A New Challenge of Rock Folk

Singer Lee Jungryul (32) has been defender for Korean folk music for ten years.

When he made his debut in1992, he was called the youngest of folk music. However, he still does not have any juniors so he even feels lonely these days.

His fourth album came out recently.

Main theme of the 4th album is a variation. There is only one lyrical folk song in his 4th album. The rest of the album is close to rock music in composition and messages.

The first track “Mackerel”, remake version of Han young-ae’s song “Tuning”, “Please Call Me”, and a modern rock “Post-deconstructionism” remind rock band music.

In “Mackerel”, he asks for those who regard 1980’s a reminiscence to sing again the beautiful songs of 1980’s when there was a severe social movement. He said that he wrote the lyrics right after he read “Mackerel”, a novel written by Kong Jiyoung.

He said, “I want to make folk songs communicating with the contemporary issues, not the typical folk songs. In folk songs, the spirit is more important than the genre.” Folk spirit is to face the world, according to him.

Title song “I will love (words: Lee Jae-kyung, music: Kim Han-nyun) ” is not like his other songs. The organization of introduction, development, turn and conclusion, accompaniment and arrangement is like other ballad songs. However, in the constitution of songs in the album, this song is distinguished.

He explained, “The song is also a new challenge for me. However, it is indispensable for me to select it as a title song because this album must be given wide publicity. I know it has a limitation but still it is indispensable. The song ‘I will love’ is like a door, leading my fans to my music.”

Lee plans to try other genres such as soul, blues or black music. He is pond of those and well prepared for that.

He takes charge of a radio program “Lee Jeong-ryul’s 108 Korean Songs”. He said, “I want to give good impressions that the songs selected in my program are excellent.”

Yub Huh heo@donga.com