I express my confusion over at the Jukebox

[koganbot]

Not at all clear yet as to what I'm hearing when I listen to the new 2NE1 single. I express my confusion over at the Jukebox. Can't say I'm able to pick out the non-Western sounds the band are talking about in interviews* (trot, enka). Sounds like R&B-based dance-pop to me, but pushed into interestingly disparate melodic sections. But then, I'm not educated in Korean forms. Maybe you can help.

Watch on YouTube

*At allkpop and kpopstarz.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Frank, I've been reading some intriguing background on enka in a book I've been reading, Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon: A Geopolitical Prehistory of J-Pop by Michael K. Bourdaghs. The chapter on Misora Hibari, which I'm reading right now, is particularly fascinating. Among other things it discusses the post-war movement of Japanese music away from embracing a broader Asian context and toward a bi-polar world of Japan on one side and America on the other, other Asian cultural elements even being taken by way of the U.S., rather from the source.

Honestly, I'm not sure how far this would go in helping you understand the Korean music you are interested in, but I think you might find the book worth reading on its own terms, since it seems close to your concerns (even if the music it covers is pretty alien to you).

Rudipherous

[koganbot]

Thank you. The Denver Library has another book by Bourdaghs* but not that one. But Inter Library Loan usually comes through for me, though it sometimes takes a while.

*The Dawn That Never Comes: Shimakazi Tōson And Japanese Nationalism

More on a Korean connection to enka

[(Anonymous)]

Just read something of potential further interest to you, from the book I mentioned, during my lunch break:

"Koga's [sic] music is said to provide a paradigm of Japaneseness in music, but Kogan himself was raised in colonial Korea and acknowledged that he had developed his style around the songs he heard laborers sing there. Even Yamaori Tetsuo, the stalwart defender of Hibari's essential Japaneseness, acknowledges the ongoing debate over whether enka might not best be considered an essentially Korean, rather than Japanese, genre."

And so on.

Bourdaghs has a blog here, in case you were not curious enough to google: http://bourdaghs.com/

Rudipherous

Re: More on a Korean connection to enka

[(Anonymous)]

oops, I did slip up and make Koga into Kogan. It's Koga Masao.

Re: More on a Korean connection to enka

[(Anonymous)]

Or better: http://bourdaghs.com/blog/

Re: More on a Korean connection to enka

[koganbot]

Ah, I see he's a Kinks fan!