KJCKorea
Journal Central

By analyzing the images appearing in popular music, I focused on examining the lives of the public in the period of industrialization, the turbulent period of the 1960s and 1970s in Korea. The events that characterized this period were a series of landmark events in the modern history of this nation, including the emergence of the military regime through the 5.16 coup, the government-led strong industrialization and the process of industrialization, and the restoration of Korea-Japan relations for economic development. The slogan of the military government that came to power during this period was “modernization of the homeland”, where modernization was industrialization and urbanization represented by the Five-Year Economic Development Plan. The popular singer Lee Mi-ja, who appeared during this period, is the best singer in the Korean popular music world. Her song <The Camellia Lady> was popular among a large number of people, and at the same time, it was a song that suffered bad luck as a ban song list. As a result of analyzing the visual image and spatial image in the song of Lee Mi-ja, I found that there is a contrast between 'red' and 'blackness' in the visual image, and 'island' and 'Seoul' in the spatial image. It is my claim that this image was in the background of the song that was already popular. In particular, the visual and spatial image in the song of Lee Mi-ja contains the expansion of free love following the wave of industrialization, the emotions of separation and sadness, and the emotions devastated by the polarization of urban-rural villages that reveal the difficult lives of the public in the 1960s.

popular song, Lee Mi-ja, The Camellia Lady, visual image, spatial image