From Me To IU

 Maybe a year or so back, I was talking to my friend Dan-O about the music he was listening to, a subject I’m always interested in with him, as Dan-O was in fact the guy that first introduced me to the world of J-pop all those years ago… Back when he was still living in Hawaii and he was hooking em up with the sounds of CoCo, Trf, Namie Amuro and shows like HEY HEY HEY Music Champ and POP JAM…Ah, those were the days!


Well, in that time, Dan had moved back to his hometown of Guam, gotten busy with work, and with his busy schedule, he admitted that he hadn’t kept up with the music of the j-pop world, and when he DID go out with friends to dance clubs or karaoke, it was now K-Pop that he was primarily listening to! After getting over the shock of the news, he went on to link me videos of Korean groups he liked so I could get a feel of what he was “into”…


So a few weeks ago I’m downloading the latest video of Girls’ Generation (or SNSD or Shoujo Jidai, whatever you want to call them), and when I click play to watch the video, find that I’ve downloaded the WRONG PV! This might have been bad news, but I found I really liked the song I was watchng, and the girl was cute, besides! Looking alternately between actress Riko Narumi and BoA, this girl instantly captured my attention and I realized I needed to get this song!

Taking a glance at the video credits, I read that the song was called "Good Day", and the artist singing was named “IU”, and suddenly, bells went off in my head! Going back and checking our last correspondence, I checked, and sure enough,  Dan-o had cited this girl as his current favorite Korean artist! What a Happy Coincidence!


It was thrilling to see that one of Dan-O's fave Korean artists had found her way into my circle of new music singing Jpanese versions of her korean songs! I immediately emailed Dan with the exciting news! Happily, he hadn’t yet heard the song , so I sent him the youtube link, and we both went back and watched it, agreeing that IU was quite talented indeed, her song “Good Day” was a wonderful little tune, and OH MAN, we gave BIG applause to that “high-sustained” finishing note she wrapped up the pop-perfect song with! Just fantastic!

Above: IU in her Good Day video. Is it jsut me, or does this courtyard look exactly like the one where Captain Von Trapp danced with Maria in The Sound Of Music?