Books, blog and other blather
A fun article in the Japan Times last week about Masahiro Hidaka, the founder of the great Fuji Rock music festival.
* * *
Meanwhile, my friend Shawn has a great article in the Japan Times about Shonen Knife, probably the most famous Japanese indie band in the West. Hard to imagine that they have been going strong for three decades now.
At long last, it looks like a music company is coming out with a (legitimate) CD compilation for Shin Joong-hyun. Light in the Attic Records is presenting Beautiful Rivers And Mountains: The Psychedelic Rock Sound Of South Korea’s Shin Joong Hyun 1958-74, apparently coming out on Sept. 24. But 14 songs with big liner notes, it looks like a real winner.
I’m just curious about the quality of the recordings on this. Most of the CDs issued of Shin’s music (and the other music on that period) have been terribly remastered, with low sound quality and often at the wrong speed. Even the big 10-CD Shin Joong-hyun Anthology boxset was rather substandard.
Although I must say, the presence of my Wall Street Journal article in the center of the liner notes to Shin’s Anthology is probably one of the proudest parts of my quasi-journalism career.
DJ Soulscape has apparently started blogging in English, contributing to the Egotripland website. There are only a few posts so far, but articles include Soulscape’s new record store (in the same building as his studio in Seoul) and Kim Wan Sun performing live in 1987 (which I do believe Matt at Gusts of Popular Feeling has posted before, but it is still good).
There’s an interesting article in the New York Times about ethnic music in China, and the difficulties China’s 100 million minorities face. Colorful, traditional performances are usually okay, even embraced by authorities, but songs that threaten the status quo can create difficulties for performers.
“About 80 percent of my songs are about hardship,” said Aojie a Ge, a Beijing-based musician from the Yi minority of southwest China. “But can I perform these songs? Of course not. I still need to survive.”
And I quite liked this part of the story:
The son of a cow herder and member of the tiny Buyi minority, Xiao Budian left home on his 19th birthday, spending his high school tuition fees on a one-way train ticket to Beijing. “I wanted to see what was on the other side of the mountain,” he said.
Mr. Xiao initially lived with his older brother, a rock musician who had amassed a collection of foreign music and movies during his years in the capital. One day, Mr. Xiao heard Bob Dylan singing “Blowin’ in the Wind” in a documentary about World War II. “It was so simple, just a voice, a guitar and a harmonica,” he said. “But its power was tremendous. It was like an atom bomb.”
Xiao’s story reminds me of Hahn Daesoo and the other Korean rockers of the 1970s who tried to use music to fight against the authoritarian government of the day. It’s funny how something so seemingly unimportant as music can hack off the powers that be so effectively and so often. I tend to be rather pessimistic about China, but stories like that one gives me hope.
Just in case you have not gotten enough of my yammering about K-pop, you can read more in this week’s Joongang Sunday. It is only in Korean, though, sorry.
Thanks much to the reporter, Chun Sujin, for wading through my endless verbiage and extracting the best parts. My wife was quite impressed with the translation, too … so if anyone is upset by anything I said, I guess I cannot blame anyone but me.
In the wake of SM Entertainment’s quite successful concerts in Paris, the BBC has come out with another takedown of the K-pop industry, ominously titled THE DARK SIDE OF SOUTH KOREAN POP MUSIC. And for the most part, Lucy Williamson’s story is quite good. The story does not really break new ground, except for getting the members of the K-pop group group Rainbow to complain about their low wages on the record, but it is still worth a read.
Some highlights:
But the industry also has a less glamorous side: a history of controversy and legal disputes over the way it treats its young artists, which it is still struggling to shake.
That is, I think, a fair thesis. It says that there has been trouble, but the industry is trying to get past it. The courts have sided with the artists on several big cases involving unfair contracts and the Fair Trade Commission has tried to create better ones for the industry. But, as one lawyer notes:
“Until now, there hasn’t been much of a culture of hard negotiation in Asia, especially if you’re new to the industry,” says Sang-hyuk Im, an entertainment lawyer who represents both music companies and artists.
Attitudes are changing, he says, but there are some things that even new contracts and new attitudes cannot fix.
