Joo’s 5 international suggestions

Zero 7- UK- I had to give this band a plug regardless of whether or not it came from another country. A downtempo duo hailing from the UK, Zero 7 possesses one of the most easy to listen to discographies. They feature different vocalists from the UK, Denmark, Australia, and other countries, each of whom provide their own fitting accompaniment to Zero 7’s songs. For me, their albums are the perfect soundtrack to a mellow day of lazing around.

Yael Naim- French/Israel- Most people already know her for her song “New Soul” that was featured on the MacBook Air commercial. While many others probably haven’t looked into her other songs, Yael Naim has a diverse list of songs that can be as playful as “New Soul” or emotionally intensive with songs like “Shelcha” (previously linked in the blog). Her use of Hebrew for certain songs highlight the beauty of the language. The songs would definitely not be the same if they were sung in English. She also does a pretty interesting cover of Britney Spears’ “Toxic.”

PolyABC- Japan- This band provides an interesting example in its choice of language. Even though they originated and perform in Japan, they sing all of their songs in English, or more accurately broken English. English speakers and PolyABC’s main audience alike will rarely understand what the singer is actually saying nor will they find it to make sense when do discover the lyrics. Instead, they provide a unique experience into alternative rock. With both male and female vocals and an integration of traditional and electronic instruments, PolyABC can add some much needed diversity in your indie rock playlist. The broken English can be adorable, in its own quirky sort of way.

Clazziquai- Korea- Clazziquai is one of those foreign bands that you wouldn’t feel awkward listening to around others even if they didn’t know a word of Korean. Their music can be described as a mixture of jazz, bossanova, house, with a bit of pop. Many will find their experimental songs to be quite catchy. Sooner or later you will be reciting nonsensical English lyrics along with them before realizing what you’re actually saying. They utilize both English and Korean and have already attained much attention internationally because of it.

Aisha Duo- Italy- It’s not really fair to use the Aisha Duo as a good example for international music because they are a strictly instrumental group (Classical music and other instrumental only groups have always seemed non-regional to me unless using ethnicity specific instruments). It can’t really be said that the duo’s musics sounds particularly Italian either. But after discovering them from the music samples Windows Vista gives with its new computers, Aisha Duo is the type of music I have always been looking for but could never find in the United States: elevator music. So if you ever need some music to play on your idle days of awkwardly looking everywhere except for the person 2 feet away from you, this may be the group for you.

-RJoo

Pictures can be attributed to various blogs from wordpress.com and blogger.com.

Korea’s outdated pop culture

I am pretty familiar with South Korea’s music and entertainment industry, and as much as I would like to boast about my heritage and its achievements, Korea’s music industry makes it quite difficult to do so.

Here is a Korean boy band from about ten years ago:

They are quite similar to N’Sync or the Backstreet Boys of America during the same time period. American culture has since dropped the boy band/girl group routine and has moved onto a more diverse musical landscape. Korea on the other hand…

This one of the top boy band’s in Korea today. They aren’t the only boy band around though, there is also 2PM, , Shinee, Super Junior and several others.

Am I ashamed that I actually know the name of these groups? Yes.

These boy bands  have attracted a huge amount of attention from Korean girls everywhere. With so many different groups set up for a different concept, it would be impossible for a girl not to take interest in at least one. One is set up to be the effeminate group while the other is known to be more manly. One group specializes in dancing while another focuses on singing. The entertainment companies play to garner the attention of  every teenage/middle-aged female who can’t get enough pretty boys to look at.

South Korea’s entertainment industry have capitalized on the Backstreet Boys appeal and have absolutely flooded the market with it.

(sigh)

Girl groups have been making a strong showing as well, attaining the powers that Destiny’s Child or the Spice Girls once had. Their list is quite extensive as well: Girl’s Generation, WonderGirls, KARA, and plenty of others. I myself am ashamed to admit to have fallen into the industry’s trap once. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

It seems as though, for Korea at least, music is no longer about the music anymore but rather an attempt to woo the entire nation.

-RJoo

Images can be attributed to various blogs from wordpress.com and blogspot.com

Do the lyrics really matter?

I never found lyrics to be very significant when listening to music. When it comes to leisurely enjoying harmonized noise, comprehension of literary meaning usually takes a back seat. Granted, any amount of musical genius probably wouldn’t make the lyrics of “Hotel Room Service” acceptable to listen to, but the use of a language in itself provides  a unique instrument to a musical piece regardless of what is actually being said.

For example:

Sigur Ros uses what they call Vonlenska, or Hopelandic in English. By Wikipedia’s definition it is “a non-literal language, without fixed syntax, and differs from constructed languages that can be used for communication; it lacks grammar, word meaning, and even distinct words. Instead, it consists of emotive syllables and phonemes; in effect, Vonlenska uses the melodic and rhythmic elements of singing without the conceptual content of language.”

Instead of metaphors and rhymes, the quality of the singer’s voice is all that is needed to interpret  and enjoy the emotion behind the piece. This is why I think it’s interesting to look into the musical culture of other languages, and not just American English. I say American English because even British English provides a refreshing twist to America’s most conventional music styles.

Admittedly, I do have a bias against Asian cultures due to my own heritage, but I find that the Korean and Japanese languages have a more soothing flow to their language compared to America’s hard syllables. (Chinese, I find difficult to listen to because of the strong dependency of its tonal qualities to the words meaning) All other languages have provided their own unique feel to music. The  romantic accent of the French is easily transferred to their music just as Hebrew provides it’s own unique feel.

I don’t doubt that there is deep meaning to certain songs and I am not looking down upon the fact that you may listen to music only in English, or your other native language (I assume that most of the readers have English as their dominant language). I take pleasure in indulging in my favorite band’s subculture and finding true meaning behinds certain idol’s words just as the next guy, but how many times have you heard your friends completely destroy the lyrics to even the greatest of sing-a-longs like “American Pie” or “Hey Jude.”  In terms of simplistic enjoyment of music for music, harmonic quality takes precedence over the lyrical meanings (which, unfortunately, may explain the quality of pop music in America these days).

So why not take a chance at some music from abroad?

-RJoo

Pictures can be attributed to various blogs from wordpress.com

All videos are from Youtube.com.