Roy Kim: magician of musical cut-and-paste?
By Kim Tong-hyung
Here’s your midweek update on the stories in entertainment and media you might have missed while reading about racist reporting pranks, disturbing YouTube videos, or because your life is undoubtedly a lot more fulfilling than ours.
Superstar K winner in plagiarism row
Roy Kim, the fourth winner of television singing contest Superstar K, insists on being taken seriously as a singer-songwriter. But first, he must convince the music-listening public that he didn’t steal a song from an unknown indie rock band.
The 20-year-old crooner on Tuesday dismissed the claims that his song, “Bom Bom Bom,” released in April, plagiarized Acoustic Rain’s “Love is Canon.”
The band has yet to directly address the controversy involving their song and Kim, stemming from accusations made on social media channels. However, they did use a blog post to passive-aggressively remind everyone that Love is Canon had been on YouTube since last year.
“The melody of ‘Bom Bom Bom’ was co-written by Roy Kim and Bae Yeong-gyeong. It’s entirely a product of their creative process,” CJ E&M, which represents Kim, said in a statement.
“These two people didn’t know about the band Acoustic Rain or any of their songs before.”
Intellectual property conflicts have been providing the buzz in an otherwise nondescript Korean music scene this year. Most notably, CNBlue are entangled in a legal dispute with punk rockers, Crying Nut, who accuse the boy band of recording one of their songs on DVD without consent.
It remains to be seen whether the fuss between Roy Kim and Acoustic Rain will ever reach court. If it does, the chords of their songs will be broken down like atomic molecules as Kim’s lawyers attempt to significantly limit the definition of what constitutes plagiarism rather like Bill Clinton did with sex.
At least to the comically untrained ears of one YouTube listener, it was easy to imagine Kim deciding to surf some unsigned bands one night, saw what he liked, and got happy with control-c and v.
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Brown Eyed Girls
Brown Eyed Girls preparing new album
In other K-pop news, Brown Eyed Girls, the four-member girl band largely referred to as “Ga-in and the other three,” said they are preparing to release their first new album in nearly two years later this month.
Their first song from the album, “Recipe,” which was released last week, is already a hit in download charts. Brown Eyed Girls’ fourth album, “Six Sense,” released in September 2011, was a success in Korea and some Asian countries.
KARA, another girl band popular here and immensely popular in Japan, are about to become the biggest free agency prize of Korea’s entire entertainment industry.
The contracts of three of the four KARA members — Gyu-ri, Seung-eyon, Nicole and Goo Hara — expire in January. Although DSP Media has expressed confidence about re-signing them, showbiz journalists are already treating the contract situation as if LeBron James is leaving Cleveland again.
Kang Seung-yoon, a former Superstar K contestant, made his debut as a solo artist with the song titled “It’s Raining,” adding to the depressing atmosphere of the monsoon season.
‘Snowpiercer’ generating buzz
Chris Evans in a scene from “Snowpiercer”
Director Bong Joon-ho’s much-anticipated Hollywood debut, “Snowpiercer,” seems to be generating serious buzz ahead of its release in August.
The movie has already secured distribution deals in 167 countries. Wildside, a French distributor, recently secured distribution rights in France, East Europe and South America, while the English-language rights went to The Weinstein Company, according to CJ Entertainment.
The $40 million science fiction movie is based around a plot in which a class system evolves on a train that carries the lone survivors of an otherwise lifeless future Earth. It stars Song Kang-ho along with American actors Chris Evans and Ed Harris.