Busker Busker
Busker Busker | |
|---|---|
| Busker Busker's Superstar K3 Seoul People album cover. Busker Busker's Superstar K3 Seoul People album cover. | |
| Background information | |
| Origin | Cheonan, South Korea |
| Years active | 2011–present |
| Members | Beom-Jun Jang Hyung-Tae Kim Brad Moore |
Busker Busker (Hangul: 버스커 버스커) is a Korean indie band, most famous for their runner-up performance in the Korean music audition television program Superstar K3 of Mnet. As of November 14, 2011, Busker Busker has suspended all public activities.[1]
Their members consist of guitarist and vocalist Beom-Jun Jang (Hangul: 장범준), bassist Hyung-Tae Kim (Hangul: 김형태) and drummer Brad Moore.
Biography
Before Superstar K3
The group Busker Busker was founded by the band's guitarist and lead singer, Beom-Jun. His vision was to create a busking art group that focused on street performances and sought to bring an artistic cultural presence to the streets of Korea. His vision included all art mediums, not just music, and he sought to create festivals that would showcase the budding talents of local artists. Members of Busker Busker included university students, mostly from the Cheonan campus of Sangmyung University. Prior to Brad joining the band, the band's name was Pinky Pinky and was only a subset of the total Busker Busker group. Unfortunately, the band's drummer had to leave the band in order to keep his compulsory commitment to join the Korean Army. At that time, Beom-June and Hyung-Tae were both university students at Sangmyung University where Brad also worked as a professor of English. They met and the three became the new bandmates, renaming the band Busker Busker. However, the band was still a loose formation, as many members of the Busker Busker group would rotate in and out of band performances. The Busker Busker group set up multiple performances in a local Cheonan park in the summer of 2011, which is where the Busker Busker Band's fame began to escalate. At the same time, Beom-Jun, Hyung-Tae, and Brad were participating in Superstar K3 auditions as just a threesome because they were the only three members of the band to be able to participate in the audition process. After their auditions aired on TV, the band solidified into only those three members.
Participation in Superstar K3
Busker Busker auditioned for the 3rd season of the Korean audition show Superstar K. They were eliminated from the TV show after performing the song Juliet with another auditioning group, Two Gae Wol. However, despite only making the Top 48 of the contestants to tryout, the band that originally made Top 10 dropped out[2]. As a result, Busker Busker, along with another band Haze, was given a second chance to appear on the TV show and signed on to be a part of the show's new Top 11. Busker Busker's first song on the show, Tokyo Girl, was extremely popular and the band survived the first elimination round. After continuing their previous success, the band managed to continue to survive elimination round after elimination round. Eventually, only the last three groups remained which included Busker Busker, Oolala Session, and Two Gae Wol. Going into the second-to-last show, the three groups were asked to make good on a promise they had made earlier in the show if they were to end up in the Top 3 of Superstar K3. Busker Busker's promise was a strip dance which they performed in Hongdae in front of a group of onlookers[3].
After the live performances of the second-to-last show, and the live voting was completed, it was determined that Busker Busker and Oolala Session were to be the final two groups remaining. The last episode of the season was the final competition between the two remaining groups, with Oolala Session taking home the top prize[2].
Post-Superstar K3
Since the completion of Superstar K3 the group has been highly elusive and took time off from public activities to determine their music direction[1]. This was in part due to the difficulty the band has communicating and practicing[4]. In addition, while the band was scheduled to take part in a Superstar K3 Top 11 Concert Tour, Brad was scheduled to return home for the Christmas holidays. As a result, the band temporarily found a new drummer for the concert while Brad travelled to America. After Brad returned on January 12, the band resumed practices in order to prepare and record their first album as a separate entity from the Superstar K3 TV show[5]. The Busker Busker album is set to release sometime in the first half of 2012[5].
Albums
Song List
- Tokyo Girl 3:32
- Livin' La Vida Loca 3:18
- Bus Stop 3:27
- I Bumped into You 3:20
- Makkeolina 3:06
- 그댄 달라요 3:46
- I Believe 3:18
- Seoul People 3:26
- A Gift For You 4:24
- Juliet 3:29
Success in the K-Pop Chart
References
- ^ a b "Busker Busker suspends all public activities". Newswave. November 15, 2011. Retrieved December 5, 2011.
- ^ a b c "Sing the miracle!". The Korea Herald. November 8, 2011. Retrieved January 23, 2012.
- ^ a b "Will Busker Busker Keep Their Promise to Strip Dance?". Soompi. October 31, 2011. Retrieved January 23, 2012.
- ^ a b "'Busker Busker' drummer Brad reveals his girlfriend". TVReport via Nate. November 19, 2011. Retrieved January 23, 2012.
- ^ a b c "Busker Busker's Brad is Back". in2KPop. January 11, 2012. Retrieved January 23, 2012.