Korea In Rhythm With The Dance, 1987

[koganbot]

Kim Wan Sun, from 1987. It's not quite freestyle, but it's pretty close (closer than Madonna ever got, for instance). And it's pretty great. The same piercing passion.

Watch on YouTube

"리듬속의 그 춤을" is translated most often as "The Dance In The Rhythm." Google Translate gives us "In Rhythm With The Dance," which I like more, whether or not it's accurate.

If YouTube commenters are right, the track was written and produced by Shin Joong Hyun, who also provides the guitar solo; this is interesting in itself, since from last year's compilation I gather he was more a psychedelic and metal guy than a dance guy. Think of Jimmy Page producing the Cover Girls. [EDIT: The guitar solo on "The Dance In The Rhythm" is not by Shin Joong Hyun but by his son, Shin Daechul, of the band Sinawe. Did I just assume the solo was by producer Shin Joong Hyun, without checking, or did one of the YouTube commenters assume it, and I copied the assumption? (The original embed was killed by YouTube, the embed above is a replacement, so the YT comment thread I was reading is gone.]

Don't know where this music would have found itself in the sounds of South Korea circa 1987, since I barely know what those sounds were. If Wikipedia is right, K-pop didn't coalesce as a genre until the early '90s. But if "Roly-Poly" is right, South Korea was glomming off American disco and club sounds since the '70s. Could Shinsadong Tiger and SweeTune been listening to this song as tykes? (Tiger'd have been four when it came out.)

h/t G'old Korea Vinyl, who stream this and many other vintage tracks, and where I will be spending many hours.

Comments

Romanization follies

[koganbot]

I'm using two different systems of transliteration for the two names, Kim Wan Sun and Shin Joong Hyun. I just go with what whoever is writing the name gives us.

[koganbot]

Not that psychedelic and metal are never dance musics...

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Not really relevant to this particular post, Frank, but I thought you'd be interested to know that the big HMV store in Oxford Street in London is this month investing heavily in current K-Pop. They now have a one whole display case and a CD rack dedicated to the stuff.

Not that this necessarily amounts to a lot of material. Given that most of the CDs and DVDs come in deluxe packaging, there's only room for about 14 different artists and, say 20 different releases! And of course each CD only has about 5 songs on it. Which is the interesting thing: whereas HMV is otherwise rapidly contracting its music departments, stocking fewer and fewer CDs and music DVDs in all other genres (as they're not selling), K-Pop seems to be bucking the trend, producing these OTT artefacts for fans to collect. It will be interesting to see whether the newly bought-in stock sells and the trend continues.

[koganbot]

K-pop is spreading to the West via social media and illegal downloads; the industry was nearly destroyed in the mid '00s, but has been quite canny about rebuilding itself through a combination of cheap downloads and fan commitment. The mini-album (i.e., EP) is a big part of the process, ensuring that every act has an ongoing stream of releases and comebacks, etc. Each new recording is built up as an event.

Thanks for dropping by.

[koganbot]

Was wondering if you had any opinion on my call for an Armato & James Top 10? Among the many songs they've had a hand in writing are:

Jordan Pruitt "Boyfriend," "Love For A Day," "Always"

Aly & AJ "Chemicals React," "Greatest Time Of Year," "Not This Year," "Potential Breakup Song," "Bullseye," "Flattery," "Like Whoa," "Like It Or Leave It," "Division."

Miley Cyrus "See You Again," "Fly On The Wall"

[askbask.livejournal.com]

Great song.

Kim Wan Sun's still young

[koganbot]

Well, she's younger than I am, but old enough to have recorded her version of the lambada:

[Error: unknown template video]

I'm meh on "Be Quiet," but she's also featured on "Can Only Feel," one of the best songs on Clazzi's Infant, from early this year.

[Error: unknown template video]

And just last month she was featured on Yoon Jong Shin's "널 사랑해 오늘따라," which as a ballad is quite powerful.

[Error: unknown template video]

[askbask.livejournal.com]

I like those songs better as well, but liked the way she looks in Be Quiet.

[koganbot]

I see that she changed her given name from I Sun to Wan Sun, at least for performing purposes. I have no idea of the subtleties or ramifications of such a change, assuming there are any.

[davidfrazer.livejournal.com]

Kim Wan-Sun's name change was probably down to her Svengali of an aunt, who treated her as a puppet and didn't pay her anything for thirteen years.

After Kim's debut, Han controlled every last aspect of Kim's career. Han chose everything for her niece -- not only the songs and the dances, but also clothes, shoes, hairdo and makeup. At the end of each performance, Han stood Kim in a corner and berated her errors regardless of who was around. (The scolding was so intense that many people around them were convinced that Han was not Kim's real aunt.) Han even did Kim's interviews on her behalf. She also strictly forbade her niece from speaking with any fellow pop musician, men or women.

Inidentally, Be Quiet was co-produced by Shinsadong Tiger.

[koganbot]

Yikes! That's really sad, if true. I have no reason to believe it isn't true — but I have no reason to believe it is true, either, and the Korean (as he refers to himself on that blog) cites no sources. And a few brief forays into his other posts set my crap detector ringing for a five-alarm fire: for instance, his calling SNSD puppets while saying nothing about their music. (He did mention that SNSD copied old style dance moves, which is interesting, but would have been more interesting if he'd said what the moves were. He contrasted the girls' white t-shirts to the Wonder Girls' get-up, which is interesting too.) He also gave a ridiculous reason for never reading English-language books about Korea: he argues that when they're written by people who don't know Korean, this is an obvious defect; no doubt this is a defect, but then, there are books about Korea, in English, written by people who do know Korean. In fact some of them are by Koreans.

None of this means I get to discount the story he tells of Kim Wan Sun (and if he hadn't suggested it in his write-up, I probably wouldn't have considered that the way Kim Wan Sun presents herself, which looks tame by our standards, was daringly suggestive in Korea's '80s). And for all I know this is all well-known and verified many times over. But it is a story that fits too easily into the contempt he wants to maintain towards a method of production, which is why I'm suspicious. Not that I think he's making things up, but that he's ready to believe what corresponds to his expectations.

[arbitrary-greay.livejournal.com]

Kpop as we know it did not coalesce until Seo Taiji, and even then there was still a lot of Jpop influence, but the Korean music scene still had its music shows girlgroups. I found some of them last year, and as you can see, the Kim Sisters even had an appearance on American television.

[arbitrary-greay.livejournal.com]

And of course, the information sections of each video knows more than I do, as well as the fun of the related video sections.

[koganbot]

Here's the studio version of the Kim Jung Mi song you embedded:

[Error: unknown template video]

(Circa 1969. Or 1973. Seems to be another Shin Joong Hyun composition and production. Almost swipes the riff from "Satisfaction," though played on horns à la Otis Redding.)

[koganbot]

Here's the studio version of the Kim Jung Mi song you embedded:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwhndL2W28c

(Circa 1969. Or 1973. Seems to be another Shin Joong Hyun composition and production. Almost swipes the riff from "Satisfaction," though played on horns à la Otis Redding.)

[christophe andersen (from livejournal.com)]

I'm not really feeling this song but thanks for turning me onto G'old Korea Vinyl! I downloaded a bunch of the songs on Monday and it's completely changed my week. I can't stop playing the Han Yeong Ae song "Tuning". I also love the track with the laser beam tom toms. Wow.

[koganbot]

Going back to their earlier posts, I highly recommend Seoul Family's "So Now." Is 1987, but has a feel somewhat like classic Soul Train, but discofied. Sorta.