London is going K-Pop crazy

아래와 같은 기사가 났다.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/article-23993804-london-is-going-k-pop-crazy.do

런던이 한국가요에 미쳐있는 것까지는 모르겠으나

이런 기사가 나긴 났으니 부분적으로라도 사실이라고 생각한다.

영국 주요일간지, 이브닝스탠다드 (이름에서 알듯이 석간) 10월 3일자다.

신문은 영국 현지 관계자들의 말을 빌려, 한국가요 (K-Pop)은

시장성이 있다,

다른 아시아권 음악보다 R&B나 힙합 같은 메인스트림에 가까우니까 서양사람들이 즐기기 더 쉽다,

영국의 x-factor처럼  manufacture (제조된) 된 한국 스타들, 팬들은 그들의 노래만 따라 부르는게 아니라 옷도 비슷하게 따라 입는다,고 전했다.

여기서  주목할 부분은 바로 마지막 문장이다.

신문은 우리 인기 연예인들이 어떻게 만들어지는 지 알고 있다는 것. 그리고 그게 비판의 여지가 많다는 것을 내포하고 있다.

대형기획사에서 찍어낸 종이인형 같은 아이돌 가수들도 좋지만- 나도 빅뱅이나 2NE1을 매우 좋아하지만,

한국에는 다른 음악도 있다는 걸 알릴 시간이 되지 않았나 싶다.

알리기 위해 인위적으로라도 힘을 짜내야하지 않는가…싶다.

대형기획사들의 런던 시장을 독점하게 내버려두는건 좋지 않다. 그 가수들의 음악성을 논의하기 전에, 독점은 오래가지 못한다.

독점은 흐름상 건강하지 못한 것인데, 건강하지 못한 것이 역사적으로 좋았던 적이 있습니까???

할 일이 많다.

Victoria Stewart
3 Oct 2011

Snaking around the edge of the Korean Cultural Centre on the Strand is a queue of about 600 teenagers. Every few minutes, a video camera zooms in on the action.

“Facebook … I got invited as I go to K-Pop nights all the time,” says one, when asked by the interviewer how she found out about it. “We’ve been here about an hour now so we’re quite excited,” cries a young male voice through the noise. “Big Bang, yeaaah. 2NE1, ahhh,” two girls then shriek at the camera, each hoping to get a place inside the tiny venue.

This was the scene from one of the many new nights being held in London, marking the city’s newest fixation with K-Pop. Not pop as we know it, this is a fresh brand of commercial contemporary music from South Korea and, because of sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, thousands of teens in Asia, America and now Europe are buying into it.

K-Pop’s three biggest groups – Big Bang, boy group Super Junior and girl pop rappers 2NE1 – have generated more than 45 million YouTube hits between them for their recent singles.

The latest one, by nine-piece electropop group Girls Generation, entitled Gee, has been viewed by more than 53 million, despite being sung in Korean and dotted with exclamations in English.

Since June, London fans have organised monthly flash mobs, re-enacting moves by their K-Pop idols in Trafalgar Square, while at an event held during the Mayor’s Thames Festival last month, 100,000 teens turned up to take part in K-Pop competitions and watch music videos together over one weekend.

Another night, Ultimate Cube, is planned for November 19 at Wimbledon Arena.

But while music constitutes one part of Korea’s latest export, K-Pop is more than just about singing. Like a Korean equivalent of a manufactured X Factor band, teen K-Poppers dressed in identikit rainbow-coloured outfits make peace signs and dance about in music videos, squeaking about teenage love.

“The age group really hooking onto K-Pop is 15-20,” says Paul Wadey from the Korean Cultural Centre.

“Our nights have been incredibly successful. We organised them on a first-come first-served basis but there were hundreds queuing. We didn’t advertise or anything and about 95 per cent were non-Koreans. It started with the style, not just the sound and the lyrics. It’s very, very slick and very attractive but at the same time, it’s different. It’s not mainstream Britpop music, it feeds into lots like rap, hip-hop, cinema. And lots of money and time goes into making those music videos,” he says.

Another team contributing to the K-Pop frenzy here are London-based Chinese brothers Jon and Jeremy Bock, who together run Kpopteam.com, a website which gathers 60,000 monthly hits from uploading details of London’s regular K-Pop club nights.

This Saturday sees a “sexy and glamorous” night, showcasing music by top K-Pop DJs and plans for a K-Pop themed Halloween are under way.

“At the moment K-Pop is marketable as the music is similar to R&B and hip hop,” says 30-year-old Jon Bock, “so the transition to the mainstream market is easier than other Asian music. When we play it at our club nights it fits in and even Westerners enjoy it. It’s different but at the same time not too different as they can still relate to the music.

