Category: South Korea (Page 8 of 13)

In the Indie

November 26, 2011 / Mark / 0 Comments

Wow, at long, long last, Korean Indie — the new Korean music website that is being started by Chris Park, Anna Lindgren, and myself — is beginning to take shape. There is still a lot of work to do, but you can get an idea of what we are aiming for. We still need to start building the wiki/database, and put together a more reader-friendly blog/news section … And maybe even think of a name that is a little more creative and less obvious. But for now, it is a start. Hopefully people will like it.

If you are a fan of the Korea Gig Guide, don’t worry, it is not going anywhere. Especially not when Shawn Despres is putting so much work into it. But it just seemed to me, since I am not living in Korea these days, it would be a better use of my energies to talk more about the bands and music I like. And there is so much good stuff to talk about…

For my latest post (not my first, but close), I have a short review of the new Byul.org release, Secret Stories Heard From a Girl in an Opium Den.

Even Old, Even Newer — Great New Book in Korean Cinema History

October 27, 2011 / Mark / 0 Comments

I just received my copy of a wonderful and very important new book about Korea’s movie history, KOREA’S OCCUPIED CINEMAS, 1893-1948, by Brian Yecies and Shim Ae-Gyung. It’s really a subject that has long needed more exploring, not just in English but even in Korean, and so far I am really enjoying the read.

Certainly there is too little literature available in English about Korea’s cultural history this century. And I find that too much of Korean scholarship has focused on re-iterating boring old nationalism or re-fighting old cultural battles rather than digging into archives and unearthing more information about the past (probably a lack of language abilities has hurt, too).

But Brian and Ae-Gyung have gone into the archives and gotten a lot of great stuff that really changes and fleshes out the period. Most previous literature has focused on the movies made by Koreans, glossing over how foreign films did in Korea and how international cinema influenced and changed Korea. They take issue with the commonly told story of the first sound picture in Korea, talk about the success of Hollywood films in Korea in the 1930s, and lots of other stuff.

The book is rather academic — not surprising, considering that Brian and Ae-Gyung are academics and it was published by Routledge. And sadly, it is priced like an academic, library book, so you might want to get it from the library, at least until the paperback comes out. But when I do finish it, I will write up my thoughts and give it a proper review. Anyhow, great going, Brian and Ae-Gyung. I’m really happy and looking forward to reading it.

A Korean Classic Rock Revival

October 20, 2011 / Mark / 0 Comments

A feature I wrote for the International Herald Tribune about Shin Joong-hyun and the revival of Korean classic rock music is now online. I hope you find it interesting. It should be in Friday’s print edition, if you prefer dead trees.

I’ve written about Mr. Shin before, so rather than just re-hash his biography I tried to do something a little different with this story, connecting a bunch of different trends. First, there is the re-issue of Mr. Shin’s music in the West, which is pretty cool. And there is the growing interest in old Korean rock music in Korea, with retro bands like Chang Kiha and the Faces and the retro sampling of DJ Soulscape.

Plenty of modern rock bands are also covering classic rocks songs these days (like Galaxy Express), and several Hongdae clubs have had special days focusing on classic rock covers (which I think Badabie started with its Kim Jung-mi cover night) — oh, and the neo-70s group Funkafric & Boostah, they’re great — but unfortunately I could not find a way to fit in those details.

Anyhow, I’m just happy to spread the word a little about some great Korean music besides K-pop. I hope a few people out there might read it and listen to Mr. Shin’s music or other great stuff from way back when.

Here are a few links to some other things I have written here about Shin Joong-hyun: here (about the Light In The Attic releases), and here (about a 1963 article on Mr. Shin from Stars and Stripes).

Now if I could just find a reason to write about Han Daesoo or Sanullim…

Gayageums Rock

October 5, 2011 / Mark / 1 Comment

Here’s a fun little video I just ran across of a woman playing Jimi Hendrix’s “Bold as Love” on the Gayageum. It’s really well done.

Of course, if traditional instruments playing cool, modern music is your thing, the best band out there is still Jambinai.

Busan Cinema Center

September 30, 2011 / Mark / 0 Comments

Hard to believe that the Busan Cinema Center is finally opening. I think I first wrote about it — and its ambitious architecture by Coop Himmelb(l)au — way back in 2005. But despite the odds, Busan actually built the $143 million movie haven, pretty much as first envisioned. You can read about it here (with some good video) and here (more pics). And plenty of pics here, of course.

Here are a couple pics of the Cinema Center under construction. Doesn’t it look like the USS Enterprise in dry dock?

From the Speaking-Too-Soon Department…

September 12, 2011 / Mark / 0 Comments

Maybe I was too quick to laud Billboard’s Hot 100 K-Pop chart … Both CJ Music and Soribada have been accused of illegally selling K-pop and other Korean music internationally. Worse, they sold much of that music on the cheap, for as little as 6 cents/song, screwing the artists in the process.

This is hardly the first time this has happened — it seems like half the Korean music available on iTunes is not supposed to be there (especially the classic rock), thanks to some, uh, “overenthusiastic” distributors who would decide that they could sell someone’s music internationally. But now there is some noise that this latest scandal might have some legs … and might actually lead to some consequences. Expect to hear some news in the next few days.

Lord knows the Korean music industry needs to be cleaned up… but I’ll believe it when it happens.

K-Pop on Billboard

September 5, 2011 / Mark / 0 Comments

Considering that I wrote about Billboard a couple of times last week, I really should have mentioned that the trade magazine has started to run a K-Pop chart (although I cannot seem to get it to work at the moment).

