1. “Antifreeze”,  The Black Skirts, 201(2008), Korea, Modern Rock
2. “月亮 代表 我 的 心” (The Moon Represents My Heart), 鄧麗君 (Teresa Teng), Love in Hong Kong (香港之恋), 1977, Taiwan, Pop
3. “Plastic Love 竹内 まりや” , Mariya Takeuchi, Variety(1984), Japan, City Pop
4. “Tiger is Coming,” LeeNalchi and Ambiguous Dance Company, Sugunga (2020), Korea Pansori
5. “Become Lighthearted”, Kim Duk Soo Samulnori Band, Shin-Modeum, Korea, Korean Traditional Symphony.
6. “뱃노래 (A Boatman’s Song)”, YB, Why Be?(2006), Korea, Rock/Min-yo
7. “Wavin’ Flag”, K’NAAN, Wavin’ Flag(2009), Somalia/Canada, Hip Hop
8. “Are You Listening”, Artists United for Haiti,  Are You Listening(2010), Haiti, Gospel, ballad.
9. “행복의 나라로 ( To a World of Happiness)“, Han Dae-Soo,  A Long, Long Way(1974), Korea, Folk/Folk rock
10. “Wrap You Up”, Long Shen Dao, Wrap You Up(2011), China, Reggae

In the era of globalization, the hybridization of music has become fairly easy to generate and consume. The artists can reference numerous musical genres and instruments for their own creations, and music consumers can easily try out the works of those artists online. Genres are no longer strict boundaries, but more like malleable guidelines that artists could conform to. The result of this trend is an abundance of hybrid music that rejects to be defined as a ‘pure’ form of music. My playlist contains 10 songs of hybrid music that speak of love and happiness in its lyrics. In other words, my playlist will exhibit how love, happiness, and hope can be expressed in various musical genres and methods. 

The first three songs are each from Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, each expressing love in different languages. The first track, “Antifreeze” is a song by The Black Skirts, a one-man band consisting of Hu-il Cho, which translates to Holiday when spoken in English. His ‘other’ name is Bryan Cho, as he is actually a US national who was born in New York. When this album was ranked 73rd in the “Top 100 Korean Music Albums of All-Time,”  the Korean pundits commented that the song contained the “carefreeness of New York funk” and the “sweet melodies of modern rock.” In many ways, Bryan is an embodiment of hybridity, someone who has successfully fused his American upbringing with Korean lyrics and style. The next song is 月亮 代表 我 的 心” (The Moon Represents My Heart), an original soundtrack for the movie Comrades: Almost a Love Story. When watching the movie, this song was so embedded in my mind that I had to search for it and all of its covers after watching the movie. I always put an emphasis on a song’s lyrics because I believe the largest portion of a song’s emotions can only be translated through understanding the lyrics. In that sense, I love the lyrics of the song for being concise yet unique. It also resonates with a global audience, because it is a classic Hong Kong movie and somewhat of an icon. When the lyrics fully blend in with the tunes, melody, and mise-en-scene, I can finally warp into the world that the songwriter has created for me. For the final song, I have “Plastic Love.” Many consider its genre to be ‘City Pop,’ a mix of a variety of genres such as fusion jazz, acid jazz, and synth-pop. But it’s unique to Japan, as it entails a rich cultural background of the cosmopolitan Japanese society during its bubble economy in the 1980s. During this era, with the prospering economy, the Japanese music industry faced a great elevation in the levels of musical production. The best way to describe the genre is that city pop music evokes the elegant cheeriness of  a night in Tokyo. Take yourself to the streets of Tokyo in the 1980s with blaring neon lights and a golden horde of people. This is a very unique hybrid genre in which the introduction of western instruments and production methods came to blend in with the socioeconomic conditions at the time.  

