[KS] Re: Korean Pop Music

[Charles Armstrong]

To take this discussion on a slightly different tangent, another quite
popular form of music among the older generations in Korea is the so-called
"lyric song", which seems to be heavily influenced by European light opera,
Victorian popular music, and Protestant hymns. James West once speculated
that this genre grew directly out of missionary work at the turn of the
century, but another thread may be the encouragement of and reception to
European classical music in Korea during the colonial period. The Japanese
militarists hated jazz, and clamped down on American popular culture
generally after the Pacific War broke out, but European "high culture" was
OK. An Ikt'ae, composer of the Korean National Anthem (previously sung to
the tune of "Auld Lang Syne," as we all know), for example, studied under
Richard Strauss in Austria in the 1930s. The origins of Koreans' fondness
for, and excellence in, European classical music - at least among a certain
class - seems to me very much linked to this colonial history (though I'm no
expert in this). After liberation, the US Military Government's Department
of Education had a "music advisor" named Ely Haimowitz, a Julliard-trained
pianist, who was struck by the wealth of musical talent he found here and
helped bring some of the first Korean students to Julliard. He was also very
active in recording and arranging performances of Korean folk music, and
left behind a wealth of papers on his activities (he's still alive, by the
way). Of course the US army was also a very important channel for
introducing American popular music to Korea in the post-war years,
particularly the "8th Army Show", where pop singers like Patty Kim started
out.

My point is that, rather than dividing modern culture in Korea into the
"authentic" and the "foreign", what's truly fascinating is to see the very
hybridity of fields like music, where various European, Japanese, American
and "indigenous" forms have intermingled so promiscuously. Maybe the latest
"Japanese invasion" will bring some creative energy to the Korean pop seen,
although frankly, I don't see much of value in either Korean or Japanese
popular music these days - or American, for that matter.

                                Charles Armstrong
-----Original Message-----
From: michael Robinson <mrobinso at indiana.edu>
To: korean-studies at mailbase.ac.uk <korean-studies at mailbase.ac.uk>
Date: Saturday, July 15, 2000 1:46 AM
Subject: Re: Korean Pop Music


>Dear Pop Music Fans:
>
>I'm not an expert on popular Korean music as it is currently manifest.  But
>I might add to this discussion that the issue is an old one.  The
>ideas of an "original" Korean pop genre worried the nationalist
>intellectuals of the 1930s.  The turroto music that morphed into something
>variously refered to as yuhaeng-ga or kayo was enormously popular in the
>1920s and 1930s and this demand drove the creation and
>expansion of phonograph and records.  the industry was from the beginning
>dominated by Western and Japanese capital, but by the 1930s
>there Korean investors as well.  There are two issues that skew the
>discussion of pop anything in Korea historically or contemporaneously.  One
>the mania for the "pure" and "authentic" Korean culture.  Any mass popular
>medium as it developed in the early 20th century was going to be
>synthetic and the means of modern cultural reproduction and consumption
were
>dropped into an already changing cultural market in the 1920s.
>Western music arrived in the 1880s and had an enormous and fruitful impact
>on Korean song culture.  Ultimately early modern forms of Japanese
>popular song were imported, experimented with, and synthesized by Korean
>singers, composers, arrangers.  I'm working casually on the subject as
>part of my interest in broadcasting during the colonial period.  I would
>hope this discussion could be liberated by ideas of "pure" and "authentic"
>anything
>when it comes to discussion popular culture after over a 100 years of
>development.  To often such discussions remain isolated from the broad
>historical evolution of modern culture in Korea.  Let's not replicate the
>mistake of assuming economic development started from stratch in 1963-4
>with Park CH's first 5 year plan.
>
>Best Wishes,
>
>Mike Robinson
>-----------------------------------------------------
>Click here for Free Video!!
>http://www.gohip.com/free_video/
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Carlon Haas <king_of_seoul at yahoo.com>
>To: <korean-studies at mailbase.ac.uk>
>Sent: Friday, July 14, 2000 8:08 AM
>Subject: Re: Korean Pop Music
>
>
>> If anyone is interested in downloading Korean Pop
>> music, I suggest going to www.soribada.com.  It's the
>> Korean version of Napster and they have most of the
>> songs you might want, including old pop songs,
>> traditional music, and turot.
>>
>> I understand what you mean about the Korean Pop
>> music's unoriginality.  But from what I noticed, the
>> pop music industry is more a teenager-driven industry
>> now, and therefore more hip-hop/dance music is being
>> put out.  Also, many major Korean pop singers are
>> Korean-Americans and of course they are influenced by
>> American music culture and simply put Korean words to
>> it.  I think there should be a study of the teenage
>> music phenomenon.  It's interesting to see how teenage
>> stars are becoming the norm in modern Korean pop music
>> culture.
>>
>>
>> Carlon Haas
>>
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