LISTEN: Korean Boyfriend Confronts “Middle Management”

New album, Simple Face, due out October 26th

August 8, 2024August 8, 2024 Ron Hart 0 Comments DFA Records, Korean Boyfriend, Los Angeles, Middle Management, Simple Face, Stanley Cho

Stanley Cho is Korean Boyfriend (Image: Tiny Human)

Music journalism still matters. So when a giant of the craft like Jim DeRogatis heaps praise upon your act, you know you’re on the way up.

A “nastier” They Might Be Giants is how DeRog posited the music of Korean Boyfriend, the brainchild of Los Angeles musician Stanley Cho. “But with a smile.”

On his second album, however, Cho aims to craft his own lane of art pop with a collection of songs that lives in between the cracks of the New Wave and Noise Rock sections of your neighborhood record shop. Simple Face finds Cho taking the KBF brand to the next level with an abrasive yet arresting take on K-Pop albeit through a DFA Records lens.

Korean Boyfriend Simple Face, self-released 2024

“Simple Face, to me, is not complicated,” says Cho, says of the album, which was recorded in Manhattan. “I hope listeners feel the grooves and connect with the vague adolescent gothic undertone.”

Rock & Roll Globe is happy to premiere the first single off Simple Face, a song called “Middle Management” that anyone who’s ever worked in an office setting can appreciate.

“The music aspires to be matter-of-fact, beautiful and substantial, unlike the run-around bullshit spouted by many a middle-management supervisor I’ve experienced in the workplace who take every available advantage of their middling position over others while pawning off responsibility and blame to everyone and everything but themselves,” Cho tells us. “In parallel, the song is about city life in the middle, squished from above, fearing the worst from below, and somehow experiencing respite and life in leaving those daily frustrations behind; forgetting in order to propel forward.”

Listen to “Middle Management” below.

Simple Face comes out on October 26th.