Friday, September 5, 2008

Kim Gun Mo' Better

I can't think of anything to write tonight, so I'm going to put up some video clips by Kim Gun Mo, who's one of the more interesting K-Pop singers out there. He started out in the early 90s doing reggae -- so I'd been told, though I hadn't heard any of his music from that period until I found this song:



I first heard Kim's music on my first visit to Korea in 2001, playing on a tape in a friend's car. He's the Korean Stevie Wonder, my friend told me, and that was a plausible comparison. I started buying his CDs as they came out after that.

From his eighth album, released in 2003, comes "Swallow" (though the video clip is titled "Your apartment," I don't know why). By this time Kim was well-established as a TV personality too, a successful comic performer on improv sketch-comedy programs. I was startled, seeing him on TV during later visits, to see just how funny he could be. Some of that comes across in this video:



And here's "Kiss", from his latest album: