8 Korean music to listen to this International Women’s Day — Part 1
As we all know, coming March 8th is International Women’s Day. In light of International Women’s Day, here are eight songs by female Korean artists to listen to as your feminist fight song.
A-CHAM! by Meaningful Stone
She’s into girls that are taller and hotter than you
A-cham, and she’s a feminist!
…
Love is earned, but you cannot possess
Get out of your cheesy fairytales,
You better grow up
Brace yourselves. As much as we’d love to just celebrate women’s accomplishments all over the world, International Women’s Day will bring you some grim news. We’ll be reminded that there still exists income disparity. Glass ceiling. We will have to remember our tragedies and remembering it will bring back to the pain. And your white coworker Michael will share a “feminist” post saying he “supports women’s rights.” Yikes. So to start off, here is a song that I guarantee will bring a smile to your face.
Meaningful Stone (김뜻돌) is a female solo artist who made her debut in 2017. She has established her very unique aesthetic inspired by the 80s and the 90s and has produced a lot of folk-inspired music. “A-cham!”, which could either mean “Oh right!” or “Ugh, come on”, is a song for clueless men. The girl you like is just not interested in you, period. She never tried to impress you, period. How simple is that?
Great message aside, it is pretty cathartic to hear the words “feminist” and “she likes girls” in a way that is so playful yet genuine. This lightheartedness is one of the charms of “A-cham!” and Meaningful Stone as an artist.
EGOTISTIC by AOA
When the peach fuzz falls, the flower will fall too
I don’t want to be no flower, I’m the tree
In my high school, we had an annual “drag” contest. Not in an empowering way but “Haha, look at these boys with boobs and wigs and high heels” way. AOA’s songs were one of the staples of the contest. Tracks like “Heart Attack” or “Miniskirt” was a perfect blend of cute and sexy.
AOA’s career trajectory was rather a bumpy one. They debuted as a half-band, half-dance-unit girl group, following their brother groups CN Blue and FT Island. The unit era did not last long. Then they turned into a more traditional girl group route during the girl group “red ocean” period. Through it, they survived. However, it was not without hardships. (This article does a good job of outlining it if you are interested.) As their new music didn’t perform well after one of the central members — Choa — left in 2017, many people suspected that would be the end of AOA.
Then, Queendom happened.
AOA put all their effort into it, producing their own music and aesthetics throughout the course of the survival program. One of their most remarkable performances was AOA’s rendition of “Egotistic” (Originally by Mamamoo).
They ditched the short skirt. They didn’t smile anymore.
They rocked their two-piece suit outfit. They looked comfortable in their own skin. Seolhyun’s last smile into the camera said it all — this is their voice.
After Queendom, Korean music fans started talking about artistic freedom for girl groups. In most cases, girl groups were highly produced from their songs to their make up. It seemed like there were not much room for the individual members to have their own say in their music, especially compared to similar boy groups of similar seniority. (Think BTS or iKon.) What Queendom did to the Korean music industry is it gave these girl groups a platform to showcase their artistry. It was a sort of experiment to say.
With this, AOA’s performance sparked the discussion around how the girl groups were consumed in our society. The fact that AOA and numerous other girl groups were confined in the small boxes of either cute or sexy despite their potential seemed like a huge loss. The good news is, the industry has been pretty responsive to these sentiments. For one, AOA returned with a very similar concept with their new album “Come see me”. Some things have definitely changed and it probably won’t go back any time soon.
Oh, yes, and my high school’s “drag” show. It was discontinued the year I became a senior. It simply was not funny anymore. Some things have definitely changed.
INTO THE NEW WORLD by Girl’s Generation
Don’t wait for a special miracle
The rough road that lies in front of us
I will not change the unknown world for the wall in front of us
I cannot give up
“Into the new world” is a song that gives me instant nostalgia for my tween days. As Girl’s Generation’s debut track, “Into the new world” is a monumental piece in K-Pop history. Girl’s Generation’s debut marked the beginning of K-pop as the genre/industry we know now. However, 8 years from its release, “Into the new world” is writing a new history in Korea.
Let’s go back to 2016. The students of Ewha Women’s University has led a student protest against the school’s decision to create a new degree program. What seemed like a protest against the school administration actually uncovered the existence of ex-president Park Geun Hye’s secretive confidante Choi Soon sil, leading up to President Park’s impeachment in 2017 (Read more about it here). The rest is history.
When the Korean police were dispatched to Ewha campus to dismiss the protesters, the students started singing “Into the new world”. This song stood for everything the students were standing for — anticipation for a new, better world and the will to fight for it until the end. The video of the protestors singing this song soon became viral and the song soon became a song that symbolizes the Korean millennial’s political voice. It was sung in candlelight protests in 2016. At Queer Parades and Queer Cultural Festivals. The generation that grew up with “Into the new world” now seeks to be the change they want to see in a new world.
GIRL’S GENERATION by Stella Jang
Do you know what a “girl” is like?
It’s getting wrecked grinding for school
It’s not a easy thing to do
Why should a girl be pure and innocent?
There’s no such thing in real life
Speaking of Girl’s Generation — here’s Stella Jang singing about Girl’s Generation! And yes, it is the K-Pop group Girl’s Generation she is singing about (kind of). The chorus names every single member of Girl’s Generation and she sings about how she cannot be one of them.
Girlhood is complicated in itself. It’s often even more complicated when you try to see yourself in relation to society’s expectations on women, especially young women. Growing up I remember hearing the world “여대생 yeo-dae-saeng" — which literally just means a female college student — being associated with certain looks and demeanors. Dainty pink dress, long hair, for some reason always walks around hugging a book, naive, innocent, playful, and lively. (A visual representation here.) I grew up expecting someday I will magically turn into one, or at least someday I will have to turn into one.
Spoiler alert, I did not magically turn into a perfect yeo-dae-saeng. Instead, I became very similar to the girl Stella Jang sang about — dirty hair, strong legs, grinding in the library and eventually having a mental breakdown at 3AM. Even though I knew the societal expectation on women is merely a social construct and I had the total freedom to disregard it, deep down I had this fear. A sort of an internalized fear that my clock as a girl is ticking. The feeling that if I live like this I am somehow missing out a critical period in life. When I discovered the song “Girl’s Generation,” I realized that it was not a personal struggle but a struggle shared by many others. The song reassured me that the small mold of what it means to be “a girl” doesn’t mean anything. It is what you define a girl to be and what you decide to love about yourself regardless of how the society would define (or not define) you.
