"Bike" by Adoy, Friday, August 13, 2021

Adoy is a Korean Indie group that formed in 2017 with members from other indie groups. The band contains the keyboardist/vocalist Zee from the indie band From the Airport, who I talked about in January. Zee has also been involved with writing on George's "Summer in Love," covered last month. Adoy was founded as musical project to produce "commercial indie," an oxymoron that reminds me of the early 2000s when bands like Modest Mouse and The Strokes went mainstream. In Korea, too, the growing indie sound is flooding cafes, television, and movies. The Korean indie wave is much smaller than K-pop and K-dramas, but within Korea and in some underground scenes, Korean indie music is a cooler alternative to the bubblegum pop, the cute boys and and girls stickers slapped onto a binder. 

WE RAN AWAY FROM THE TOWN. In Korea, though, a K-pop act's visibility helps to contribute to their sales. Much like seeing the image of a giant McDonald's M or a Nike check mark, seeing the K-pop posters helps to attract young fans. Korean indie, however, usually doesn't have the visual component of handsome/beautiful musicians. However, an article published last year in The Korean Times looks into a growing trend in Korean digital music. The author observes: "As more think the cover design reflects the artists' identity and the concept that they want to create, more artists started to put more effort into them, moving away from simple portrait-style images and introducing new artistic designs such as retro-inspired artwork and illustrations that help audiences understand the album concepts. More importantly, as more people choose to listen to new songs based on thumbnail images uploaded on streaming services, more eye-catching designs are emerging." Certainly, this is similar to the vinyl age with Pink Floyd records or the '90s and early '00s, where graphic designers like Ryan Clark helped to make Tooth & Nail packaging iconic. The Korea Times goes on to attribute the band Adoy's success with their usage of artist Ok Seung-Cheol's vivid, cartoon designs to help bolster the band's success.  

WE HID AWAY TO THE MOONLIGHT, BEHIND THE MERRY-GO-ROUND. Musically, Adoy falls into a Newtro style, a word coined in Korean, but very applicable to trends current trends. Newtro means "New" + "Retro" and, if you've listened to any pop song in the last 20 years, you could find an example of newtro. Newtro culture doesn't just apply to music, but art, food and drink as well. The South Korean coffee shop, A Twosome Place, has a Newtro drink menu, taking a modern approach to traditional Korean drinks. "Bike" is a middle track on the band's second EP, Love. Released in 2018, the synth pop vibes sound almost minor key on this track. But, like other songs on the EP, rather than sadness, the music creates a deep sense of nostalgia, which would translate across cultures even if the song were sung in Korean. However, Adoy, like From the Airport, chooses to set most of their songs in English. The musical tone of "Bike" suggests an overcast summer day or the memory of a summer day thought back on sitting inside during a November rain shower. However, given how many summer days in Korea are overcast, anticipating a heavy rainstorm--monsoon or typhoon--that often doesn't come, "Bike" is a perfect cloudy day Korean summer track that speaks of new love.

Read the lyrics on Genius.

Live performance:

Studio version: