Popular music critic Kang Heon, chairman of the Korea Arts & Culture Education Service, died on the 20th. He was 64.
According to the music industry on the 21st, he reportedly died the previous afternoon from a heart-related condition he had been suffering from.
Upon hearing of Chairman Kang’s death, Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Choi Hwi-young paid tribute in a social media post that day, saying, “Every step you took, always listening to voices from the field and believing in the healing and growth that art can bring, became a major milestone for our cultural and arts community,” and, “May you lay down all your heavy burdens and find peaceful rest in the heavens filled with the music and art you loved so dearly.”
Born in Busan in 1962, he initially dreamed of becoming a novelist. He enrolled in the Department of Korean Language and Literature at Seoul National University, but later forged a connection with music by studying music theory at the university’s Graduate School of Music.
He began his career in film. While active in the independent film collective Jangsangotmae, he made works including “Oh! Dreamland,” “The Night Before the Strike” and “Opening the Closed School Gate.” He wrote the screenplays for the commercial films “When Adam Opens His Eyes” and “Jungle Story,” and also worked on the script for the TV drama “The Third Theater.”
He first made a name for himself as a popular music critic by writing about singer Kim Hyun-sik. The criticism, which began at the request of a junior, changed his life. From the early 1990s onward, he was active in the field and drew attention from critics with his solid musical knowledge and bold writing.
His longtime colleague, popular music critic Im Jin-mo, recalled that he “caused a sensation in the field with his elegant writing.” The two wrote actively for various publications and helped lead popular music criticism, to the point that people at the time would say, “Kang Heon for Korean pop, Im Jin-mo for pop.”
Seo Taiji and Shin Hae-chul were especially central to Kang’s critical work. In the inaugural issue of the cultural quarterly Review in 1994, he met with Seo Taiji and discussed rock music, lip-syncing, sampling and the irregularities of the broadcasting industry in depth. It was an attempt to examine not only the music itself but also the industry and society around it.
His connection with Shin Hae-chul was also distinctive. After Shin died in 2014, Kang published “Shin Hae-chul: In Memory of Shin Hae-chul 1968–2014” in 2018. Revisiting the musician’s music and life, he documented the significance of Shin’s legacy in Korean popular music.
His work extended beyond criticism. He founded cultural quarterlies such as “Premonition,” “Imagination” and “Review” with colleagues, and taught the history of popular music for about 20 years at institutions including Hongik University, Sungkonghoe University, Dankook University and Sungkyunkwan University. He planned concerts such as “Freedom” and the “Folk 30th Anniversary Festival,” and also took part in producing musical theater works including “The Never-Ending Song,” “Cheonbyeon Salon,” “Cheonbyeon Cabaret” and “The Princess Cannot Sleep.”
He viewed Korean popular culture as a record of its times. In a 2016 YouTube feature by Munhakdongne, he said, “Our popular culture is a record of the everyday struggles of our people, who have lived through the tumultuous modern history of Korea with their whole bodies.” His description of the history of Korean popular culture as “a fiery chronicle of transplantation and independence” reflected his determination to read Korean society through music.
He was also interested in myeongri, the study of life and destiny. At age 42, he suffered an aortic dissection and woke after spending 23 days in a coma; the experience led him to study myeongri. After publishing “Myeongri: Reading Fate” in 2015, he went on to publish related books, including “Myeongri: Tuning Fate.” Other works he left behind include “The Waves of Music, the Waves of Resonance,” “Moments of Subversion and Reversal,” “Kang Heon’s History of Korean Popular Culture” and “Ode to Life.”
He also worked as a cultural administrator. He served as CEO of the Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation and as the fifth chairman of the Korea Federation of Regional Cultural Foundations, and was appointed chairman of the Korea Arts & Culture Education Service last December. Until shortly before his death, he continued writing about music and its times in the column “Kang Heon’s History in Pops” for The Chosun Ilbo.
He is survived by a son, Dong-jae, and a daughter, So-i. The wake will be held in Room 2 of the funeral hall at Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital from 9 a.m. on the 21st. The funeral procession will depart at 7 a.m. on the 23rd, and the burial site is Yongin Pyeonon Forest.
This article has been translated by GripLabs Mingo AI.
