Their masters' voice: Korean traditional music SPs (Standard Play Records) under Japanese colonial rule

Researchers in Korean studies looking into the popular entertainment industries during the colonial period have historically focused on cultural nationalism or economic prowess. Studies of music from this period that are not primarily concerned with aspects of resistance or censorship have come out only in the last few years, and so it is only recently that the popularity of the many new forms of entertainment among Koreans at the time has come to be recognized. In this article I describe the interaction of Koreans and Japanese in these industries from the time of their inception around the turn of the nineteenth century, and relate how politics on the one hand, and the influence of technology on the other, changed both the sound and concept of recorded Korean music until the late 1930s. In doing so, I focus on recordings of traditional music and refute the idea that the Japanese tried to indiscriminately manipulate them from the outset.