Translate

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Artist Spotlight: J Rabbit



                Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!  Welcome to our first Artist Spotlight.  And to kick off this segment, on this special day, is our Valentine’s Day artist performing a cover of the Beatles’ “All You Need is Love”.


                On March 7, 2007, Jung Hyesun and Dawoon Jung were classmates (not sisters!) at the Seoul Institute of Fine Arts and graduated in the same year. Hyesun studied vocals while Dawoon studied jazz piano.  Now, nearly six years later they have released three full albums and at least two tracks for OSTs along with their regular Youtube uploads, Dawoon in charge of writing the songs and playing instruments and Hyesun continues to sing.
                At first they were just classmates in the same MIDI course and were grouped by their professor for a project and they felt the project went well and from there they continued to build a good relationship.  Their professor, HCube, went on to become their producer and representative at friendz.net.
                It wasn’t always great things for the pair.  After college they tried to form a band but got rejected several times, being called “dull” or “boring”. At length they gave up and while Hyesun returned to college, Dawoon took a part time job at a Dunkin’ Donuts but realized this was not the way her life should be.  She called HCube, who had been looking for a female vocalist.  Dawoon recommended Hyesun and the three met at HCube’s officetel* where Dawoon picked up a guitar and started to play.  After a short time her and Hyesun decided to perform a cover which they posted to Youtube as “J Rabbit’s Pilot Video” which appears to cover SNSD’s “Gee” and Rihanna’s “Umbrella”.
The name J Rabbit came rather quickly as a café asked them to promote for a concert day and the girls hadn’t decided a name.  As both were born in 1987, the year of the rabbit and their family names both began with the letter J, they called themselves J Rabbit.  From then they recorded numerous covers and Dawoon started writing songs and finally in March of 2011 the duo released their debut album It’s Spring.  After nearly one year they released their second album, Looking Around, on April 27 with songs composed by the duo.  On November 30th,  they released Merry Christmas from J Rabbit (from which the Beatles’ cover can be found).  Additional songs can be found on the Flower Boys Next Door and Operation Proposal OSTs. The pair also featured on Kim Jin Pyo’s song Ahjussi as well as for the MV.

J Rabbit continue to perform, record and upload Youtube videos from the friendz.net channel. Their latest was just 6 days ago.  I find there’s no easy way to stop listening to these girls perform.  I just want to keep listening to more as Hyesun’s sweet voice their aegyo brighten my bad days and make my good days even better.  In that light, it is difficult to conclude this first Artist Spotlight and so I will do what I often do when listening… just listen to another.




Sources:

*An officetel is a “multi-purpose building” with both residential and commercial units that are found in South Korea.  It’s designed so that people can live in the same building they work from. - Wikipedia

1 comment:

  1. Outstanding :D !

    and Happy Valentine's Day!

    -Gassy the Goblin

    ReplyDelete