Kim Dong-ryul
Kim Dong-ryul
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Kim Dong-ryul

Kim Dong-ryul (Korean김동률; born March 15, 1974) is a South Korean singer-songwriter. He composes, arranges, writes lyrics, produces, and performs his own music. He has been active since 1993.

As an architectural major in Yonsei University, Kim Dong-ryul formed the duet Exhibition with his close friend, Seo Dong-wook. Dong-ryul composed their songs and played the piano while Dong-wook played bass guitar.

The duet became famous through an MBC University Song Festival in 1993. They emerged champion and won the special prize with the song "In Dreams" which Seo wrote and Kim composed. From then onwards, Kim began his career of singing, composing, and writing lyrics.

Exhibition's self-titled first album, which famous singer Shin Hae-cheol produced and featured on, was released in May 1994. Even though the duet were new figures in the world of popular music, they did the composing, piano, bass, and computer programming themselves. The album received positive reviews and climbed onto the top ten chart, going on to sell over 600,000 copies.

In 1994, Kim and Seo enlisted in military service together. Upon release, the duet released their second album Strangers in 1996. The album was also produced by Shin Hae-cheol, and instrumentalists Yi Byeong-woo, Kim Se-hwang, and Jeong Won-young participated in it. Strangers also received positive reviews from critics, but there was a plagiarism dispute regarding "A Testament", a song on the album. The song came under suspicion because of its similarity to "The Girl Who Fell from the Sky", from the soundtrack in Studio Ghibli's animated film Laputa: Castle in the Sky. Experts decided that the main melody and ways of using instruments were similar, so "A Testament" became a dishonourable song for the duet.

In 1997, the duet decided to return to normal school life. They then released their last album Graduation with five songs which had special personal meanings for them. Especially, "First Love" which was composed by Kim Dong-ryul when he was 14 years old and "In Dreams" which was the song that made the duet very popular.

After disbanding, Seo Dong-wook became a normal student. But Kim Dong-ryul said, "The only thing I can do is music." He created the project group Carnival with Lee Juck, with whom he became close with through the Jam concert of a popular radio program, At Starry Nights. Both of them were 24, singers and composers. But their music styles were very different. Kim Dong-ryul's songs were still slightly naive and mostly standard classical ballads, while Lee Juck's songs were poignant and heretical.

The two decided to collaborate and their music was of the funk genre. They worked with world-famous brass session team, Jerry Hey, and Korean singer and jazz pianist, Kim Gwang-min; subsequently they released the album Carnival in 1997. It had a retro theme, and was a great success for them. They won the Golden Disc Award.

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