K-pop and K-rock timeline / A brief look at 3.5 years of Korean music

I bought plenty of music while living in Korea - something like 100 albums of Korean rock and pop. All of which has been shipped back by now. Packing the big Kpop albums into the EMS boxes brought forth memory after memory. I never danced to Kpop in any clubs, but the sounds blasted out of the stereo and the headphones often enough in the early days here. Those incessant beats and hooks still grab me. The Wasu apartment had posters from the Wonder Girls, KARA, and Secret on the walls. A friend once (correctly) called it a "teenybopper's room." And though I felt a twinge of embarrassment at being called a 26 year old teenybopper, the posters evoked the same sense of home that I had in the US when posters of The Ramones and The Who graced the walls.

Kpop gave way to Krock in the end because A) I've always liked rock more and B) Kpop's candied sounds get annoying after 40 minutes. The rock allowed me to indulge my inner historian and go on a journey through Korea's past. I did find plenty of pop in there, but it was pop of a different sort, for it had real people playing real instruments and only one vocalist at a time. The rock and pop mingled together in the late 60s and early 70s anyway. Shin Joong-hyun played on many of those records and he always threw in some tasteful solos. Sometimes the two genres merged in format: Sanulrim who started out playing '60s garage pop at '70s song lengths in 1978. See some more stuff about the group and their debut LP here.

It's end of the working day here. Apologies for cutting it short.

The timeline of music posts here:

16 February 2015 - Sanulrim's 1st LP.
4 June 2014 - Guitar Fridays [Sanulrim's "Reflection"]

• Mostly about playing guitar with the students. Included for Sanulrim's song.

8 Jan 2014 - Classic Korean Pop Music Archive: Deulgukhwa / Deulgukhwa 1st Album (1985)

• A reblog from Classic Korean Pop Music Archive that has a short biography and review of the group and their 1st album. Special thanks to a friend of R's for recommending Deulgukhwa.

11 August 2013 - Review of Crying Nut's Flaming Nuts

8 July 2013 - Catch up on Kpop?

19 April 2013 - Kpop playlist #2 [Investing in Polyurethane Discs]
21 February 2013 - Krock 4: Jang Ki-ha and the Faces
20 February 2013 - Krock: Shin Joong-hyun and Yup Juns - Volume 2
20 February 2013 - Krock: Shin Joong-hyun and the Yup Juns - Volume 1
25 Jan 2013 - Classic rocker Shin Joong-hyun
25 December 2012 - A semi-white Christmas in Wasu

• Featuring music from J-Rabbit. Their Christmas album's soothing. It also has a cover of "All You Need is Love."

21 November 2012 - Ga-in's "Bloom" vs. Miss A's "I Don't Need a Man"

• Comparison piece between two Kpop songs.

21 August 2012 -  Krock 3: Busker Busker and more from Lowdown 30
21 August 2012 - Krock 2: The Black Skirts
31 July 2012 - 11 months in music...Kpop edition
31 July 2012 - 2NE1 and to everyone who loves to grooving Kpop

• R and I attended their concert in Seoul in summer of 2012. Quality show.

K-rock review: Sanulrim Vol. 1

Sanulrim's 1st LP (1978)

Sanulrim should've been written about sooner because I've played them more than any other Korean rock group as of late. Their swirling organs and fuzz guitar make an excellent combo. And what's above is true: Play track 1 side 1 of their 1st album, "Ah! Already?" below and hear for yourself:

The groove and melody attack immediately, eh? To me, the groups genius lies in how they took what would have been two-and-a-half minute singles and stretched them into longer '70s-style jams. What sounds like senseless indulgence and repetition isn't: The songs breathe. Maybe the band felt the same way because all of the songs on their debut run past the three minute mark. The tempos vary between ballad and uptempo, but the organs prevail.

Anyone who likes older pop and rock would enjoy these guys. Their first three albums got reissued as a combo package of CDs and SACDs recently, but I think it's gone out of print because it was a limited edition. Youtube has many of their songs though.

Despite the 1978 recording date, the production veers closer to 1966 due to the limitations of Korea's recording studios at the time. It sounds out of time because of

My Korean isn't good enough to understand everything in the lyrics, but most songs deal with pop topic mainstays like summer romances and unrequited love.

The blog Ghost Capital wrote about the group here.
A biography and review of their albums here.

Krock: Shin Joong-hyun and the Yup Juns - Volume 1

I mentioned that I'd write more about Shin Joong-hyun and his band the Yup Jeons. Shin's been called the "Godfather of Korean rock" and him and the group lay down some quality grooves together here. Here's the full review.

As with most things these days, it started with a Groove article about an upcoming Korean history book. It mentioned Shin Joong-hyun and his influence on Korean rock music. The article triggered the thought that for all the Kpop I buy and enjoy, rock and roll will always appeal more. Reading about him combined the two big passions of music, and so I did a bit of research on what records were out there. I bought the Volume 1 album without hearing a note of it. A description of the song "Beautiful Woman" and how the song got banned seemed like enough to go on.

I tracked down three albums from him and this group: Volume 1, Volume 2, and Instrumental Best. Of the trio, Volume 1's the best, but all 3 have their merits.

The Volume 1 LP's full of funky rocking grooves. From the opening "Beautiful Woman" to the Hendrix-style "Sunrise," it is 45 minutes of classic rock bliss. Actually, classic rock wouldn't accurately describe all the heavy funk bass lines and soulful singing. Think Isaac Hayes' album Hot Buttered Soul and you'll get close. As good as Shin's guitar work is, Lee Nam-i's bass and Kwan Young-nam's drumming shine as well. They make a good rhythm section here. "I Don't Know" rocks like any number of blaxploitation soundtrack songs and "Lady" rides a tense crescendo into a driving chorus a couple of times. 

The version I'm describing's actually a recent American reissue. It features expanded, all-English liner notes, and an LP-style jacket. The notes help explain the story of the record and what Shin was thinking when he recorded it. Much as I like the translations of the lyrics, the Korean lyrics would have been good to have, even if American listeners may not be able to read them. They'd certainly help with learning Korean.

Volume 1 didn't take off like the band expected, so the group ended up issuing a rerecorded version of it instead. It had more fuzz guitar overdubs and a different, flatter mix than the original issue The cover’s also different. All of the songs I've posted here have come from version two because version one can't be found on YouTube. The rerecorded version’s available for much cheaper in Korea than the original version, but the original has a fuller sound and better packaging. It also appeals to my record collector sensibilities, because I’m a sucker for the words reissue, limited release, and original mix. 

"미인" (Me-in "Beautiful Woman")

"나는 몰라" (Na neun mol la/"I Don't Know")

"긴긴 밤" ("Gin gin bam/"Long Long Night")

"설레임" (Seolleim/"Anticipation")

Link to a site about Shin Joong-hyun and the Yup Jeons