British band Massive Attack in their recent shows in Australia and around the world performed a cover of the Korean song Regret of the Times (sidae yugam), originally released by pop band Seo Taeji and Boys in 1995.<\/p>\n
Massive Attack\u2019s version is accompanied by images and footage from South Korea\u2019s Gwangju Democratisation Movement<\/a> in May 1980, a turning point for the Korean anti-authoritarian movement. Thousands of people were killed or wounded by police during these student-led protests.<\/p>\n The band, which said the song showed K-pop has its roots in political protest, has explained this cover was <\/p>\n an act of continuity, revival & solidarity with @seotaijicompany \u2013 K-pop progenitor \u2013 whose work defied state censorship while creating a global genre.<\/p>\n So what\u2019s the history of this track and how did it become a protest song? <\/p>\n What was Regret of the Times by Seo Taiji and Boys?<\/p>\n The lyrics of this song express frustration with the establishment and political hypocrisy.<\/p>\n At the time, Korea\u2019s Public Performance Ethics Committee called for negative political lyrics to be removed from the song. The band responded by releasing just an instrumental version.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Censorship was not new in South Korea. All cultural production had been closely monitored in rapidly industrialising Korea since the 1960s. <\/p>\n A large-scale petition from Seo Taiji and Boys fans sought to have the entire pre-release screening system overturned, which it was in 1996.<\/p>\n Massive Attack\u2019s decision to set imagery from the Gwangju rallies against the soundtrack of Regret of the Times underscores the place this song holds in Korean music history as a symbol of protest.<\/p>\n What were the 1980 Gwangju protests about?<\/p>\n Following the assassination of Korean president Park Chung Hee in 1979, an army general named Chun Doo-hwan carried out a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat later that year. He soon declared martial law. <\/p>\n Anti-martial law demonstrations gathered pace in Seoul in the 1980s, and civil unrest soon erupted in the regional city of Gwangju. <\/p>\n A violent, state-led suppression of civilian uprising soon followed. This ended up claiming the lives of hundreds (although some estimate the real death toll was much higher<\/a>).<\/p>\n In the aftermath, reporting from the uprising was suppressed. Culture became one of the main vehicles through which anti-establishment protest spread. <\/p>\n Culture has always been central to Korean protest movements. In a country starkly divided by factional politics, Gwangju continues to be a reminder of state-sponsored violence and of pro-democracy activism<\/a> (chiefly by students and young people). <\/p>\n \u201cRemember Gwangju!\u201d became one of the key rallying cries for the democracy movement in the 1980s that led to the first democratic elections in 1987.<\/p>\n For many Korean people, Gwangju is still a painful memory, commemorated in art, literature and cinema. It was also made famous by author Han Kang\u2019s award-winning book Human Acts<\/a>, which details the profound impact the Gwangju events had on seven characters. <\/p>\n In many ways, Gwangju was the founding moment of the Korean democracy movement, a moment when the state openly inflicted pain on its own people while the world looked on. <\/p>\n While Seo Tae-ji and the Boys\u2019 did not directly reference Gwangju, their message focused on social issues that mattered to young people: discontent<\/a> with society and leaders who seemed to be driven more by profit than public good.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n How did K-pop evolve from there?<\/p>\n Looking at today\u2019s K-pop idols, it may come as a surprise that the roots of some of the most creative Korean pop music are in the country\u2019s protest movements. <\/p>\n The K-pop industry today aspires to be apolitical because it aims to appeal to large audiences, and is directly linked to the South Korean government\u2019s soft power policy.<\/p>\n As key players in a huge multinational business, idols and band members tend to keep themselves out of political commentary.<\/p>\n Even when one of the biggest political domestic crisis engulfed South Korea in December 2024 with the president declaring a martial law (albeit only for a few hours), many K-pop idols felt unable to comment<\/a>. <\/p>\n That said, K-pop fandom is not entirely apolitical. In fact, often global fandom activism has become a site of resistance.<\/p>\n As I\u2019ve previously noted<\/a>, many K-pop fans become strongly attached to their idols and this drives collective power.<\/p>\n Their collective pressure has enabled them to organise globally in climate<\/a> activism<\/a>, to support struggling tuk-tuk drivers in Thailand<\/a> in 2021 and even impact electoral campaigning in Chile<\/a> or disrupt a Donald Trump rally<\/a>. <\/p>\n A sign of progress<\/p>\n Massive Attack has already performed their version of Regret of the Times, against a backdrop of footage from the Gwangju protests, at multiple concerts across the world.<\/p>\n