The next three songs are more specifically selected to explore the variety of hybrid music in Korea. Korean music is oftentimes reduced into a K-Pop which can be seen as a ‘copycat’ genre of western music. These songs are examples of traditional Korean music (with a modern twist) that will serve in defence against those claims. The genre of “Tiger is Coming” is pansori, which is a traditional Korean folk music genre that involves the narration of a story along with some percussion called buk (Korean traditional drum). This is a very festive song about a tiger coming down from the mountains because someone mistakenly called a tiger instead of a rabbit. In contrast to the fearful lyrics, the narrator presents the song with rhythmic and funky instrumentals. The singer LeeNalchi is a contemporary band that fuses pansori with more funk and pop sounds. As you can clearly infer from the music video, the band uses modern rock-band style instruments. Yet the vocalists are called sori-ggun, which can be translated as the makers of sound. This is a term used specifically in the genre, to represent their role of weaving sounds out of a story. The band collaborated with Ambiguous Dance Company which also interprets the sounds in a modern way and expresses them in a funky, street dance style. The fifth track adapts the traditional Korean symphony samulnori, which means the “play of 4 objects,” each referring to the 4 different types of drums. As we learned about salsa in class,, each type of drum is made uniquely to express a certain range of sound (Jing, Janggu, Kkeonggari, and buk). The title Shin-Modeum comes from a Korean word to enjoy life and play around. It originated from Korean farmers who used this type of music to release their physical stress from hard labor and enjoy their lives. Indeed, the music is fast-paced and mesmerizing in a way that really excites me whenever I listen to it. The 6th track, translated to a “Boatman’s Song” is a remix of a Min-yo, a traditional genre in Korea that normal people sang in their everyday lives. This song was specifically sung by fishermen who would have to spend long days on the sea for work. YB includes the funkiness of the melody in their rock arrangement and energetic vocals. All three tracks are exciting and rhythmical syntheses of genres that speak of a hedonistic lifestyle in traditional Korea.

The final four tracks are more global songs that capture the subject of happiness in their lyrics. Beginning with track number seven, many people mistakenly think of “Wavin’ Flag” as the official anthem for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Originally, the lyrics of the song contain hopes of ending the civil war and poverty in the artist K’Naan’s home country Somalia. This is the more famous version of the song, the Coca Cola remix, which was re-created as a marketing scheme for the company. In regards to both versions of the song, they are consistent in that they try to spread happiness and hope among the listeners. For the next track, Vocalist Kirk Franklin gathered many fellow artists including Shaun Martin and James “Jazzy” Jordan, the executive vice president/GM of Verity Gospel Music Group to dedicate their song to the Haitian people devastated by the earthquake. Their single “Are You Listening” represents the goodwill of the Christian communities supporting the Haitian people and their collective efforts for recovery from the 2009 earthquake. They also used this music project to raise much-needed funds for Haiti. In the following track, Han Dae-soo sings about hope in an arid environment of 1970s Korea. The 1970s were a very chaotic political period for Koreans, as president Park raged a coup over the government. As many dictators did, he employed very strict cultural restrictions. Many college students were imprisoned, tortured, and even killed by soldiers. And contemporary musicians were very active in publishing folk songs that indirectly criticized the government. Han was one of the most important figures in the folk music scene at the time. Titled as the “Only Hippie of Korea” or the Korean Bob Dylan, his first album A Long, Long Way (1974) shocked the listeners with the grotesque album cover and his other song “Give Me Some Water.” The album was banned and physical copies of the tape were destroyed by the government. The reason was that the lyrics of the song evoked images of water torture. This song alludes to a world of happiness and is characterized by bright lyrics and melody. Yet while seen along with the historical context, it documents a very dark past in Korea. It is also interesting to see how folk songs developed in a very Korean way and paved the road as a foundation of pop songs in Korea. Finally, Long Shen Dao blends in the tunes of traditional Reggae with the sounds of guzheng, a traditional Chinese string instrument. As many Reggae songs do, it speaks of happiness and hope, but through a rather unorthodox combination. 

Throughout the quarter, I was explored various theories and examples behind world music. My playlist tailored tracks represent hybridity and also themes of love and happiness. As I delve into different types of music, I realize that hybridity is more widespread than I had known before and is more intricate than I had expected. It is always an exciting process to discover new music that possesses interesting origins.

Jimin is a fourth year in the college majoring in Computational and Applied Math and Economics. He loves listening to old Korean songs, and enjoys playing soccer in his free time.