You Call That Music?!: Korean Popular Music Through the Generations

You Call That Music?!: Korean Popular Music Through the Generations provides a critical overview of the history of Korean popular music from 1920 to the 2000s from the perspective of cultural history. First published in Korean in 2017 by one of the best-known critics, Lee Young-Mee, this book is a timely and much-needed source of information on Korean popular music of the past hundred years.

Through this English translation, readers are able to make meaningful connections between specific forms of Korean popular music of various periods and the contemporaneous Korean social and political circumstances. Structured around the central theme of generational conflict, the book provides readers with an accessible way to engage with Korea’s social history and a greater understanding of how specific musical works, genres and styles fit into that history. Its strong narrative force helps illuminate the connections between modern Korean social history and the particular trends of musical production and their reception through the decades.

You Call That Music?! is an invaluable resource for those researching and studying Korean popular music specifically as well as Korea’s cultural and social history.

Lee Young-Mee was born in Seoul in 1961. She received a B.A. and an M.A. (specializing in contemporary literary criticism) in Korean Language and Literature at Korea University. She worked as a chief researcher at the Research Center for the Arts at Korea National University of Arts and taught at Sungkonghoe University and Munhwa Graduate School. In the 1980s she participated in the progressive drama and music movement, a sector of the democratization movement in South Korea. Her work, Stories of Songs (1993) deals with the history of minjung music and momentous songs that contributed to socio-political changes. Characteristics of the Madang Theater Form (2002) chronicles the aesthetics of the madang ('open air') theater, a unique genre active in the 1980s minjung movement. From the 1990s to the present, Lee has been considered THE pioneer in the field of Korean popular art. History of Korean Popular Music (1998) is the first comprehensive academic treatment of the subject. She has one English publication, "The Beginning of Korean Pop: Popular Music During the Japanese Occupation Era (1910–45)" in K. Howard ed. Korean Pop Music: Riding the Wave (2006). Her numerous publications include Understanding Korean Popular Art Through the Lens of Melodramatic Sentimentality (2016) that covers the eight decades of twentieth-century popular arts, novels, plays, songs, films, comics, and TV and radio dramas. The book received two prestigious awards, "Chihoon Academic Achievement Award," and "Nojeong Prize." In addition to her scholarly achievements, she is also known for her media presence through her popular radio shows on Korea Broadcasting Station (KBS), Munhwa Broadcasting Station (MBC), Christian Broadcasting Station (CBS), Buddhist Broadcasting Station (BBS), and Gugak Broadcasting.