ooyoo, sadly, but it is always good catching their post-rock music.

On Feb. 23, Mudaeruk had a really interesting show — classical music, featuring a string nonet and a few horns.

It was a pretty accessible show, featuring Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for String Orchestra, some Elgar, and Ennio Morricone. But it was well done, and the acoustics of Mudaeruk were surprisingly good for chamber music.

They also had Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello Concerto transcribed for viola, which has long been a favorite piece of mine, although something you don’t get to hear very often, so that made me quite happy.

That’s Kim Won-tae playing, by the way.

Mudaeruk says it plans on making classical Sunday showcases a regular thing beginning in March, so if that sort of music is your thing, I recommend checking it out. Personally, I’m really happy to have more variety in Hongdae, and classical is especially welcomed (as Korea’s major classical venues are just too inconvenient for where I live and my work schedule).

Then last night, I was back to Strange Fruit, this time for some soul and funk. The night started with Soul Train, a group that’s been around a few years, but I had never checked out before. Dumb me. They were quite good, doing a mix of American soul classics and their own compositions. Very groovy.

And after that, Gopchang Jeongol played, the ’70s-style band fronted by the crazy-cool Sato Yukie. I can’t believe I’ve been watching Sato Yukie play live for a decade now. But he’s still plenty of fun.

Sorry for the terrible photos. But I hope they give you a sense of what the shows were like.

More music tonight, as both Club Ta and Soundholic are hosting shows for bands heading to SXSW next week…

K-Pop’s dirtiest year ever (kind of)

February 20, 2014 / Mark / 0 Comments

What’s going on with all the smutty English in K-pop these days? First we had Rain’s comeback, where he sang “30 Sexy.” But, really, it sounded much more like “dirty sexy.”

Then Ga-in had her excellent new single “F*** You”. Great song, fascinating video … but still it is strange to be in a convenience store and hear this lovely voice telling me to fuck off.

And now Park Ji-yoon is back at her disco-y best (and, let’s face it, disco Park is an amazing look) with the “Soul Train”-fused video for “Beep.” It’s a fun song and Park looks amazing in it. HOWEVER, in the middle of the song, she suddenly sings “What what what what” about 50 times in quick succession, and with each iteration, the “T” increasing elides with the next words and starts to sound like “twat”. I swear, I’m not just being a perve.

The “what” part kicks in at the 1:40 mark. Anyhow, it’s an amazing video and good song, so you should check it out. You won’t be disappointed.

Since I’m mentioning music, you should also listen to the totally-not-dirty song “Paint It Gold” by Glen Check. It is just a fun, amazing tune … with a bit of MGMT, some Two Door Cinema Club, maybe some OK Go and some Daft Punk. Whatever its provence, it’s one of their best.

From Mirotic in Toronto to Mirotic in K-Pop

January 6, 2014 / Mark / 0 Comments

Okay, I have written another column for the JoongAng Sunday. They just published the Korean version so, in case anyone is interested, I’m publishing the original English version here. I hope you enjoy.

While I was in my hometown of Toronto last month, a bakery opened called Mirotic. No, not named after the Montenegrin basketball player who plays for Real Madrid. It was named for the DongbangSingi song.

It has now been 18 months since Psy’s “Gangnam Style” blew up all over the world, putting Korean pop music in the public consciousness in a way few would have predicted. Certainly for someone like me, who writes professionally about K-pop, my career has changed a lot.

For years when I told people that I wrote about K-pop, I would generally get very confused looks returned — not always to be sure, but quite often. A few die-hard fans aside, K-pop did not mean anything. Then came Psy.

I did not feel any different, certainly not any smarter, but suddenly I was being asked to give a lot more speeches and write more articles and books. Suddenly, when I said I write about K-pop, eyes would open in recognition — generally followed by being asked if I know Psy (then disappointment when I admitted I never met him).

In many ways 2013 was a strange year for Korean pop music in the West. On one hand, another Psy song, “Gentleman,” was once again the biggest YouTube song of the year. But somehow, most people considered it disappointing — very strange for 600 million views, and the seventh-biggest Youtube music video of all time, but still disappointing.

