Happy music: J Rabbit

I don't like sad music. It's not because my mental state is so fragile that a depressing tune would send me over the edge, but because I find sad music is so very, very easy to write and personal sadness is, like dreams, best kept to yourself because it just sounds like bollocks to everyone else.

I don't know the person singing, I don't know their girlfriend either and I sure as hell don't know why they broke up. If there was any truth or meaning to these songs, there would be a lot more doleful pop tunes called "Dumped Because I'm a Twat" or "I Only Shagged her Sister a Little Bit". So there are very few sad songs that I like with the exception of things like "I'm Alive (That Was The Day My Dead Pet Returned To Save My Life)" by Alice Cooper - which is about almost getting run over by a lorry, but being saved by the ghost of a dead pet horse.





Anyway enough with sadness and hate and on with the jolly tunes. J Rabbit are a (South) Korean duo who sing almost nothing but happy songs. Jung Da Woon writes most of the songs and plays all the instruments (and she plays a heck of a lot of them) and Jung Hye Sun does the singing bits. Rather than making their songs in a studio and layering on tracks, they perform most of them in a sort of live manner, playing them through in one take. When extra instruments are required, they either layer them on afterwards or get some help from fellow acts from their record label.


Quite aside from their music being cheerful and jolly, the videos show the girls enjoying themselves; they lark around and have a laugh doing it and it's a joy to watch - pay attention, moody self-obsessed rawk stars.

They met up at the Seoul Institute of Arts where they were studying jazz piano and vocals respectively. They partnered up for a MIDI project and have been playing together ever since then.

I simply love that their music is jolly and happy and that they have fun doing it. It's such a contrast to the vast majority of pop music these days. My wife remarked that they're probably the only K-pop girls who don't look like they're auditioning for a career in prostitution and she's right. K-pop has degenerated into girl bands who compete to show as much skin as possible and boy bands who're trying to win at a who's-the-moodiest competition.

All other K-pop
I find it so cheering to hear two women enjoying themselves and performing joyous music that isn't about teenage relationships and having fun doing it. And goodness me, but it's nice to find graduates from an arts institute that aren't doing self-indulgent post modern crap that's impossible to enjoy.


There's really not much more to say about J Rabbit and that's a good thing. I generally have no interest in the lives of the people making music; if I like it, I like it... I don't need to hear their biography. Side note: After an interview with a Japanese pop star, my translator turned to me and said "God, he's just so ordinary," and I fell about laughing.


Although J Rabbit usually perform with just guitar or piano, they enjoy using a variety of eclectic instruments and they will sometimes use technology. By the way, in the video above, the chap playing the iPad is their college professor.


They also do a range of covers of songs they like and Jung Hye Sun does a very good job of singing in English. It's a bit tricky to actually buy their music (they're out of stock of physical copies), but you can head over to their record company's website. They don't have their own website, Twitter account, Facebook page or any of that either and that's refreshing too.

http://friendz.net/

Talented college graduates who write their own cheerful songs, play a wide variety of instruments, don't need studio 'magic' and perform without dressing like tarts? Blimey, whatever next?


Not to be confused with dubstep poser, J. Rabbit: http://thebasscollective.com/2011/10/05/music-feature-hello-stan-j-rabbit/