Korea Did have Hair Metal

well it took a while to find, but Korea did indeed go through it's own version of Deep Purple, Ozzy Osbourne inspired hair metal. There's Sinawe, Baekdoosan, and BuHwaul (translated as Born Again but Resurrection is a more accurate translation). These bands were apparently huge in the late 70's and 80's. I'm actually surprised at the level of subversion, Baekdoosan had a hit called Banmal, which is lost in cultural translation but basically it's what they call informal speech. If that's not enough, they even had Poisonesque love ballads like this one by a band called Black Hole.

Heck this one could be an Iron Maiden track.

Just when I think I'm starting to figure this place out. I know that Korea in the 80's had pop/dance music which gave way to Kpop idols which is the basis of the Kpop music of today. I understand that dance music became THE huge thing in the 90's (they missed the whole grunge thing) and I guess that spawned the whole Kpop thing. This stuff kinda got forgotten.

However, it's cool to think that Korea used to have something besides Kpop. Where they had to play instruments and write music and stuff. Not that hair metal was the pinnacle of western music, but it's cool to see a bit of diversity, something Korean music is sorely lacking today.