[KS] Re: Korean Pop Music

[michael Robinson]

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
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----- 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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