It feels like yesterday that I was lost in Japanese music crackling through the static in the car. In 1990, as a first-year high school student, I enjoyed a small escape in my father’s parked car. I would tilt the driver’s seat back, fine-tune the radio dial, and listen to the polished melodies drifting over from Japan.
Shizuka Kudo’s sweet voice, WINK’s upbeat rhythms, Miho Nakayama’s wistful ballads, TUBE’s rock sound, CASIOPEA’s delicate playing, T-SQUARE’s emotive melodies... All of these came together to make the soundtrack of my youth. Japanese culture was in its golden age back then. Animation, music, film, and TV dramas all showed remarkable sophistication. I was captivated by their culture, and unlike Korean pop of the time, which was mostly trot and ballads, their music stirred my sensibilities to the fullest.
When I recently heard Hanni of NewJeans sing 'Blue Coral Reef (青い珊瑚礁)' at a fan meeting in Japan, I felt as if I had suddenly traveled through time. Memories of the 80s and 90s came flooding back, and the feelings of that era came vividly alive. Now K-pop is captivating the entire world. Decades from now, young people in Japan may hear Korean music and sink into memories of the 2020s, just as I did. Won’t songs by BTS, BLACKPINK, and NewJeans come to mean as much to them as Japanese pop did to me?
Music has a power that transcends eras. Just as Japanese music did for us back then, K-pop today captivates young people all over the world. Cultural trends keep changing, but I suspect the power of music to move our hearts never will.