If the first video of Korean music from our trip to Seoul is high-brow, then this second one is certainly low-brow! I shot this just in front of our hotel.
These two guys were performing on the street outside a supermarket as part of a Re-Opening party. Not sure how to describe the music, a kind of electro/enka/karaoke, but it was fun.
I have to say that the drummer was not at all representative of the beauty and elegance of Korean women!
Our hotel was not in a tourist area, rather the kind of neighborhood the Japanese would call "shitamachi". Most businesses in the area were selling used cars, used car parts, car customizing parts etc.
haha, they are awesome!
ReplyDeleteI occasionally run across skit comedy on Korean TV where men dress in drag. I loved Monty Python as a kid (still do, actually) but as an American I guess I always thought it was an easy way to get a laugh ... but it's actually more complicated than a just another drummer trying to get people to look at him, haha.
ReplyDeleteThe real explanation is (probably) that what they are performing is an old style of music called "trot." I usually only hear it when I'm riding in a taxi late at night with a driver who might have been a teenager at the time the Armistice was signed. Despite the funny clothes and the antics of the drummer, some older Koreans have some nostalgic affection for this pop music genre, but most others who are younger (especially here in the big city) find it quaint and over-the-top melodrama.
Modern American singers would likely have a hard time singing Patsy Cline or Rosemary Clooney without an ironic wink in the voice. Actually, what you heard here is likely the local equivalent of what we call “country and western”back where I call home. City people make fun of it, unless you are city people who came to the city from the country …