It’s quite a change from back when I was writing for Billboard. Back around 2003 or 2004 or so, Billboard had a pretty wide variety of little charts from all over the world, including such non-hot spots as Malaysia. There was never much interest in adding Korea to the mix, especially since there was nothing resembling an authoritative, transparent music chart. Most of the TV channels put together their own charts, based on call-ins and a variety of cryptic data. Every so often, not surprisingly, there would be some sort of kickback/payola scandal about a chart, causing a big outcry and shutting down that chart for a time. Things got so bad in 2003 that all the major music charts in the country were taken down.

I always thought it significant that Korea was unable to put together a reliable music chart at the same time music sales were falling off a cliff. It was a telling contrast that the movie industry was booming as movie box office data were getting better and better. Of course, the music industry eventually regrouped and went all-online in Korea, which I guess helped them put together the data for this new chart.

On the other hand, The Hollywood Reporter appears to have stopped running its box office chart for South Korea. That did not last very long. Back when I wrote for THR, I bugged them for years to start including the official box office charts, but never found much interest — even though the information was easily available online, and even though, at its peak, Korea was about the world’s fifth-largest box office. In one of THR’s more recent revamps, it started to include Korea’s movie chart, but I guess it was too much trouble…

Anyhow, it looks like Billboard’s new K-Pop chart has gotten a bit of press. Such as this article at the Globe & Mail, which says “It’s as if disco had a baby with European house music — then weaned it on candy” (thanks to Gusts of Popular Feeling for the pic).

Shin Joong-hyun Like You’ve Never Heard Him

September 3, 2011 / Mark / 2 Comments

I’ve been listening to an early copy of Light in the Attic’s Shin Joong-hyun retrospective, BEAUTIFUL RIVERS AND MOUNTAINS: THE PSYCHEDELIC SOUND OF SOUTH KOREA’S SHIN JOONG-HYUN, 1958-1974, and so far I am really impressed by it. The sound quality is noticeably better than the CDs currently on the market, even with the compressed versions I have, with better range and dynamism (and now recorded at the correct speed).

Light in the Attic Records tell me that they made new transfers of Shin’s songs from the original vinyl (the original masters were apparently burned by the government back in the 1970s), then remastered everything in the United States. The result is Shin Joong-hyun much closer to how his music is supposed to sound, and if you have only heard his music on CD, the difference can be pronounced at times.

Other people have also been listening and apparently are impressed. Mojo magazine’s most recent issue (October) has named the retrospective their Reissue of the Month, giving the CD 4 stars and comparing Shin to Phil Spector. Sadly, Mojo is not available online (at least not for free), but you can read a couple of excerpts from their review here.

Attic will also be releasing a digital EP of Shin’s music, SHIN JOONG-HYUN, FROM WHERE TO WHERE: 1970-1979, and I quite like it, too. Both collections contain severals songs that I have not heard before, with an emphasis on Shin’s more rockin’ and psychedelic songs.

BEAUTIFUL RIVERS AND MOUNTAINS contains 14 songs, including many of Shin’s best, such as “The Man Who Must Leave” (떠나야할그사람), “The Sun” (햇님, a personal favorite), and of course “Beautiful Rivers and Mountains” (아름다운강산). There is just one song, “Moon Watching” (달마중), from his debut album, Hiky Shin, but it was interesting to hear something Shin recorded way back in 1958. And there is a good overview of the various singers who have recorded with Shin over the years — Kim Jung-mi, Kim Choo-ja, Lee Jung-hwa, Jang Hyun, Park In-soo, Bunny Girls, and Kim Sun. “J Blues ’72” is really good, imho.

WHERE TO WHERE has seven songs, but they are also all very solid, including “Grass” (잔디), “What Am I Going to Do” (나라고 어찌하오), and the Music Power version of “Beautiful Rivers and Mountains.”

These releases are not perfect — the anglicizing of the song names is a little rough, for example. And Shin’s history in the liner notes is a tad credulous, and could have used a bit more rigor. But these are mostly quibbles, and overall the releases are great, a huge recommend for anyone interested at all in the music of the period.

The vinyl version of BEAUTIFUL RIVERS AND MOUNTAINS comes out Sept. 6, and the CD version will be released Sept. 24. WHERE TO WHERE will be available on Sept. 25.

And I just learned that another American label, Lion Productions, also has a couple of Korean rock albums on the way, including Kim Jung-mi’s NOW. Apparently Lion is going to similar lengths as Attic to get their releases just right, so this could be a great few months for fans of this amazing era in music.

Out on a Limb: LEAFIE and Animation in Korea

August 12, 2011 / Mark / 0 Comments

There’s a nice little story on the Wall Street Journal‘s Korea blog about the success of a new Korean animated film, LEAFIE, A HEN INTO THE WILD. While not a blockbuster, LEAFIE has managed to pull in nearly 900,000 admissions since it was released at the end of July, which I do believe makes it the most successful Korean animated film of the modern era.

For a bunch of reasons, Korean animation just has not done that well over the years, with a long, long list of failures over the past 20 years (I mentioned a few in this blog post a few years ago). Considering one of my first Newsweek stories was about WONDERFUL DAYS, one of the highest-profile failures in Korean animation, it is kind of cool seeing someone actually doing okay.

One note about the WSJ story, though — it apparently needs an editor, because LEAFIE has not made 2 billion won, and 2 billion won does not equal $1 million. KOBIS says that the film has made nearly 6 billion won so far, which is around $5.4 million.

Creators Project – Korea

August 4, 2011 / Mark / 0 Comments

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.