It has been a while since I did a post on Korean pop music. Jaurim, an 'alternative' band with a striking female lead singer, had been on my mind, but I couldn't find enough video links by them that I liked enough to recommend. In particular, since I presume the people who read this are mostly, like me, English-speaking non-Koreans, I was looking for videos of some of the songs from their 2005 album of covers, Admiration of Youth. That CD contains interesting versions of a motley bunch of songs, ranging from Phil Collins' "Another Day in Paradise" and Neil Diamond's "Girl You'll Be a Woman Soon" to David Bowie's "Starman" and the Clash's "Lovers Rock." (I was misled a few months ago by their song "Magic Carpet Ride", which I hopefully mistook for Steppenwolf's song of that title.) So far I've only managed to find this live version of Ozzy Osbourne's "Goodbye to Romance":
Then there's "Carnival Amour", an amusing bit of cultural appropriation and gender-bending from their latest album Ruby Sapphire Diamond:
Finally, here's "Cheongchunyechan", the final song (and one of three originals) from Admiration of Youth (which I've also seen translated as Cult of Youth):
I dunno. Kim Yoon-a's voice is more interesting than those of a lot of pop singers, with some unusual colors that keep me coming back for more. On the other hand, I have their three most recent CDs, but feel no need to buy the earlier ones. Some people for whom I've played Jaurim's music really like it, so I thought it might be worth while to mention them here. There's a lot more of them on YouTube, including many live performances (and I think I may like them better live than in their studio recordings), and their CDs are easily available online or even at your local Korean grocery. See what you think.