Korean Pop, Away From The Hit Factories
Leenalchi's first album is about a turtle.
More specifically, a turtle in search of a rabbit's liver — the only antidote for the turtle's ailing emperor. This story is legendary in Korean history, spoken and sung across centuries, with the earliest written record dating back a millennia. Leenalchi, a band named after a famous singer in 19th-century Korea, re-tells this epic in a recently released album, Sugungga, using a fascinating mix of sounds that some glorify as "the real" K-pop.
The term "K-pop" is most often used to denote a subset of Korean music: idol songs. These would include "idols" like BTS, Blackpink, GOT7 and hundreds of other acts, produced in studio systems which train prospective stars extensively in vocals, dance, even foreign language, often years before debut. Idol music is varied, but generally catchy and slick and infused with a cacophony of influences — hip-hop, rock, Latinx roots music, techno — from all over the
