The new Netflix black comedy Mask Girl features several classic Korean pop songs on its soundtrack.
Songs from the 1980s and 90s that were quite a bit different than much of what was being released in conservative South Korea at the time, which is why they stood out.
Songs like Kim Wan Sun’s ‘Dance in the Rhythm‘, which was the song playing on Mask Girl, Episode 1 as Kim Mo Mi is at home drunk, goes onto her ‘Mask Girl’ live stream and proceeds to dance and then strip naked.
She then wakes up the following morning to find her live streaming channel has been suspended.
What is Kim Wan Sun’s ‘Dance in the Rhythm‘?
The catchy 1980s synth-pop dance track was released by Kim Wan Sun in 1987 when the then fairly new singer was still just 18-years-old.
At the time, the singer was becoming a pop sensation in South Korea due to her high-energy and being markedly different and more ‘western’ in style than many other Korean singers of her day.
‘Dance in the Rhythm‘ became one of her biggest hits, as well as one of the first big K-pop songs.
It is a song that became known primarily for Kim Wan Sun’s fierce dancing paired with her almost innocent teenage vocals, and one that helped the young singer eventually become what Koreans called the “Korean Madonna”.
Nowadays, Kim Wan Sun is still a big star in South Korea, although she retired from the pop music world in the mid-1990s to concentrate on visual art.
In recent years, however, she has released several singles as well as appeared in a reality show.
You can listen to Kim Wan Sun’s ‘Dance in the Rhythm‘ from the first episode of Mask Girl in the video and on the Spotify widget.
There is also a live version of the song Kim Wan Sun performed back in 1987 that is a lovely and quite fun watch. You will find that down below as well.