TROT, ONCE perceived as a fringe music genre appealing exclusively to the listening tastes of your grandparents’ generation, has experienced an explosive revival in the Korean music industry. Trot’s skyrocketing popularity has created legions of avid trot fans moving from K-pop fandoms and led to unprecedented viewer ratings for TV Chosun’s audition programs Ms. Trot and Mr. Trot. Turn on your TV and major commercials once dominated by rising K-pop idols and other top celebrities now feature new trot stars, Lim Young-woong and Song Ga-in. So what is it about this not-so-new genre that has suddenly made it so hot to trot?

Trot and its contested origin

   According to the Encyclopedia of Korean culture, trot’s first recorded history traces back to the 1920s when Japan tried to obliterate Korean language through its colonial influence. As trot follows a two-beat rhythm and minor pentatonic scale**, both of which are distinctive features of Japanese Enka, the similarity between the two music genres has sparked a debate amongst scholars about trot’s true national origin. Especially in the 1960s, when Japanese-tinged songs were censored by Park Jung-hee’s authoritarian reign, trot’s close resemblance to Enka music made it an obvious target***. Trot was stigmatized as a byproduct of Japanese colonial rule, even with trot singers’ concerted efforts to remove vestiges of the colonial era within the genre and forge a new identity. Early trot was labeled: vulgar, B-grade, associated with popular music, and became a non-mainstream music genre after independence.

Trot is about life

   Trot served to console the unfortunate generation that struggled through the colonial era, the Korean War, and the division of their own country. This painful history is reflected in the self-pitying and melancholic lyrics which were often about unrequited love and a longing for unattainable ideals****. Through its ability to resonate with the people’s suffering, trot enjoyed great popularity up until the mid to late 1900s, producing legendary trot singers like Lee Mi-ja, Ju Hyun-mi, and Na Hoon-a. However, its golden age was short-lived, followed by Western pop and K-pop taking over the media at the turn of the century. Even though new singers like Park Hyun-bin, Jang Yoon-jeong and Hong Jin-young reinvented the genre once again, adding jauntier and more rhythmical lyrics, its sentimentality was not as appealing to the Gen X and Gen Z demographic. Trot’s reputation as “unhip” was emblematic of the younger generations’ disinterest in traditional folk music until Kim Yeon-ja’s 2013 song “Amorfati” unexpectedly began climbing major music charts in 2017*****. A young fan of EXO shared a video recording of Kim’s performance followed by EXO’s in KBS’s long-lived program Open Concert, acclaiming the song’s highly addictive chorus. Beginning with this single fan, the song trended among teens who were taken by the song’s catchy lyrics and originality of combining EDM to trot—three years since then, “Amorfati” is still a hit in Korea.

Power of trot

   Trot’s sudden rise into the mainstream consciousness has been staggering. According to Innocean Worldwide Inc., the number of online searches for trot music has increased around ten times, from 3 million in 2018 to over 30 million in 2019 with people in their 20s and 30s contributing 34% and 28% of searches respectively. In 2020, the number of trot songs that have entered the top 200 of the main music charts has been six times that of 2019, and roughly 50% of currently released music is trot.

   Broadcasting conglomerates are also competing to launch variety programs exclusively featuring trot singers who have recently risen to stardom. After TV Chosun’s two audition programs Ms Trot and Mr Trot recorded massive viewer ratings of 18.1% and 33.83% on a cable channel, public channels have been quick to follow suit******. SBS TV is broadcasting Here Comes the Trot God and KBS TV is also preparing its own audition program National Trot Festival this fall. The current trot syndrome has been a much-needed rainfall to a drought-stricken television industry which is steadily being replaced by over-the-top media services (OTT) industries like Netflix.

   Due to the immense popularity of trot audition programs, the music industry is gaining an influx of new amateur trot singers. Trot diva Song Ga-in won second place in Gallup Korea’s survey on the most beloved Korean artist of 2019 and remains the most sought-after entertainer for music concerts, variety programs, and advertisements. Lim Young-woong, the winner of the first season of Mr Trot, is currently the hottest man in Korea. With the recently ended Mr. Trot still fresh on people’s minds, his newly released songs have topped music charts like Sori-bada, surpassing BLACKPINK and even ranking second behind BTS in a brand value ranking measured by the Korea Institute of Corporate Reputation. This is significant as Lim Young-woong is only a nationally-recognized star compared to the internationally known K-pop idols. Top Comedian Yoo Jae-suk has also enjoyed a career renaissance after his successful debut as trot singer Yoo San-seul in the show Hangout with Yoo.

Is trot just a passing fad?

   Music critics have several different interpretations of the trot craze in Korea. According to Professor Son Min-jung who studied trot at Korea National University of Education, the recent phenomenon proves the potential of the sin-joong-nyeon demographic, a neologism indicating middle-aged people nearly in their retirement age*******. She pointed out that although not many people were interested in the music tastes of the sin-joong-nyeon, they have always had great market potential. Every weekend, thousands of Song Ga-in’s fans visit her hometown in Jindo as a part of their “pilgrimage,” while Lim Young-woong and Lee Chan-won now appear in subway billboards. Lim also ranks No.1 in terms of his fandom size in the Internet portal Daum. Unlike in the past when middle-aged people represented a passive fansumer base, they are now joining fan clubs, going to K-concerts, using streaming service, and purchasing albums, getting deeply involved in Korea’s fan culture. Trot has magnified this ignored demographic in the music industry and has drawn them back into the mainstream.

   Trot’s power, often estimated in terms of the TV viewer ratings of regular programs, is also partly owed to the fact that the main viewership of public and cable channels are members of older generations. With OTT industries largely replacing television for younger viewers, the main viewership for television has been the elderly. Some industry analysts pointed out that television industries are eager to maintain their viewer base by launching trot-related content.

   Kang Tae-gyu, a popular music commentator, singled out Korea’s unique competitive auditioning system and the stars born through it as the main cause of trot’s recent success. The viewer voting system of audition programs has helped grab the attention of teens who are enamored with similarly fashioned programs like PRODUCE 101 and K-pop Star. And, unlike older generations who can still carry the stigma of trot’s Japanese-tinged origin, the straightforward, easy, and catchy lyrics of trot and its rhythmical tune have appealed to younger generations who are mostly unaware of its historical context.

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   Many scholars and music critics have commented that beyond these surface-level reasons, we are so easily drawn to trot because it embodies the heung(excitement) and han(sorrow) of our people. After all, as music critic Lim Jin-mo once noted, “It is in our DNA to love trot.”

*Ppong-jjak: an onomatopoeia of and a synonym for trot

**Minor pentatonic scale: five-note scale based on natural minors

***EBS

****The Korea Herald

*****MBC TV

******JoongAng Ilbo

*******MBC TV’s interview with professor Son Min-jung and music critic Kang Tae-gyu