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Music from Korea - second country introduction for MusicWorld

Last week we started this series to introduce Music from around the world with France - hope you enjoyed it as I did. With this series we try to cover nearly every country maybe once or twice by introducing some typical local music style, acts as well as highlighting background and history of these musicworld areas. Today we cover a beautiful country in Asia - South Korea!

South Korea and its music - What do you know about it?

Music in South Korea has evolved since the end of the Korean War. Roots are from the entire Korean people (North and South) who live on the Korean peninsula since over thousand years. It is not easy to segment it, the two main ones are:

1 - Traditional Korean Folk
2 - K-Pop

1 - K-pop

K-pop is the Korean or even Asian version of Pop Music - it is extremely popular in Korea and other sourrounding countries. Although it refers to South Korean popular music, it is also considered to be an entertainment genre that included nearly anything in performing art, combining the entire spectrum of musical and visual elements. In Europe some music experts define it as a "fusion of synthesized music, sharp dance routines and fashionable, colorful outfits." (Source: Wikipedia).

K-pop as the modern form of South Korean pop music incorporates many elements of the Western world pop, rock, experimental, Soul, Latin, Jazz and Dance (EDM / Techno).

Today's K-pop "idol" culture started with some boy bands, one is H.O.T. founded in 1996. With them the genre was growing as subculture and fascinated young adults mainly. It even entered Japan and became popular across the continent as well as in South america, India, Middle East and the North of Africa.

I am pretty sure Europe will soon start having some of them in their local charts too. For now most Europeans' knowledge of South Korean music ends at Gangnam Style from 2012 (which is below too) - but that was only the beginning and the genre is taking root among music fans around the world.

Check some very popular acts in the following:

2 - Traditional Folk Music

In the 15th century the first Korean music was invented according to historians. It was under the Lee kings when this traditional music came to its heights. In the early 20th century when Japan was annexing Korea the local msuic was surpressed (1905-1945) and reawakened after world war 2 with folk and patriotic music. After the split of the country also the music approached eveloped in different ways. Korean traditional music consists of classical and folk. The main types of classical Korean music include aak, hyangak and dangak. The main Folk genres are sanjo, pansori and nongak.

What country is next?

I am happy to receive your suggestions and general feedback then. What country you want to read about and listen to in the next edition?