But in terms of sales, “Gangnam Style” beat “Gentleman,” even in 2013. “Gentleman” was the No. 2 K-pop seller in America, and No. 3 was Big Bang’s “Fantastic Baby,” a song from 2012.

G-Dragon’s album “Coup d’Etat” did crack the Billboard 200 album chart, but making it just to No. 182. On the other hand, G-Dragon was the No. 9 World Album Artist of the year, followed by ShinEE at No. 10.

One of the big problems is that we just don’t have a good vocabulary to talk about fame and popularity in the pop-music world of 2014. What does it mean to have a huge YouTube video but relatively few sales? Or to be popular enough to have concerts for tens of thousands of fans all over the world, but not enough to chart. Clearly, the ideas of music that worked from Elvis to Justin Timberlake don’t really apply to music in 2014.

One thing that is clear to me is how much better K-pop has gotten musically. For instance, most of it is in tune now. Re-listening to songs from a decade ago, it is shocking how much of it was flat and pitchy. A musicologist friend of mine is convinced K-pop used to sound out of tune because that mirrors how children sing, and producers wanted K-pop to be cute and childish. I’m not sure how true that is, but I am definitely happy that it is more in-tune today.

As with so much of Korean culture, the more it mixes with the world, the stronger it gets. It is scary, competing with the world’s best, but it also produces great results (and, in a globalized pop culture world, plagiarizers get caught so quickly, it’s surprising anyone even tries anymore).

For me, I think 2013 had a lot of really good songs. SM Entertainment’s Henri Lau is awesomely talented, and his “1-4-3” was incredibly catchy. Jay Park keeps putting out very good music. It was terrible that 2PM’s wonderful “A.D.T.O.Y” did not do better on the charts. JYJ’s Junsu had a very fun song with “Incredible.” Spica’s “Tonight” was very addictive and their voices were solid. Ailee also had a great voice and some good songs.

But personally, I think the best K-pop song of 2013 was one of the less accessible, CL’s “Baddest Female.” To me, it’s the kind of song that gets overlooked when it comes out, but four or five years in the future, when fans are at a concert, that’s the song that they go craziest for. It was unique and full of attitude.

I was also really heartened to see Busker Busker once again do so well, and Tiger JK and Yoon Mirae, too.

But clearly 2014 is going to be a fascinating year for Korean music. I cannot wait to hear what comes next.

Monday Morning Links

December 16, 2013 / Mark / 1 Comment

North Korean officials in China affiliated with recently-executed Jang Song-thaek are on the run, in hiding. (Korea JoongAng Daily)
The distressing state of illegal dog-breeding in Korea — 95% of breeders unlicensed, and most of them are terrible. (Korea JoongAng Daily)
Meet Latin America’s Teenage Korean Pop Fanatics. Fun to read about the trend from a non-Korean source. (NPR)
Ian Buruma restates his old (and good!) argument that the US presence in East Asia spurs nationalism and instability. But this time, he combines the argument with the dynastic element of East Asian politics, looking at the leaders of Korea, China, and Japan and noting how their policies have been influenced by their fathers (or, in Abe’s case, grandfather). (Project Syndicate)
Are “It” bags on the way out in Korea? An argument that fashion is maturing, shifting to classics and style instead of just brand-names and following. (Korea JoongAng Daily)
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug was easily No. 1 last weekend in Korea, but still fairly soft with just 6.6 billion won ($6.3 million) in box office. (KOBIS) In related news, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is terrible.
Oh, Jeon Do-yeon’s moronic new film (did you know it’s bad to be a drug mule) The Way Back Home was second, with 4.5 billion won.
With two weekends left in the year, the box office in Korea has already set an attendance record (over 199 million tickets, and will top 200 million for the first time later today), nearly a revenue record (at 1.450 trillion won, it will beat last year’s record in a couple of days), a major record for Korean movies (118 million admissions), and is 4 million admissions shy of a foreign film record. It is also the second-strongest year for Korean movies ever by percentage, with 59.2% of the box office going to local movies (more KOBIS).