Williamson’s story mentions an artist union, but does not follow up the thought. It seems to me that if the performers were willing to get together, they could change the industry pretty radically overnight. After all, if management insists on treating pop music like a factory, it makes sense that the workers and apprentices treat it like a factory, too. And with so few workers earning 90 percent of the revenues, the top 10-20 groups and artists could potentially have a huge say. But, given the background of most artists and the structure of the biz, that is just not going to happen.
Contrary to some opinions, pop music has been a big part of the Korean music scene for years. In fact, there was probably a lot more diversity in the Korean music scene back in the 1970s, when you had trot, rock, folk, and pop, all with significant followings. Of course, money was tight back then, the recording technology generally was not great, and you did not have the elaborate pop culture industry to mold and perfect pop stars.
But even back in the 1970s, you could see many similarities to the music industry today. Back then, you had a small number of labels controlling access to studios and the airwaves. Also at the time, you had artists complaining that they did not make any money from their recordings, with the bulk of their revenues coming from concerts. And you had artists like the Hee Sisters or Lee Myoung-hoon (of Fevers) who were at least as famous for their looks and dancing as their music.
(Luckily, there is a book on its way all about the history of Korean rock and pop music from that period. I hope to be able to mention more about it soon.)
So, if the problems with Korean pop go back decades, to pop music’s origins in the 1970s, what can be done to fix things now? To be honest, I am not sure. With all respect to Bernie Cho (the head of the digital distributor DFSB Kollective, who is quoted in the BBC article), I do not think undervalued digital sales has much to do with the problem, and is probably more a symptom than a cause.
I suspect that this is another issue that internationalization is going to help with. As Korean artists get out and play other countries more, working with global artists, they are going to discover other ways of doing things. Not only are Korean artists getting out more, but international music labels, like Universal Music Group, are coming into Korea, working with the Korean companies in a variety of ways.
Despite the best intentions of government officials (and, often, their less-than-best intentions), learning by example is far more powerful than government directives. Look at Korea’s movie industry, which was helped far more by creators studying and working abroad than it was by the Ministry of Culture or Korean Film Council.
The question is, as always, will the industry be able to get its act together in time, before the next, hungrier competitor comes along? I do not think K-pop is in danger of disappearing, but people and the media are always on the lookout for the next big thing. The world today is full of music producers and performers who are studying the Korean example, looking to take it to the next level. After all, improving conditions for K-pop’s artists is not just about making the stars rich, it is about making the entire industry healthier.
I cannot believe I never sat down and listened to all of Hahn Dae-soo’s first album, LONG LONG ROAD (1974). At least never before this evening. But I have been listening to it repeatedly for a few hours now and really loving it.
Of course I have listened to Hahn’s stuff before, here and there. But it never quite worked for me before. But something about listening to Hahn’s wailing on the opening track “Bring Me Some Water” just clicked. The other tracks are all much more mellow, than that opener, but still pretty strange and interesting in their own way. Great stuff.
You can listen to “Bring Me Some Water” here:
– There is a very interesting article by Andrei Lankov here about North Korea and how the North Korean people, following the eventual fall of their current regime, will likely remember the Kim family with nostalgia rather than outrage.
It is said that sooner or later this fate will befall statues of Kim Il-sung, in 1945 a minor guerrilla commander who, with much Soviet backing, took power in North Korea and remained its absolute ruler until his death in 1994. However, this author is somewhat skeptical about the prospects: I would not be surprised to learn that some time in the 2030s it is trendy to keep a portrait of the long-deceased dictator in a North Korean house.
Lankov mostly uses Russia, his homeland, as a template for how people’s thinking might evolve after an authoritarian regime falls. Something related that he does not really talk about, though, is how poverty can be a united force. More specifically, mass poverty.
My Mongolian friends talk about how back in their communist days, everyone was poor, so being poor did not feel so bad. Today, Mongolia is free and there are more successful people. But those successes create much envy, and that envy can be a really poisonous emotion.
Let’s face it, people tend to think comparatively, not in absolutes. We don’t care so much about how we are doing as how our success compares to other people’s successes. Everyone wants to be the big man in his tribe (however one defines “tribe” these days).
