Korean tango in Japan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlhgP9S3H80

"Sad Tango" is one of my favorite Rain videos/songs and it is particularly relevant becuase it relates to many of the issues dealt with in Keith Howard's "From Dance to Rap". The song is quite unique on many levels. For one, it was Rain's debut Japanese single so the original version was Japanese but Rain has now since made an entirely English version which is featured on the link I provided. The music samples latin melodies which reflects the "tango" in the song's title. As for the "Sad" in "Sad Tango", the word suggests a lost love theme which is indeed expressed within the song's lyrical content. So after stepping back a moment, we notice a dynamic interplay amongst the song's elements. We have a Korean pop star singing a Japanese song which musically is a fusion between modern r&b and latin melody while lyrically it is consistent with themes found in traditional Korean ballads. Plus, it is to my knowledge the only Rain song to have an English equivalent.

One thing to note from my observations is the obvious appropriation of foreign musical genres similar to Kim Gun Mo's "Excuse". In looking at the actual video, we see not only the showcasing of dance but also specific dance sequences that often disrupt the video's continuity. These are consistent with findings in Howard's paper.

Finally, there were some other things regarding the interplay I mentioned earlier that struck me. Why was this song in particular chosen to be Rain's first Japanese single? Was it because that musically it is neutral in the sense that it is not quite American pop nor is it very similar to other Korean pop songs. So being neutral in this case would mean differentiating itself from both jpop/kpop and american pop at the same time. Also, why is there an english version to this song and not any of his Korean songs. Is it possible that in infultrating the Japanese market, Rain and his managers hoped they could reach more Americans or English speakers in Japan than in Korea?