K-Pop 2013-Style

November 23, 2013 / Mark / 0 Comments

Happy news on the K-Pop Now! front — we finally closed it and sent it to press this week. Christmas is a busy time for printers, but I think the book should start to appear on bookshelves in Asia in January. Then in the West a few months later

But with the book finishing, the Mnet Asian Music Awards last night and the year running down, it got me thinking about the state of K-pop in general. I honestly think 2013 could have been the strongest year ever for K-pop, from both a music standpoint and a general sense of the genre. I know many people have their pet periods they prefer (often corresponding to when they first got into the music). But as someone who is not a big K-pop fan and looks at it from more of a distance, I think there were a lot of great songs this year, fascinating videos, and more pushing of the envelop than ever.

G-Dragon’s Coup d’Etat may have been a step down from his last album, but the rest of YG Entertainment more than made up for it. Taeyang’s “Ringa Linga” was an excellent song, with a very strong chorus; interestingly, the dance video released the day before the “real” music video has done much better, getting 10 million YouTube clicks to the official video’s 5 million.

But TOP’s “Doom Dada” is just glorious strangeness. A pure rap track, you can barely consider it K-pop. And the video is full is bizarre images:

2NE1’s latest, “Missing You” is probably the group’s strongest song in quite some time. I hope they get around to releasing a proper album before too long.

But better than the group’s songs was singer Chaerim’s solo single “The Baddest Female.” A lot of people did not like it all, but I’m convinced that it was just too far out there to be a mainstream hit. I bet that in a few years, it will become one of her biggest songs. I love its sass and style, like old Missy Eliot:

The mistake many people make with YG, imho, is thinking it is trying to be authentically “urban” (or black or whatever). What YG and K-pop is doing to Western pop and hiphop today is basically what the Brits did to American blues 50 years ago.

As for non-YG music, there was plenty of memorable songs by other labels, too. SM Entertainment’s groups are selling bigger than ever. f(x)’s Pink Tape was almost experimental (by SM standards) and Exo has somehow acquired the most fanatical fanbase in the world. But the SM artist who impressed me the most was Chinese-Canadian Henry, from Super Junior-M. With his classical background and language skills, I could really see him breaking out and becoming a mainstream pop star in the West. (Cheesy video, but very good song).

The JYJ guys had some good songs. I think “Incredible” by Xia (Joonsu) was the most catchy (just ignore the rap halfway through):

2PM appears to have fallen out of fashion, but I still quite like “A.D.T.O.Y.”

Trouble Maker is very interesting, especially since they were the rare mixed-sex groups. I thought their performance at last night’s MNet Awards was very good:

And, of course, groups at the edge of K-pop did very well. Busker Busker’s second album was huge, and I continue to hear it at coffee shops all over Seoul. San E has sold very well. The Jay Park phenomenon continues to grow and impress. And the new Drunken Tiger was very good, especially “Time Travel” (which I consider more a Yoon Mi-rae song than a Tiger JK song).

As for me, Spica’s “Tonight” is my Kryptonite. Once I start listening to that song, my day is over. It’s like my Tetris addiction when I was 20. It must have been the most overlooked song of the year.

Oh, and conspicuous by his absence was the guy who really put K-pop on the map last year — meaning Psy, of course. Yes, “Gentleman” had more than 500 million hits on YouTube, but I cannot remember a quieter YouTube sensation; people were far more interested in what the fox says. I cannot say Psy’s disappearance makes me sad, as I never much liked his music. But maybe he’ll get his act together in 2014 and put out something good.

Considering how so many K-pop artists are getting more involved in songwriting and production — and how quickly imitators get caught these days (cough*Primary*cough) — I think this may be one of the strongest things in favor of K-pop’s future.

Yes, too many groups are being cranked out, especially by smaller, disreputable agencies. Yes, the artists are worked too hard (as is true throughout Korea’s entertainment industries). Yes, there are some very unhealthy ideas about appearance and behavior (especially for the young women trying to break into the business). And, yes, more diversity is needed for the long-term health of the Korean music industry.

All that said, I think this has been a very good year for K-pop. I wouldn’t be surprised if 2014 is the year a “real” K-pop artist attracts some attention in the West. Jay Park maybe. Or Henry. Perhaps G-Dragon. That’s the thing about art, though, you never know what is going to happen next.