North Korea may be one of the biggest failed states of modern times, but there are so few riches on display there, I could imagine the average North Korean has very few opportunities to feel envy (which I guess was one of the points of Barbara Demick’s book NOTHING TO ENVY). Which is perhaps one reason that the North’s propaganda has been so successful there for so long.
* * *
– While there have been many articles about how K-Pop became such a big success (including, of course, POP GOES KOREA), most of them have focused on the Korean side of the phenomenon, how Korean music companies grew more popular internationally (also including my book). But The Guardian had a really insightful story recently about how international music has helped build K-Pop.
The article looks at Universal Music Group, which has seen Korean grow into one of its most important markets, thanks to K-Pop. Because while local music in Korea dominates sales, the Korean music labels have known for a while that to compete internationally, they need to use the highest-quality songs and producers.
There’s also a lot of sync income in Korea. The song Top Billing Love – written by Karen Poole, Bloodshy and Avant, responsible for hits for artists like Kylie and Britney – almost made it onto a Britney Spears album in 2002. SME did a deal with mobile phone manufacturer LG and its biggest girl groups, Girls’ Generation and FX, did a version each of the song, calling it Chocolate Love, since LG were launching a new brown phone.
Girls’ Generation’s version went straight to number one. A few weeks later they released the FX version , which also went to number one. Then they released a joint version for LG, which also went to the top of the charts.
It is always useful to be reminded that globalization is a two-way thing, requiring giving and taking to be successful. As good as Korean music companies have been with the marketing and packaging, they still need great songs to create fans.
* * *
– Random crazy-guy babble coming up. Apologies in advance.
Growing up, when it came to politics, I remember a popular saying going something like: “If you are 20 and not a communist, you have no heart. If you are 40 and still a communist, you have no brain.” But I am beginning to wonder if the opposite might be true for my generation.
Back in the 80s, between Ronald Reagan, Wall Street (the Oliver Stone film), and Alex P. Keaton of Family Ties, I think a lot of people in my age group bought into conservativism too early. But just as leftist politics were coasting off of the fumes of the 1960s well after that era had passed, I think modern conservativism is in many ways doing the same thing, using the rhetoric and memory of an era that is no longer relevant.
When I look at international finance today, globalization, and today’s economies, I do not see much that is “conservative” about what passes for the common wisdom. Minimal regulation doesn’t mean no regulation. Collusion, corruption, and cronyism is not efficiency. Free markets only work when the referees are neutral, and the system is as transparent and accountable as possible.
That said, it was good to see the Tories do so well in last week’s Canadian election. I was just graduating university when they were shellacked in the post-Mulroney election, reduced to just three seats in Parliament. But today, they have a majority government again.
A very interesting and long article in the New York Times today about sugar, asking whether sugar is essentially a poison. Really interesting stuff, especially as the whole low-carb/paleo/etc. movement seems to be gaining steam … or at least more mainstream coverage recently. As flawed as some of those diets may be, they do seem to agree that the big bad guy in our Western diets is sugar and processed foods.
(Full disclosure: I rather obviously eat a lot of sugar in my diet. But I am trying to eat less).
I find it rather fascinating watching how the common wisdom on something as basic as food can change so much in one’s lifetime. Repeatedly. But even acknowledging that, I am inclined to agree with the anti-sugar folks. I know when I stick to meat, veggies, eggs, dairy, that I feel a lot better, eat a lot less, and just seem healthier in general.
You can check out Robert Lustig’s Youtube lecture on sugar here.
* * *
I’ve been working a lot on Korean music history lately, helping out on a book about the rock scene in the 1960s and 70s. There is just so many interesting stories from that period, and the music was great. I think when the new book comes out, people are really going to enjoy it.
* * *
Over at Yonhap News, Niels Footman has a really interesting story about live music in Korea, and the difficulties promoters face bringing international acts here. Niels has written a lot of good features for Yonhap over the past year, and this one is particularly interesting.
* * *
Oh, this year’s Cannes films have finally been announced. Nothing from Korea in the main section, but three directors in the Un Certain Regard section — the new films by Hong Sang-soo, Kim Ki-duk, and Na Hong-jin. Congratulations to them.
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)
© 2024 Mark James Russell
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