When moving to another country, it’s important to try many new things and fully immerse yourself in the culture. The number of new experiences you get within the first months will prove invaluable to your adaptation. That being said, even the most culturally open people will feel a little homesick. In August, I will have lived in South Korea for ten years, and has the time flown! But as the cherry blossoms start to fall, I’m reminded of what made me love this country, and how I had to adapt. It may be best tied to an album by a three-piece pop band of busking young men from a university in Cheonan, South Korea. This is my story with Busker Busker.
DO YOU LIKE THE LULLABY REACHING YOUR EARS AT NIGHT? I first heard Busker Busker a year after “Cherry Blossom Ending” was released. At the time that I heard the song, it was quite different from what I knew as K-pop. It was the early 2010s and electro-pop was king. College had me starting to enjoy the pop music of the late ’00s and early ’10s. Once I got past my judgment of Lady Gaga and saw what she was doing as an ironic pop star, I started to enjoy the worldly sounds of pop music. But when I came to Korea under the impression of being a missionary, I was trying to shed the sounds of the world. My musical diet was still very much alternative rock, and that style seemed to be absent from Korea. Sure, I could find elements of familiarity in SHINEE, Taeyang, and PSY, but nothing really sounded like music that I could listen to for fun on my own. But Busker Busker offered a French-riviera sounding pop-rock that didn’t sound derivative of a band I knew but familiar enough to enjoy as an album experience. One particular aspect that I liked about Busker Busker’s debut was the lack of English in the lyrics. Unlike K-pop groups aiming for international success and even fellow rock bands like NELL, Busker Busker recorded the album purely in Korean. With only one hiccup on the record–“Ideal Type“–Busker Busker became one of my favorite albums that I listened to in 2013 and 2014. And it was that familiar sound in their debut album that fully introduced me to K-pop. I started to get an appreciation for the synthetic sound too. I started to see artistry in the dance pop. And ultimately, I realized that I could enjoy culture for what it is and it doesn’t mean that I have to forsake my own musical style. I can simply supplement it.
BTS covering “Cherry Blossom Ending”:
Jeong Bum June’s solo performance:
Check out my playlist 추천한 K-Pop Starter List on Spotify and Apple Music:
Mixtapemotions 