Korean singer-producer Seo T’ae-ji has given up his American “green card.” Actually, according to this Korean-language report by Pressian, he simply decided not to renew it, allowing it to expire. Seo has been taking up a number of anti-American causes as of late, voicing opposition to the US-led war in Iraq and to American Embassy construction in back of the Deoksu-gung Palace. I found the latter cause rather ironic, given that I usually lump Seo together with Eminem as men who have done more damage to their respective civilizations than Hideyoshi Toyotomi and Attila the Hun.
Anyway, Seo will continue his career in either Korea or Japan.
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Perhaps he sees this move as beneficial to his fading career. We’ll have to wait and see if he’s playing the patriot card here.
The only question that remains is where is he going to rip off music from now that he’s out of the States?
To be fair though, I have to admit that though his music is often derivative, he is/was the best thing in popular Korean music. You think Korean pop music sucks now, you should have heard it in the pre-Tae-ji days.
I can’t imagine this as anything but a marketing ploy, and a cheap one at that. I have no problem with singers being anti-migugnom — one of my favorite singers, Ahn Chi-hwan, is as anti-American as they come, and Ahn never ran away to the U.S. to enjoy “artistic freedom.” When Ahn calls us “migugnom” in his songs, he does so with both knowledge and conviction. It’s what makes him great. Heck, Ahn was calling the Americans out even when it wasn’t so cool to do so. Seo, on the other hand, is just trying to jumpstart his career by playing the currently-fashionable anti-American card. Cheap.
Let’s be fair to Korean pop music — all pop music sucks, and unlike American pop music, at least we can say that the damage to cultural standards done by the Korean variety is fairly limited, geographically speaking. If I go back to the States, I can escape from Hyori. There is no similar escape, however, from the torments of Britney Spears.
Whatever happened to guys like ??쑣??짯??™? Those guys could really sing…
Why would he be based in the States anyway? Americans don’t listen to Korean pop music. I guess there would probably be a few listeners in the Korean-American community but I can’t imagine that the market is anything big. How many shops sell this guy’s CDs in LA? 2?
So what’s the point? I’m sure there’s good studios and technicians not only in LA. Status? I’m guessing that he thought that being based in the U.S. (L.A. - near Hollywood - I presume) had some sort of cultural cache, even if his neighbors had no idea who he was.
I remember ??쑣??짯??™?made a comeback for some years ago, perhaps in 1999. Then the leader (singer?) of the band went back to his old habits and was busted for drugs, cannot recall which substance.
Who is his right mind would like to escape ??짢???? Just cut off the sound, man…
Seo Taiji and Eminem are doing more damage to society than atilla and hideyoshi? You sound like the governor of some southern state in 1956 talking about Elvis Presley!
Seo Taiji and Eminem are doing more damage to society than Hideyoshi Toyotomi and Attila the Hun? Wow, how did you decide that? That is a pretty outrageous statement. And some guy up there said Seo Taiji being anti-American is a cheap marketing ploy? He actually said Taiji was trying to “jumpstart” his career. Wow, do you realize that Taiji’s comeback concert sold out in under two minutes after the tickets were available online? He’s probably more popular now than he was at the beginning of his career in terms of sheer numbers. That might sound a little outrageous, but Seo Taiji only seemed so popular back in his early days because he got so much media attention soley because he was the only good thing happening in entertainment. If you think about it, now he has his old fans plus the new ones he’s making plus the fans from other Asian countries, particularly Japan. I don’t see how he is using this as a marketing ploy. You actually think he thought that deeply into it? I think you guys are over-analyzing here.