Seo Taiji and Boys (Korean: 서태지와 아이들) was a South Korean music group active from 1992 to 1996. Its three members Seo Taiji, Yang Hyun-suk, and Lee Juno experimented with many different genres of popular Western music. Seo Taiji and Boys was highly successful and is credited with changing the South Korean music industry by pioneering the use of rap in Korean pop music and utilizing social critique, despite pressure from ethics and censorship committees. The band won the Grand Prize at the Seoul Music Awards in both 1992 and 1993. In April 1996, Billboard reported that the band's first three albums had each sold over 1.6 million copies, with the fourth nearing two million, making all four some of the best-selling albums in South Korea.
Background information:
Origin
Seoul, South Korea
Genres
Hip hop
pop
rap
rock
alternative rock
alternative metal
K-pop
Years active
1992–1996
Labels
Bando Eumban Yedang Company
Past members:
Seo Taiji
Yang Hyun-suk
Lee Juno
Korean name:
Hangul
서태지와 아이들
Revised Romanization
Seo Taijiwa aideul
McCune–Reischauer
Sŏ T'aeji-wa aidŭl
After the breakup of the heavy metal band Sinawe in 1991, Seo Taiji switched gears and formed the group Seo Taiji and Boys with dancers and backing vocalists Yang Hyun-suk and Lee Juno. Yang said he first met Seo when the musician came to him to learn how to dance. "Blown away" by his music, Yang offered to join the group, and they later recruited Lee who was one of the top dancers in Korea and joined the group as a background dancer, despite being highly regarded in his own right, because the music "moved [his] heart." Seo Taiji came across MIDI technology for the first time in South Korea in the early 1990s and started experimenting with different MIDI sounds to create a new type of music that had not been heard by the public. He initially had no plans to debut as a dance/pop boy group, and Seo Taiji and Boys' mainstream success was a surprise.
1992: "Nan Arayo"
The trio debuted on MBC's talent show on April 11, 1992 with their song "Nan Arayo" (난 알아요, "I Know") and got the lowest rating from the jury. However, the song and their self-titled debut album became so successful that, according to MTV Iggy, "K-pop music would never be the same" again. One of the first Korean rap songs, "Nan Arayo" was a hugely successful hit; its new jack swing-inspired beats, upbeat rap verses and pop-style choruses combined with a focus on new dance moves took Korean audiences by storm. Influenced by the videos for Technotronic's Pump Up the Jam and Snap!'s The Power, the music video for "Nan Arayo" features varying color saturation and chroma key editing, varying the angles of the dancers' bodies constantly. The group sold over 1.5 million copies of the album within a month of its release, and Seo Taiji and Boys won a Golden Disc Award for "Nan Arayo" in 1992. Spin named "Nan Arayo" number 4 on their 2012 list of the 21 Greatest K-Pop Songs of All Time. In 2015, Rolling Stone named it number 36 on its list of the 50 Greatest Boy Band Songs of All Time. "Nan Arayo" is also recognized for establishing the popularity of rap in K-pop and hybridizing the Korean ballad style with rap, rock, and techno.
1993: "Hayeoga"
Their 1993 second album took a different turn. Although remaining a mostly dance album, a few songs such as "Hayeoga" (하여가, 何如歌, "Anyway") combined elements of heavy metal and traditional Korean folk music through the use of the taepyeongso, a double-reed wind instrument, and melodic structure. While there was controversy that the guitar solo in the middle of the song plagiarized Testament's "First Strike is Deadly," the guitarist for the solo, Lee Tae-Seop, mentioned in an interview that the solo's arpeggios reinterpreted Scandinavian folk songs, which had no copyright. "Hayeoga" earned them their second Golden Disc Award. Moreover, while promoting the album, the group was banned from appearing on the national television channel KBS-TV because they wore earrings, ripped jeans and had dreadlocks, which ethics committees associated with reggae, resistance movements, and rejection of social norms (although their brightly dyed long hair in 1995 did not attract a similar ban). This was the first of the numerous controversies regarding Seo Taiji and Boys. The band's second album became the first 'double million sellers' album in Korean history.
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