K-pop is the modern way for South Korea to express national pride internationally and domestically, which would not be possible without Korea’s colonial past and the history of the music that came before K-pop. Music has been used in the past to push nationalistic sentiment, especially from the government, which is why the tradition of gaining pride from its popular music continues today in K-pop.
In Maliangkay’s paper, he argues that the Japanese could not fully control the music industry if they wanted Koreans to consume media, so the Japanese produced music that would appeal to both audiences, which allowed Korean artists to record Korean music (2007: 54). This was one place that Koreans could do something that was not totally Japanese because it was Korean music performed by Koreans, but the Japanese began to view Korean traditional music as nationalistic in 1930, and censorship of it became rampant (Maliangkay 2007: 62). Whether or not it was meant to be nationalistic, music during this time connected Koreans to their culture in some way and let Koreans enjoy something that was not 100% Japanese, which was threatening to the Japanese.
After the end of Japanese colonialism in Korea, the Korean leaders wanted to wash away all Japanese influence, and this was done through nationalism. Son discusses how the leaders of South Korea in the 1950’s and 60’s pushed the sentiment that Korea needed a new national identity, they “needed pure Koreanness in their culture,” and one way to get that was by “manipulating popular music production in those years” by banning music with the excuse that a song was not nationalistic, and during that time, some big teuroteu (trot) hits were banned because of similarities to Japanese music, and overtime teuroteu (trot) became seen as something Japanese, not Korean (2006: 58). It was transformed to be more “Korean” like performers wearing traditional hanbok, because music has cultural significance and power to change people’s thoughts and attitudes that making it more Korean was worth the time and effort instead of just going a different route musically.
Even rock became patriotic in the early 2000’s when a rock band played the national anthem; Rock “invoked traditional folk song and even the national anthem—primary music to evoke a collective national spirit” (Son 2012: 60).
A more recent example of Korean popular music being nationalistic is ballads. Ballads and dance music are seen as the mother and father of K-pop, and ballads were the contemporary way for Koreans to express “Koreanness” in the 80’s and 90’s (Jung 2011: 88). Ballads embodied common experiences and feelings of Koreans to an extent that the genre became extremely popular among Koreans in South Korea (Jung 2011: 87-89).
All of this history and nationalism being expressed with or through music in Korea is how K-pop became what it is today. It is the new modern way of expression of “Koreanness” even if the lyrics do not speak on society. K-pop can invoke a sense of common national pride that something done by Koreans is so well loved. K-pop might not seem inherently Korean beyond the lyrics being in Korean, but it could not exist today without the push to have something made by Koreans fully.
This post is so wonderfully well-written, great job! I really love that you mentioned how everyone basically turned their backs on trot music back in the day for being “too Japanese”, I think it is a really good example of how far people were willing to go to become more nationalistic. I mean who can blame them though, right? After decades of colonization I would not want anything to do with ANYTHING that so much as reminded me of the atrocities in the past. I also really enjoyed the mentioning of ballads and dance music as being nationalistic and a way of expression of “Korean-ness”, I think by including that you really were able to show most of the spectrum of music genres and their importance towards moving towards a more music that is “inherently korean”.
I really like how your paper focused on the way that music in Korea was very connected to nationalism and the reasons why certain music was perceived as nationalistic as opposed to others. I thought it was a great point that you brought up how when trot was seen as more Japanese, the visuals of the performance were then changed to performers wearing hanboks, to seem more Korean. I think that totally embodies the idea that music isn't just something purely audible, but is definitely something visual and even just the visuals can change the way we perceive and think about music. It was also very clear in this example that music has that ability to form certain ideas and images in the heads of listeners everywhere.
I really liked reading this paper and how it was set up! I liked how you didn't focus on one decade and covered many different decades. It is interesting to note that the decades that Korean music became nationalistic is when music within the USA had begun to become outspoken about the government while also there being patriotic music released as well. Music does tell stories. After Japan colonialism, Korea wanted to go back to having "Korean" music but I think that they should have moved forward but instead they moved back to the past with the performing in traditional wear. They could have done this because of the hardships of being under the Japanese, they probably wanted to go back to the safety of the past and they know that the past is safe.
Anne, I liked how your paper covered eras of music from a nationalistic perspective. You had a lot of ground to cover, but I like how you emphasized the importance of ballad and trot music as Korean styles of music. I would say that nationalism, as it is found in these different music styles, brings Korean people together. A type of music that you did not mention was the tong gita music, which I think is important in terms of political protest in the Korean musical landscape. So not all of Korea's music has been nationalistic and patriotic.
Hi Anne! I really enjoyed your paper. It was a nice, concise summary of the implications Korea's history has had on the development of it's different types of popular music. I think it is good to remember that the Japanese desire to stomp out Korean traditional music led to the eventual emphasis on nationalistic "Korean" music. Without that I believe that the aspects of Korean music that make it uniquely Korean would not be as prominent within their current (and past) music styles. Among these styles, I like ballad in particular. It took me awhile to understand why it was always OSTs and ballads that lined up the digital charts and why if, most of the time, a kpop group had a song that was doing well on the digital charts it was usually a ballad. Coming to realize just how much the concepts of ballads are ingrained into Korean culture made it easier to understand. Now I know that obviously, if a large segment of a society can relate to enjoy a certain genre, of course it is going to be topping the digital charts (where most of society listens to their music).