Due to the coronavirus situation, I have been spending a lot of time watching videos at home. While streaming through different Korean shows with my parents, I came across a TV show called “Mr. Trot”. It is a competition among trot singers including professional and non-professional singers. The winner wins a prize money and also receives a chance to record their single. There have been many shows that have been made in the music industry starting with many audition programs like “K-pop Star”. However, normal competition shows like “Mr. Trot” started to become popular as well. Singing competition shows like “Show Me the Money” grabbed a massive attention from the entire country and even internationally. These competition and audition programs generally targeted young audiences by focusing on music genre that younger generation listen to such as pop and rap. Unlike these previous popular shows, “Mr. Trot” focused on the trot music which is very popular among older generation.
Trot music, also known as Ppongjjak (뽕짝), originates from Korea during the time under Japanese colonial rule in the first half of the 20th century. With the trot genre having its history of about 100 years, the singing style has been continuously changing. With the rise of K-pop and other genres during the 90s, trot began to lose its popularity and was viewed as more old-fashioned. Recently trot began to regain its popularity due to singers like Hong Jin Young and Daesung targeting younger listeners. The traditional trot music generally contained lyrical contents about love, parting and longing for sweet home as it depicts colonial tragedy during the time. Also, unlike the popular K-pop music today, trot music is mainly performed by one singer or as a duet. It is rare for trot singers to play any instruments while singing and it does not have any heavy choreography. It is a genre focusing a lot on the actual singing component rather than attractive performance.
With “Mr. Trot”, we can see another change in trot style. Younger singers are producing trot music and starting to focus more on performance. It is moving away from the old-fashioned characteristics and trying to integrate more younger population. The show achieved one of the highest view rates among all TV shows aired on TV. Close to the end of the show, it was able to gain almost 8 million participating votes to decide the winner. Modern trot is becoming to be associated with lighthearted fun and many singers including K-pop singers are adopting trot songs, contributing to the expansion of the fan base to a younger generation of listeners. This is evident from the large voting participation from younger generation around my age. The singers on the show is also expanding the concept of trot idol which is becoming more accepted today. After the show concluded, the competition participants gained much popularity and began to show up in many other entertainment shows, confirming the growth of popularity among trot idols. With trot continuously changing throughout the history of Korea, it is still making history today. If you are not familiar with the trot music in Korea, I highly suggest listening to modern trot music. I personally didn’t like the traditional trot music, but it is really catchy and I’m starting to feel differently about it.
Here's one song from the show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5Pbx9LrsDk
and another by a modern trot singer:
Comments
I never knew about trot music before. Wow, this is really interesting and extremely catchy! I do not quite fully understand the genre yet, but I liked the videos you posted. The difference between the two videos you posted is quite striking, it is really interesting to think about how much things change.