Why people listen to 'back to basic' style of songs when things are tough?

I had something to do in the weekend so I missed the coverage on the mess in Seoul.

I just wonder how long it will depress KPop. The year-end season is coming up but I am afraid at least the selection of the songs will tend to lean toward slower and calmer songs .

I wanted to rehash the tale of 2014 but it will have to end with a certain Lifetime Achievement Award to a 21 years old singer so I will refrain from taking that route.

Korea suppressed all festivities till Nov 5, and the music shows didn't air.

And, radios, naturally, played calmer songs.

The most request songs were

and

There are a gazillion KPop acts

but in time of need

people listened to Coldplay's Yellow

and

Love Poem

by

she who should not be named.

What is that?

I can't understand.

Quote from Lulu_Key

I know your memo is making everything about your fav, but even a tragedy?

where is your class/brain/sympathy/humanity?

I have said nothing about the tragedy, just pointing out the tendency of the Koreans to listen to Lee Jieun's songs when something like this occurs.

Quote from Help1

What is Yellow

Coldplay's Yellow. I put a link to its perf on the main body of this post

Quote from bbgc

IU is famous for her "consolation" themed ballads - Knees, Dear Name etc., and Love Poem is one of them.

It is only natural that people seek out such songs of "consolation" after personal or community tragedies.

Even "Spring Day" released after 3 years got associated with Sewol tragedy, given its theme.

What is surprising about that?

Basics - well if you mean in the sense, that "melody" will always be the basis of music, bops and beats are passing, "melody" is the home - safe and stable.

People will forget bops and beats, over the years. Very few will carry across generations. But melodies are the universal human theme.

So again it is only natural to revert to the 'basics' in times of tragedy.

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When people suffer they look for their mother

and in KPop there is a Great Mother of digitals, to whom everyone eventually flocks to

Quote from bbgc

Have these songs climbing the charts or are your spinning yarn from your imaginations?

It is said they were played a lot in Korean radios after the disaster

Quote from YouChanDoThis

I think it has less to do with tragedies and more to do with the natural cycle of music. As you've seen in K-Pop, music goes through different phases. First, everyone is releasing cute songs. Then it feels like everyone is releasing girl crush. Then "noisy" music, and so on. You get the idea by now. Typically it feels like one or two genres dominate in popularity at any given time, despite music from all sorts of genres being made and released (some more so than others though, based on the popularity of said genre).

Usually, the shift from one genre to the next is a result of boredom of the same style of songs and wanting something new. However, in some cases, severe outside factors may influence them slightly. Maybe people back then, and now, are merely slowly transitioning into a phase where they need calmness and reassurance and louder music tens to not have that quite as often, so they seek out softer songs for comfort, thus being the event that gets people to transition from one genre to the next, as opposed to the usual method.

In 2014 the backlash of slowish, comforting song after the ferry accident ruled the day. It lasted, in some ways, till 2016 when GFriend, Twice and IOI ended it.

I am afraid this accident might turn things toward for slowish songs, when the 4th Gen of KPop is getting established.

We will see how it will affect 2023. IT doesn't change overnight but it does change over months.

Quote from bbgc

BTW WhyKnock did you hear, the American IU, has done an IU on the Billboard Hot 100.

Built a wall, in fact even better than IU, 10 out of 10.

So that's a target for IU to match on Gaon.

The US Pop market has been depressed as well and so they cannot stop Tay.

It is a big issue- it seems the days of unifications have arrived

Lee Jieun will only release 10 songs in a blue moon so that is a record she is unlikely to match