Trot is Hot: It's Not Just K-pop in South Korea

Fans of South Korean singer Lim Young-woong pose for photographs with banners bearing his name, before watching a movie featuring ‘trot’ singers including Lim Young-woong, at a theater in Gunpo, South Korea, October 22, 2020. (Reuters)
Fans of South Korean singer Lim Young-woong pose for photographs with banners bearing his name, before watching a movie featuring ‘trot’ singers including Lim Young-woong, at a theater in Gunpo, South Korea, October 22, 2020. (Reuters)
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Trot is Hot: It's Not Just K-pop in South Korea

Fans of South Korean singer Lim Young-woong pose for photographs with banners bearing his name, before watching a movie featuring ‘trot’ singers including Lim Young-woong, at a theater in Gunpo, South Korea, October 22, 2020. (Reuters)
Fans of South Korean singer Lim Young-woong pose for photographs with banners bearing his name, before watching a movie featuring ‘trot’ singers including Lim Young-woong, at a theater in Gunpo, South Korea, October 22, 2020. (Reuters)

In a film theater near Seoul, scores of middle-aged South Korean women in matching baby-blue T-shirts, hair bands and face masks inscribed with the word “Hero” are screaming, singing along and taking selfies.

They are some of the 135,000-member fan club of top male South Korean singer Lim Young-woong, gathering to watch “Mr. Trot: The Movie”, a movie featuring him and other singers who perform the country’s oldest form of popular music, commonly called trot.

Lim’s fan club is called “Age of Hero”, after the singer’s name which means hero in Korean.

Once ridiculed as music for grannies, trot is making a comeback and many South Koreans, mostly in their 40s and above, are cheering an alternative to K-pop idol music in one of the world’s fastest ageing societies.

K-pop is a multi-billion-dollar global music industry with bubbly bands like BTS and BLACKPINK enjoying huge fan bases outside South Korea.

But at home, trot signers performing old ballads have seen the biggest increase in fans, according to top portal website Daum that analyses growth rates of fan clubs and their social media activities.

“Our country is ageing, but it is hard to find songs that bring emotional empathy for the elderly population because the music is too idol-oriented” said Park Woo-jung, 54, a member of Age of Hero.

“But listening to Lim Young-woong, I find his voice beautiful and comforting,” said Park, wearing the sky-blue Hero mask. Lim’s new single topped online music charts earlier this month.

Although considered uncool by youngsters, trot music has a broad national following with a storied history of success going back before the birth of modern K-pop. The music’s melancholic lyrics of unrequited love or yearning played to a repetitive beat has resonated with babyboomers and retirees, the generation that helped build Asia’s fourth-largest economy.

Money and time
Today, fans of the genre have become an economic force to reckon with and many use their unlimited data plans to plug into streaming sites or vote for their favorite stars at awards, embracing ways of K-pop followers.

“Fandom of the middle-age and elderly is unconditional,” said Jung Duk Hyun, a pop culture columnist. “They have time to listen all day. They have money, and think their stars energize their life, then aggressively invest by buying and clicking.”

When Lim of Mr. Trot became the model for a Ssangyong Motor SUV this year, sales surged 63% in May and 98% in June compared to the vehicle’s monthly average sales between January and April this year, the carmaker said.

Song Jong-choon is a fan of trot singer Song Ga-in whose songs, he says, “heal his broken soul,” especially one about lost hometowns that remind him of the countryside home he left. He doesn’t hesitate a moment to support her career.

“We are old, and many of us are in 50s who have economic power, so normally don’t mind the spending. But, if you are a (K-pop) idol fan, you have to do a part-time job to buy a concert ticket.”

Song is head of Song Ga-in’s fan club “AGAIN” with 57,000 members and six regional chapters. The club has its own guide book to show how to subscribe to streaming sites, and click likes for her music videos.

The living room of his apartment is decorated with giant photos of the singer and merchandise in her signature pink ranging from aprons to cushions with the singer’s pictures.

Trot is unlikely to reach the global success of K-pop largely because of the language barrier, but fans believe their fandom as something special, treating their stars as if they are their own children.

“BTS has (its fanclub) ARMY but we are Mommies,” said Hwang Eun-jeong, a 52-year-old housewife and a member of Lim Young-woong’s fan club.



Brian Wilson's Top Five Beach Boys Songs

Musician Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys performs onstage at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards. KEVIN WINTER / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File
Musician Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys performs onstage at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards. KEVIN WINTER / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File
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Brian Wilson's Top Five Beach Boys Songs

Musician Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys performs onstage at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards. KEVIN WINTER / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File
Musician Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys performs onstage at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards. KEVIN WINTER / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File

From the carefree sound of California surf music to the sophistication of later darker works, here are five of the top hits penned by influential Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson.

'Surfin' USA' (1963)

"Surfin' USA" was the Beach Boys' first global hit, taken from their eponymous debut album. A youthful ode to sea, sun and girls, it became an anthem for the West Coast and beyond.

It demonstrated Brian Wilson's increasing songwriting prowess as well as the band's unique vocal sound achieved thanks to double tracking.

"We'll all be gone for the summer/ We're on safari to stay/ Tell the teacher we're surfin'/ Surfin' USA," it rang out.

Wilson intentionally set his lyrics to the music of "Sweet Little Sixteen," by Chuck Berry, leading Berry to take legal action.

'California Girls' (1965)

On the big hit of the summer of 1965, Wilson's cousin Mike Love burst into song to celebrate the sun-tanned women of California.

"I wish they all could be California girls," the band members sang in seemless harmony.

It was also the first song written by Wilson under the influence of LSD, "which could explain why the accompaniment seems to move in a slow, steady daze at odds with the song's bright, major-key melody," Rolling Stone magazine wrote.

'God Only Knows' (1966)

It took Wilson just 45 minutes to write "God Only Knows," the legendary eighth track on the album "Pet Sounds" which has gone down as one of the greatest love songs ever.

Sung by brother Carl Wilson, Brian's rival Paul McCartney declared it to be his favorite song of all time and said it reduced him to tears.

But the record company and other members of the group were wary at the new turn in style.

'Good Vibrations'(1966)

"Good Vibrations" was a massive commercial success, selling one million copies in the United States and topping charts there and in several other countries including the UK.

At the time the most expensive single ever made, the "pocket symphony" was recorded in four different studios, consumed over 90 hours of tape and included a complexity of keys, textures, moods and instrumentation.

The song was a far cry from the group's surf-and-sun origins and the enormity of the task brought Wilson to the brink. He was unable to go on and complete the album "Smile," of which the song was to have been the centerpiece.

- 'Til I die' (1971) -

On side B of the album "Surf's Up,'Til I die" was composed in 1969 by a depressed Wilson worn down by mental illness and addiction.

He wrote in his 1991 autobiography that it was perhaps the most personal song he had written for the Beach Boys.