Losers Host Rock Festival

I don’t know why rock music has been exclusive property only for educated young people in Korea. Maybe it is a language thing because most rock pieces are written in English?- I am not sure.

It is like pupils from Cambridge and Oxford Univ. after the public school education wear skeleton patterned Alexander McQueen’s and form a punk band to become ‘losers’. Of course, they can be losers but when they become it is they choose to be, not they have no choice or something.

Korean rock fans may have been quite disappointed to hear that Teen spirit from Nirvana’s Smells like Teen Spirit was just a brand name for deodorant because they would put a lot of meaning to it.

There are many rock festivals in Korea. Easily 10. Despite the small size of rock lover more festivals are being created. There is even a reality TV band playing programme like X-factor- displays average viewer rating of about 2 % .

Some of the 2% gathered in one on-line community, the DC gallery (there must have been no one interested in the amateur rock bands on TV around them.) And now they are hosting their own rock festival. They call themselves losers because the DC gallery is basically cyber junk depot. You talk only in slang and swearing. You wouldn’t want to be discovered you hang out there because it is so loser.

The history behind the festival is simple.

At first, some gallers (DC Gallery site users) went like.. they would miss the TV show much when it finishes and some said to think about how they can still enjoy the show and some said let’s prepare stage for the band and some band members and TV crew were already (and secretly) gallers so they knew what was going on- their answers were more than yes. Everything was done in 5 days.

I think really cool. It’s just so relaxed, chaotic, and absolutely spontaneous. Some disfunctionality, not smooth running will be just acceptable.

The Glastonbury, Woodstock, they are giant in size wise and fame wise, so privilege like Jesus or Ghandi to me. It is not rock and roll.  There are 2 major rock festival in Korea: Pentaport and Jisan.

One was sponsored by a local government and the other one was recently bought by a massive company, the CJ Entertainment (Samsung sister company). Since then, it is too organised and professional like Olympics.  That’s why I was double-excited when I heard that there will be a ‘no one knows how it works’ type of rock festival in Nov. in Seoul because all the internet losers get involved in this.

The TOP Band Gallery Rock Festival, the top 16 bands from the reality TV show will play over the 2 festival days.

This is one of the bands who have made onto quarterfinal so far, TOXIC.

And this is one of the bands who have made onto semifinal, Gate Flowers.

 

Great spirit, great music. That’s what

Top Band Rock Festival

12-13 Nov. 2011 in Seoul

MOJO reviewed Shin Joong Hyun

It hardly ever happened for the British media to write about Korean rock music.

So, I was excited to see the 2 page article on the MOJO Oct. issue about Shin Joong Hyun, I would call the god father of Korean rock.

It was a review about his compilation album called ‘Beautiful river and mountain’ and a little bit of his personal history.

I think the fact that Shin was awarded the Fender Custom Tribute series in 2009 as the first Asian and the world 6th guitarist caught the eye of music people in the West.

And when they found his personal/ musical history they may have been frustrated.

His life is almost like – I hate referring this-one of martyrs’ but it can work on his case. He was tortured, locked up in the mental asylum, ceased loyalties for his songs.

Please check this track on youtube I linked here which he recorded in 1972 just after he refused again to write a hymn for the government after he refused to make a praising song for the dictator, Park Jung Hee. In 70’s and 80’s in Korea, the government only emphasized  collectiveness rather than individual privacy, freedom or creativity.

The government would ban any songs if they feel like it-I can’t help saying this because there seem to be no logic or consistence behind. There was a song called ‘The window that the light switched off’ and it was accused for the light being switched off. You wouldn’t be able to answer why, and then, it would be banned, titled this song gives you a bad influence.

The government was desperately trying to control their people in every possible way.

They would order civil servants to cut guy’s hair if it was long enough to cover neck or ears and would measure girls’ skirt length with a measure tape in the street.

Instead of writing songs for the dictator, he did this song which tells how beautiful Korea is as it is naturally without any manmade efforts.

Even thought he was in a big trouble with the government, I don’t think he has a strong opinion about politics or was critical in particular about government policies. It didn’t matter to him under what kind of regime he lived. This makes this story sadder. He was born with this brilliant musical talent he wasn’t encouraged, protected but only bullied by illogical and ugly power.

I often go to the indie band gigs in London and unwittingly compare them to the ones in Korea.

The famous Prof. Ahn Chul Soo once attracted so many anti fans when he said in one of his publications that if Bill Gates or Steve Jobs were born in South Korea they would never become this successful. I really understand what he was talking about.

In this sense, I might be able to say that it is a kind of unfortunate that Shin Joong Hyun was born in 1930′s in South Korea.

His latest compilation album was rediscovered and produced by Matt Sullivan and was released in the USA and the UK this month (is not relased in Korea). He revealed his desire to do a gig in the UK in his recent interview.

I really hope to see his gig here!