Lee So-ra, born 29 December 1969, debuted in 1995. Her sixth album, Eyelash Moon (눈썹달), meaning Eyelash Moon won her the Korean Music Awards for Best Female Vocalist in 2005. She is best known for her
Propose show, which showcased live performances by artistes and interviews.
She is less known outside of Korea compared to the likes of Kpop groups and other soloists. This can probably be attributed to the lack of exposure to the language as well as the fact that Kpop is a relatively recent phenomenon largely embraced by the youth.
Her androgynous voice, highly feminine in its trembling emotionality yet gritty in its stoic and stable core, flows like velvet over an iron fist clutching the edge of her stool. Her songs of love, loss and heartbreak rise and fall over multiple octaves as she goes from her low, mezzo-soprano register to lilting, high and sustained notes that resonate without any nasality but with power and strength.
The best example is her song from Eyelash Moon, 이제 그만 (Just Stop Now). The crescendo at the last stanza after the natural, steady cadence of the bridge emphasises the longing dredges of love, and the resulting resolve never to meet the man again:
사랑이란게 다 이런가요
잊었다 생각하면 더 생각나요
좋아했다면 우리 사랑했다면
다시는 마주치지 말길 바래요
Is love all like this?
If I think I've forgotten you, I think of you more.
If we cared for each other, if we had loved.
I hope we will never run into each other again.
Like a steady wave of the dark ocean at night, her majestic voice rises like a dignified monarch and falls not with a crash but unwaveringly, with restraint and sustained hope. To sum it up, the quote below from a better writer, Ask a Korean, encapsulates her "genius of singing"- having a vision of what he calls the 'fifth' end dimension, and being what truly means to be a singer:
"This is the point at which we see the true genius of singing. Singing is not merely following the commands of the composer. At its best, singing breathes life into what was no more than a clay doll formed by the composer. Singing turns what was two-dimensional into what is three-, four-, five-dimensional. It requires the ability to envision the end result, the fifth dimension that people cannot even imagine, and using your talent to get to that dimension. When this does happen, it is like magic -- it just happens. But instead of applauding, people simply think it is not hard to raise a rabbit in a hat and pull it out in front of the crowd.
Lee Sora's influence is made even more meaningful by the fact that she shined in the K-pop desert populated by pretty corporate puppets. K-pop had two periods of nadir -- once during mid-1970s to early 1980s when the military dictatorship cracked down on "subversive" songs, and during late 1990s-early 2000s when the corporate groups almost choked out the scene. During the latter nadir when talentless pretty faces crowded the television screens, Lee Sora never lowered herself to vulgar sex appeal. Her voice alone gently reminded everyone in Korea what mattered in music."
From Ask a Korean (
50 most influential kpop artists no. 37)
Ironically, in the homogenous sea of pretty idols and girlishly silly lyrics, Lee's handsome profile enhanced by her short cropped hair polishes the nobility of her voice to an elusive innocent purity that girl groups fail to produce, simply because she is uncontrived, deep, and in touch with her basic instincts to love, nurture and forget.
If listening to what we know Kpop to be is akin to tasting pink cotton candy at a fair offering all sorts of goodies, listening to her is like experiencing feminine strength in its emotive height. It goes from feeling the light salt of one's tears on the tip of one's tongue to tasting the deep saltiness of the sea in huge, airless gulps, and then resurfacing to gasp for the cool, night air before drifting, with closed eyes, into an unadulterated river of blue.
Listen to Lee So-Ra if
- You enjoy good music in any language.
- You enjoy listening to a deep, soulful voice.
