"Described as a "fascinating journey upstream into the past to understand where the current will bring the future of Korean pop music," (Busan Ilbo Review, 2009) Brother Is a Street Musician does not deal with contemporary K-Pop; rather, it visits the first chapter of Koreas popular music history, which coincided with Japanese colonization in the first half of the 20th century. Combining archival research with a critical analysis of the earliest popular songs, the early recording industry, the first modern era musicians and composers, and the first formation of the consumer masses, Korean popular music scholar and musician Zhang Eujeong seeks to address the essential question: how did a colonized people construct their own, unique form of popular culture? Today, popular music from Korea has established itself as a formidable, global cultural phenomenon, garnering the interest of not only the power players in the global music industry, but also scholars across many disciplines. As an academic inquiry into the first moment of Korean popular music history, this English translation by Seulbin Han will be an essential resource in todays lively conversations around the emerging field of Korean popular music"-- Provided by publisher."The history of the Korean popular music industry dates back a century before the beginnings of K-Pop, to when the Korean peninsula was still under Japanese rule. Though they didnt have an independent country, Koreans were still able to use recorded music to assert a distinct cultural identity. Brother is a Street Musician chronicles the development of Korean popular music over the first half of the 20th century, examining both industry trends and talented composers and performers like Nam Insu and Yi Nanyong. Drawing from rare archives of gramophone records and lyric books, musicologist Zhang Eujeong shows how Korean musicians drew from folk traditions to create totally new genres, ranging from comic songs to Western-influenced jazz records. She also includes English translations and detailed analyses of lyrics from some of the eras most popular songs.

A landmark study of Korean music, now available in English for the first time, Brother is a Street Musician tells the inspiring story of how a colonized people developed their own form of popular music, planting the seeds for an industry that would grow to export Korean culture around the world. "-- Provided by publisher.