Month: April 2009

Resource: Hong Kong pop website

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Again, a great web resource on Hong Kong pop music, called “Hong Kong pop style: English style”. Run by Phil Benson and Alice Chik and supported by Hong Kong Institute of Education, this website is full of resources (interviews and links among others).

http://home.ied.edu.hk/~hkpop/music/index.html

Some words from those who run the website:

‘Hong Kong pop: English style’ is a project on the history of popular music performed in English by Hong Kong artists from 1960 up to today. We began the project in summer 2006 and plan produce a book by the end of 2008. For now we have this website to keep you up to date with the project and to archive digital images of pop memorabilia. If you think you can help us to preserve an important slice of Hong Kong’s history, please let us know.

Resource: Thai music website

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I was informed of this interesting website, called “Montakplengthai”, about thai popular music (actually, it was a while ago, but I could (did) not open the email somehow. This website (blog), run by Peter Doolan, has a great collection of thai pop old and new, and very well maintained with good quality sound clips. You should check out and I think even some thai colleagues here might appreciate.

http://monrakplengthai.blogspot.com/

Here are some words from the blogger:

enchanting songs of thailand
collection of great music by thai people; ลูกทุ่ง (luk thung), ลูกกรุง (luk krung), หมอลำ (molam), various folk styles & others. most of these are taken from tapes that i found either in thailand or at home, in america. quality should be pretty good (unless stated otherwise). transliteration done using the royal thai general system of transcription. any feedback is appreciated!

Korea Goes Pop by Mark Russell

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A book about Korean pop culture by Mark Russel; Pop Goes Korea : Behind the Revolution in Movies, Music, and Internet Culture (Stone Bridge Press (January 1, 2009).

Contents

Introduction

Korean History: A Primer / Modern Pop Culture / A Note on Korean Language / Acknowledgement

1. The Deal
Saving the Cinema / CJ Entertainment / A Per-History / The Foundation / Making Movies / The Rise of the Multiplex

2. The Blockbuster
Getting Started / First Steps / A Commercial Revolution / Just a Fluke? / Building a Bigger / Blockbuster / A Culture of Hits

3. The Film Festival
Preceding PIFF / Finding a Patron / The First PIFF / From Film Fans to Film Making

4. The Actor and the TV drama
French, Religion, and Other Whims / Making Airwaves-TV Begins in Korea / Trying Out / Out of the Flying Pam / Stepping Up

5. The Music Mogul
Schoolhouse Rock / Living in America / Prelude to a Revolution / The Rise of SM Entertainment

6. The Music Thieve
Cyber Simmering / Let the Sea Make a Noise / Free as a Bird / Going Legit

7. Thin Black Line
Early Cartoons / The Modern Comic Book Era / The Animation Divide / Comic in Internet Age / Artistic License

Conclusion
Waving Goodbye / Pop Goes the World

Index

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Although the book is not academic in a narrow sense and the parts about pop music is about two or so, you can get rich information about what is going on Korean cultural industries. A review of the book by the publisher is here, where an interesting remarkis found: “It avoids two dangers:  it does not follow tabloid rumor mills, and it also avoids the impenetrable jargon that has come to dominate ‘culture studies.’  This is a book one can read with great interest.”

About the author’s blog, http://www.koreapopwars.com/.

(Joon/Sjon)