Interrogating Trot, Situating the Boom: New(tro) Nostalgia, Old Songs, and National Identity Performance

Across 2019–2020 a number of South Korean TV competition shows branded their musical identity as “trot.” This term denotes a perceived genre of popular music considered normative to South Korea’s developmentalist decades and thereafter as the music of older generations, yet the surprise success of the TV shows seemingly indicated a younger uptake heralding a “trot boom.” However, in much of their choice of repertoire, the shows transgressed pre-existing expectations of the genre. The notion of a trot boom premised on a reified genre discourse is thus overly reductionist and fails to explain adequately the performed aesthetics and socio-musical phenomenon engendered by the shows. This article problematizes the received narrative(s) of “trot,” while highlighting three alternative trans-genre elements and aesthetic trends that operate in close proximity to trot discourse: “old song” collections, kug’ak (traditional music) fusion, and a discourse of Korean vocal affect. It analyzes the repertoire and performances of three of the most noted trot-branded television series, and juxtaposes them with two further case studies: YouTube channel Chu Hyŏnmi TV and a sample of “old song” collections dating 1969–1989. It argues that all three cases variously intersect and diverge from reified trot, while simultaneously exhibiting their own interrelations collectively bound by performed retro and newtro aesthetics, and national identity discourse.