Korean Music.

I know many of you have heard me complain from time to time about Korean music. Those of you who I visited in February had the exquisite pleasure to experience Korean music via YouTube. From time to time I have even posted Korean music videos. Well this blog is going to be solely about Korean music, and yes most of it is going to be bad.

In the United States you have your choice of music. You can listen to rap, rock, punk, country, bluegrass, oldies, etc. You can turn on the radio find a station that plays music that you like. Now granted my experience with Korean radio is limited, and in now way am I really qualified to talk about diversity on the Korean radio. However, I can tell you that there simply is no diversity. It's all Korean music. Unless you are lucky enough to live close to a major US military installation there are no English radio broadcasts. There are a few channels that will occasionally broadcast English lessons. Other then an occasional English pop song you have what seem like two choices for Korean Radio. You have adult contemporary/oldies, and you have pop.

Now, I'm sure if I was Korean I would love the radio, but the simple fact is I'm a Waygook. What this means is that Korean radio, and Korean music tend to be torturous to me. However, there is almost no difference between Korean adult contemporary, and pop. The main difference that I've found is that instead of 40 year old people singing the songs, I'm berated by every single one of my students singing the songs. I guess I finally understood how my parents felt the first time my sister brought home a New Kids on the Block tape. Everywhere I turn it's one song after another that honestly all sound the same. Maybe I'm just finally turning into the old crotchety guy my parents always warned me about. Either way I figure this blog should be a great excuse to allow you to experience some of the finer points of Korean music.

Like a fine Arbor Mist Merlot these songs do not get better with time. Which apparently the Koreans do not quite get. You will hear the same songs berating your ear drums day in and day out. I think I moved to Clear Channel heaven. If only they could get this type of play time and air space they would complete their awful and horrible plans of destroying the minds of America on bad song on repeat at time. Yet, in the name of all fairness, and because I think some of you actually want to share in the pain I live with here are some of the greatest "hits" of Korean music.

2NE1 with Big Bang: This song just happened to coincide with a new cell phone release called the Lollipop. Needless to say this music video was also the commercial. Hey at least they multi-tasked.




Girls Generation: Besides the rampant Mannequin vibe (yeah the movie from the 80's where Kim Cattrall was a mannequin that came to life and fell in love with the window designer) there are actually 9 members to this girl group. No those weren't all back up dancers in this video, there are actually 9 of them.




Super Junior: Great name huh. This song is the current bane of my existence because every time a student says "sorry" to me the can't help but break into the chorus of this wonderful song. After the hundredth time it gets really annoying. The other thing is this is the largest Boy Band in the world. There are 13 members. I mean come on, 9 members was pushing it, but 13.



TVXQ: This song is huge currently. It is impossible not to hear it anytime you go to a bar, club, or just get into a car with a Korean.



After School: Are the girl groups all starting to look and sound the same yet? Good that's partially the point.



Kara: I figure I should go out with Drew's favorite musical group in Korea. I don't know why he likes this band so much, but he has actually been known to not only sing the songs, but be happy when he goes to their concerts. This band is huge right now in Korea. They also butcher the English language when they choose to use it. Recently their hits have included the lyrics " If you wanna pretty, every wanna pretty" and "Rock U Body Say." Need I say more. In fact for further torture I will include two videos from them, one with English subtitles.