Music

Gangnam Style is about the silliness of South Korea’s nouveau riche; Gentleman is (more or less) about the silliness of assholes.

This is the best of KPOP: incredibly simple, incredibly fast, incredibly repetitive, incredibly catchy. All South Korea will be playing this song from every storefront and every television and every smartphone around the clock for the next six months, long after the rest of the world has lost interest; nonetheless, Psy is no one-hit wonder.

I didn’t know it, but apparently jazz is seeing its star rising on the peninsula. Not that bland Kenny G kinda “jazz”, but the good ol’ traditional stuff. There were over 100 jazz offerings released in Korea in 2012 alone.

I interviewed jazz singer-songwriter Jumi Lee in the latest issue of Haps about her music and jazz in Korea.

Among other things, I was curious why she chose to sing only in English, a language she scarcely speaks, on her debut CD The Rising Sun. Her response was interesting:

If you haven’t heard already, I’m chairman of the Irish Association of Korea, and every year around this time we organise a small get together. You might have heard of it, we call it Saint Patrick’s Day.

I won’t blether on too much about it as my brain is exhausted at the simplest mention of the event, however give this link a click and you’ll find all the info you need about the event.