I was going to include The Trax in my last chapter about Korean music, but then I thought, nah…The Trax deserves their own chapter. As one of the best rock groups to ever come out of South Korea…where do I begin. Let’s start with 2004’s very own “Paradox”.
Haha! So…from what I’ve covered (from 2005-2009 at this point), South Korea isn’t exactly known for its hard rock and heavy metal. In the coming years of 2010&2011, I’d eventually discover bands like Buster, Yellow Monsters, and Tranxfixion, but up to this point, the only other metal group I had heard of was Novasonic, Seo Taiji, and props to Moon Hee Jun for his grungy solo albums. But if you contrast this with Japan’s plethora of metal bands and don’t even get me started when it comes to the states…yeah, safe to say, South Korea doesn’t have a lot of diversity with hard rock. I’m talking HARD ROCK.
Don’t be fooled. If you check out websites like Soompi and Allkpop, they’ll tout some bands as hard rock or punk bands, but that shit’s so soft. Like CN Blue or FT Island. Get outta here with all that. I give FT Island props for their hit “Pray” in 2015. But that’s it. Everything else is soft-rock.
But when it came to The Trax… The only reason why I hadn’t written a chapter about them sooner was because, sadly, up to this point they had only released one album. Which is honestly the biggest tragedy of all. “Paradox” was released in 2004. So, from 2004 till 2009, only one album. This shows that either S. Korea wasn’t into the Hard Rock sound, or SM Entertainment doesn’t know how to manage rock stars. Because one thing was undeniable, The Trax was overflowing with raw talent.
Oh, you didn’t know? Hell yeah, The Trax, the mother-effing Trax was founded and produced by SM Entertainment, the company known for its pretty boys like DBSK, Shinhwa, and Super Junior. In fact, the first time, I legit heard of the Trax was in DBSK’s music video, “Triangle”. As awesome as the song was (with its amazing use of Mozart), what made the song timeless was the rock provided by none other than the Trax.
Stage In The Sky 