Korea Opportunities (or The Coming Of Age)

There's something about your youngest child turning 18 that makes you feel a touch of sadness. That sadness is tempered somewhat by the prospect of them leaving home soon so you can start getting your life back, mind. (Only joking, of course!) And so it is that TheDoopster comes of age today. Now, our youngest is something of an enigma. I mean, I've lived with her, raised her for 18 years and quite frankly I'm still buggered if I can work her out!

One of her most baffling quirks is her love of K-Pop. Now, for the uninitiated, K-Pop is the (lazy) all-encompassing term for pop music from South Korea. Among the top K-Pop acts are the likes of BTS, EXO, Blackpink and GOT7, which I'm sure you're all familiar with, right? But what about proper music? You know, bands who actually play rather than dance like pre-programmed machines? I wanted to give TheDoopster the gift of music on her special day and thought it might be a nice touch to find a decent Korean band who would fit nicely on these pages.

Bloody hell, it was hard! 95% of Korean music outside of the boy/girl pop bands all seems to be electronic. Lots of plinky-plonky computers and synths, barely a guitar in sight. I persevered and did eventually find a couple of punk bands (one of them have recently released their debut album - it lasts for 10 minutes!) but that isn't really Doopster's bag. After much endeavour, I was on the verge of giving up. And then, at the eleventh hour, I found this:



Look And Listen - South Korea's answer to Shonen Knife? Perhaps. No bad thing, certainly, and waaay better than everything else I found.

Happy 18th Birthday Doopster. Hope this meets with your approval. If not, I hope you appreciate the effort. I put my heart and Seoul into this for you...

(and if anyone's wondering - the graphic at the top of the post translates (I think/hope) as 'Happy Eighteenth Birthday' in Korean.)