Popular Music
==Popular music==
Many Korean pop stars and groups are well known throughout East Asia and Southeast Asia. K-pop often features young performers. In the 1970s and 1980s many musicians appeared, such as Cho Yong Pil, a renowned musician from that period. He used many sources such as the synthesizer. Among his influence, he is well known for popularizing rock music.
The emergence of the group Seo Taiji and Boys in 1992 marked a turning point for Korean popular music, by incorporating elements of American popular musical genres of the 1990s. To illustrate, their popularity was based on innovative hybridization of music as they creatively mixed the genres like rap, soul, raock and roll. techno, punk, hardcore and even ppongjjak, and invented a unique musical form which 'employs rap only during the verses, singing choruses in a pop style' with dynamic dance movements. They showed how Korean rap would sound. Consequently, Seo Taiji and Boys expanded the scope of K-pop.
Popular artists who diverge from the K-pop sound include solo singers BoA, Lee Hyori, Rain (a.k.a. 'Bi' in Korea), rapper PSY, boy bands H.O.T, Shinhwa, TVXQ, Super Junior, BIGBANG, SHINee, 2PM, B1A4, EXO, F.T. Island, 2AM, CNBLUE, MBLAQ, SS501, Beast, U-Kiss, Infinite, Choshinsung, and girl groups Girls' Generation, 2NE1, Kara, Brown Eyed Girls, 4minute, After School, Wonder Girls, f(x), Miss A, Rainbow, Davichi, and many other artists. South Korea is also home to its own form of hip hop artists, including MC Mong, Epik High, Dynamic Duo, B.A.P. For that reason, BoA was awarded the title of Goodwill Ambassador, and has since contributed to restoring the good relations between Japan and South Korea. This sometimes leads the artists to debut in the other countries and stay active.
Some songs from popular groups formed dance crazes, such as "Mirotic" by TVXQ, "Sorry Sorry" and "Bonamana" by Super Junior, "Tell Me" and "Nobody" by the Wonder Girls, "Fire" and "I Am the Best" by 2NE1, "Fantastic Baby" by BIGBANG, "Sherlock" by SHINee, "Gee" by Girls' Generation, "Nu ABO" by f(x), "BTD by Infinite, "Beautiful Target" by B1A4 and "Gangnam Style" by PSY. These dance crazes would often spread quickly throughout Asia, inspiring many people to imitate them in talk shows, commercials, and even political campaigns. Because of their addictive sound and inspired dance crazes, some of these songs have subsequently won musical awards, such as the "Song of the Year".
K-Pop is a particularly catchy and calculating strain of Korean popular music that somehow manages to simultaneously sound like just about every contemporary musical genre, a conflation of the various strains of electronic dance music, mostly trance, electro, and dubstep arranged in conventional pop song structure. In addition to taking off in Asia in a big way, K-Pop has found some popularity in the United States, more as a subculture than as a bona fide phenomenon in the west.
In addition, there is also traditional Korean pop music, or trot. Appealing to older Koreans, there are many popular singers, including Tae Jin Ah, Na Hoon-a and Song Dae Kwan, mainly in their 50s and 60s, if not older. However, it has recently experienced a resurgence due to the popularity of Jang Yoon Jeong, a young semi-trot star who had a breakout hit with "Omona."
Read more about this topic: South Korean Society
Famous quotes containing the words popular and/or music:
“The poet needs a ground in popular tradition on which he may work, and which, again, may restrain his art within the due temperance. It holds him to the people, supplies a foundation for his edifice; and, in furnishing so much work done to his hand, leaves him at leisure, and in full strength for the audacities of his imagination.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The train was crammed, the heat stifling. We feel out of sorts, but do not quite know if we are hungry or drowsy. But when we have fed and slept, life will regain its looks, and the American instruments will make music in the merry cafe described by our friend Lange. And then, sometime later, we die.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)