NARRATIVES / AESTHETICS / CRITICISM MUSIC KEEPS US TOGETHER: POP SONGS IN KOREAN TELEVISION DRAMAS VERONIKA KELLER Name Veronika Keller This article analyzes the important part these songs play Academic centre Ludwig Maximilians Universität, Munich in the development of the narrative of Korean TV series (or E-mail address
[email protected] K-dramas) over its whole run, and, in a lesser extent, the part music and singers play in the marketing process. This is KEYWORDS exemplified by the musical concepts of three recent series: K-drama; soundtrack; hallyu; pop song; leitmotif. Dokkaebi: The Lonely and Great God (2016-2017); While You Were Sleeping (2017); and Because This Is My First Life (2017). ABSTRACT Similar to the concept of a leitmotif, once established as In the early 1990s the “trendy drama” became part of a song for a character, a couple or a mood, pop songs are Korean TV programming. Mainly focused on a younger used throughout the run of a series. They therefore add a audience, it not only showed the modern urban lifestyle of new layer of meaning to a scene, not only through lyrics and its protagonists searching for love, but also integrated newly music, but especially by referring to past developments and composed pop music into the series, first as theme songs incidents, thus holding the whole series together and giving and later by playing musical pieces at crucial moments in the it an individual character. developing relationships of the young couples. 95 SERIES VOLUME V, Nº 2, WINTER 2019: 95-107 DOI https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2421-454X/9161 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TV SERIAL NARRATIVES ISSN 2421-454X SERIALS IN EAST ASIA NARRATIVES / AESTHETICS / CRITICISM > VERONIKA KELLER MUSIC KEEPS US TOGETHER.