When I visited Korea this summer, I tired to “catch up” Korean pop music, basically from indie scene, which I “neglected” for the last 4 years. I bought some, borrowed some, and downloaded many from the Internet (Soribada).
The first impression I got was that its “quality” is overall high, especially considering the Korean indie music is getting out of sight these days. Maybe this is because of the technology. My pure guess is that more indie musicians have access to music studios where engineers understand how indie music is different from mainstream. Of course, the abilities of indie musicians to write songs, and use recording and studio technologies must have been improved.
Secondly, I was surprised by its diversity. From straight forward punk and rock’n'roll through introspective electronic music to Korean traditonal fusion, a wide variety of music is flourishing. Especially, they sound more freed from the obsession to specific trends and genres, I mean the US and Brisith trends. This is partly because there is no sweeping trends in the US and UK music scene. But basically it reflects that different music aspirants from different origins and with different musical orientations are flooding together in the Korean indie scene.
Depite sceptisim about the Korean indies and despite many obstacles ahead, because of these things, I see a reasonably bright future of the Korean indie scene.
Among them, I really enjoyed this hilarious rock band, Moonlight Fairy Come-From-Behind Grand Slam (달빛요정역전만루홈런). This is a home-made product of a one-man project by 30 something, Yi Jinwon.
The music featured in his two regular albums and two EPs from 2003 is simple, folk-tinged, straight forward rock’n'roll with clearcut verse-chorus. His songs have many attractive points: catch (sometimes to familiar) and easy-to-sing-along melody lines, driving (but can’t-say-great) vocal and so forth. Among other things, witty-and-gritty, earthy and tongue-in-cheek lyrics with specific narratives resonate much. Sorry that this aspect can’t be appreciated by those who can’t understand Korean. More sorry that the subtle wit and bitterness can’t even be translated into English.
One song titled “Limping(절룩거리네)” from his debut album (2003), which is his ground breaking and the most famous song, is about a man who lost his love and became miserable, but pretend he is ok. This contradictory mixed feeling, dominating his songs across four albums, is appealing because it is expressed in an idiosyncratic, stinging and straight-forward way. He uses many expressions which are not usually adopted in Korean pop songs, but could be used in everyday setting. Titles such as “Going Home by bus 361(361 타고 집에 간다), “Sukidashi My Life(스끼다시 내 인생)”, “The Secret of Spicy Fried Pork(제육볶음의 비밀)”, “Collection of ruins(폐허의 콜렉션)” and so forth give sense of the earthy, witty, specific nature of his lyrics. Even a very conventionally structured song, “Show Me the Money” from his follow-up EP (2004), which features “conventional” lyrics begging his lover to stay, sounds ironic in the context of his other songs.
The music by Moonlight Fairy Come-From-Behind Grand Slam, helped by lyrics with sense of irony, greatly catch and resonate the confused and empty status of mind of the current generation. If Dongmulwon (동물원) and Yeohaeng Sketch (여행스케치) debuted at this time, they sounded exactly like Moonlight Fairy. The common thing which enable me to bring them and Moonlight Fairy together is the way both of them depicted everyday feelings in a very concrete way. This is the folk music from the gereration living in the mass youth unemployment. Good to see that his music is evolving with his second regular album (2006) and EP (2007) with more diverse music styles and as-usual lyrics.
Official homepage: link
“Limping(절룩거리네)”
“Show Me the Money”
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