To paraphrase the great Janet Jackson, “Like a moth to a flame, Burned by the fire, My love is blind, Can’t you see my desire?” That’s the way love goes…and a way certain passions take us to some wonderful places. It’s something we can explore in Kim Wan Sun’s The First Touch.
Seemingly eternally age-less, the Seoul-born, Kim Wan-sun (on paper) seemed like the last person one would think would become “Korea’s Madonna”, much less any kind of superstar. From a young age rather than perform in front of others, she’d stay at home, creating unique dance moves to whatever music was on the radio. As an introvert, the last thing she was even thinking about was sharing her talents to an audience.
It would be Kim’s aunt, Han Baek-hee, who’d literally (and figuratively) push her to do something with her preternatural talent. She was the one who noticed her passion for dance and stressed to Kim that if she was to do something serious with it, Kim would have to study it (inside out) and fall under her overbearing tutelage. Begrudgingly, Kim would study music composition and arrangement, while putting her whole heart into ballet and contemporary dance classes she was taught at her aunt’s dance studio.
In between the loneliness of being molded to be some kind of star her aunt wanted to exploit. Kim got her introduction to a new kind of pop music. Experiencing the contemporary American urban soul scene, on radio, brought Kim the realization that if she wanted to explore this new world of performance, she’d actually have to make music to express herself.
So, at the age of 16, Kim Wan-sun signed her first record contract and just a year later released her debut. Her first record would introduce Korean audiences to Kim’s eccentric stage persona. Some would call her icy. Others would dub her mysterious and withdrawn. Yet, onstage, Kim was a force, drawing from a more modern vocabulary of performance.
In a Korean pop world unaccustomed to such a “vibey” performer, Kim was her own package – a singer who had more in common with the foreign pop scene than the conservative, somewhat backwards leaning Korean culture of that time, a multi-hyphenated artist in a music market where such a thing was a rare bird to see. Arguably, one could see how what Kim was doing was workshopping the kind of “Hallyu” artist one could become. Every one of those records proved that a new kind of Korean artist could mix and match anything from the contemporary dance scene into a new kind of Korean musical vocabulary. With time a lot of her signature dance moves and songs would become influential but at that moment, only Kim knew if her heart was in it.
For five years and five releases, Kim’s ever restless influences and ideas sprouted huge ideas on records like Vol. 4 and ‘88. While other artists craved the limelight, Kim rarely would be found cavorting with famous stars or basking in the glare of gossip mags. When she wasn’t contributing choreography to other artists or making music, she’d be busy doing side hustles as an actress or sometime fashion designer/model.
With great success and effort, in the late ‘80s, Kim was able to do what was once unthinkable: breakthrough the Japanese market (as a Korean pop artist) with her hit, “ランバダ” a reimagining with Japan’s awesome Chito Kawachi of the zeitgeist song of the times, “The Lambada”. In some way, this unlikely hit was the cherry on top to what many wouldn’t know would be her last two Korean records, before her early retirement in 1992.
Kim’s early retirement from the Korean music world must have been a shock to her. In the span of two records, beginning with 1990’s 김완선 5집 and ending with 1992’s 애수, arguably, you could say that Kim had created her most personal and forward-thinking works yet. Full of sophisticated, mature, and still fascinating, Korean soul music and less uptempo dance pop – in a Korean pop culture more used to following trends – Kim Wan-sun’s arc on those albums dug deeper, into more introspective musical worlds little-explored in her land. And in a way, her audience’s reluctance to fully follow her there – proved by the lower than expected sales – must have hurt Kim (who by then had increasingly grown tired of her aunt’s dictatorial control over her career). It was then Kim understood she had to do something else.
Dropped by her label, Kim was in some kind of deep financial debt when she was in many ways forced by her aunt to try again in Hong Kong, where the pop scene wasn’t as fully formed. Post-retirement, what seemed at first an opportunity to live in Hong Kong and learn Cantonese and English, transformed into something else. She’d had to make good out of a bad situation.
Kim signed with a Hong Kong-based division of the Polydor record label. Doing so, would provide her freedom to absolve herself of whatever debts she had with her aunt and explore new ideas with a fresh audience.
第一次接觸 (THe FirSt ToUCh) marked a renaissance in Kim’s creative life, even if it was created during a time of great uncertainty in the geopolitical relations between Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea and her own personal world. Working with cutting-edge producers from Hong Kong and Taiwan like Joseph Ip and Benjamin Lin, Kim suddenly had a new sphere of music to draw from. From Canto-pop it was that growing influence of UK Soul (as heard in the music of Kate Tong, whom she’d cover here) and from Hokkien pop it was strains of house music and J-pop. In between all these worlds of contemporary Asian pop music, Kim had some kind of runway to march forward through.
The blank slate Kim was given, spurred the creation of intriguing songs like “女人的心都一樣” or impressive covers like “我就是你的”. At a time when the expansion of what kind of an artist a female pop singer can be, Kim staked her case that it could be reflective, measured, and mature. And what she lacked in vocal range, much like her huge influence, Janet Jackson, she made up for in phrasing that waxed more lyrical, more graceful, than ever before. Latin-tinged songs like “在你背後的我” and “坦白” bring a new kind of funky groove that benefitted Kim’s exploration of hip-hop and jazz.
What’s impressive of 1984’s 第一次接觸 (THe FirSt ToUCh) is that Kim Wan-sun’s love of dance can evolve as it would on songs like “傷心是為誰”. On it, a downtempo groove gives a long shrift for Kim to unfurl her ideas. In a world where other Asian artists were playing catchup, Kim once again stood at the precipice of its future. And those songs that touch on Taiwanese attempts to cross that bridge, like her cover of Louise Tsuei’s “但是又何奈”, serve perfect notice that Kim was unafraid to let alternative histories move her, as well.
When I hear Kim sing the last strains of “愛得甜蜜” I can’t help but think this is the perfect introduction to her (sadly) unheralded work in our Western world. It’s an album that showed a certain promise. It’s a promise we’re only just experiencing through more contemporary K-pop artists who can cross any cultural border, even if one of its most influential trailblazer couldn’t quite stick the landing just yet.