Part V – Busker Busker
This one is a
little near and dear to my heart as the only way I could have rooted for these
guys more, is if I were from Cheonan. The real hallmark of Busker Busker is
that they exposed the K-pop world to something that wasn’t K-pop and nearly
beat them at their own game.
It all began
with frontman Beom-jun’s vision of a collective of street artists, amply named…
“Pinky Pinky”? Wait, what? The Sangmyung University students grew in numbers until
they were joined by their English Professor, Brad, who then said “I got a
better name for this” and they were henceforth known as “Busker Busker”.
The collective decided
to audition for the Korean version of American Idol, Superstart K. That season,
the producer had decided to audition pre-existing groups as well as soloists
and they jumped at the chance to give their group a national stage to perform
on. Only three managed to make the audition.
The group caught
the country’s attention and admiration with their rendition of SHINee’s “Juliette”,
with the group Two-gye Wol. Despite the large part Busker Busker played in the
arrangement and performance, and the out and out screwing up of the male half
of the other group, Busker Busker was eliminated off of this performance, which
had nothing to with Two-gye Wol having the only pretty girl in the competition.
Sorry, the live version is unavailable to post here.
Another band
broke the cone of silence and saw that they were being trashed by online groups
and quit the competition, allowing the re-entrance of two groups, including
them and Haze. It quickly became a race for second place as Ulala Session had
everything going for them, other than looks. They were fun, wrote their own
music, did their own choreography, had a sad backstory and were only held back
by their lack of hotness. One of the four was often away during the competition
for chemotherapy and he’d still come back and rock the stage with the others.
He has since passed away, but leaves this legacy behind: they used the show to
prove talent will rise. Two samples of their work: Swing (Skip to 2:00) and Western Sky (The second with subs, and you can get the preamble as to why they chose it, and then get why it made people cry when they sang it)
Back to Busker
Busker, they were constantly dogged by the judges, specifically the two male
judges, who refused to take them seriously as musicians, as they were neither
pretty or flashy. They proved them all wrong with several solid performances,
including “Makeolina”, "Dream Girl" and the self written “Seoul People”.
The competition
was over, but the head judge, Lee Seungcheol continued to bad-mouth them in the
press, saying they were turning their backs on their fans by writing music
instead of touring the rehashed songs they performed with the other Superstar K
Top 11. They wrote their album, recorded it, and topped the charts for over a
month with each and every track from the album. Not just a couple of singles, Every. Damn. Song.
First Love:
The Flowers:
With the rise of
Busker Busker, and to a certain extent Ulala Session, the cookie-cutter
convention had been kicked to the curb. Koreans had suddenly decided that
originality was worthy of recognition and that looks didn’t trump talent.
Then “Gangnam
Style” happened.
Oh well…
For links to all the articles in the series so far, check out the list in the original post: http://sunnysmartshoppingkorea.blogspot.kr/2013/06/more-than-just-k-pop.html
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