Sure, it does.
In the lastest issue of a magazine I am subscribing, Songlines, I found an article about “North Korean music.” Click here to read the full text. A British guitarist, Jason Carter visited North Korea and played with NK music players. NK is known as a “secluded” country and it is not free to visit there. But it is not impossible to travel (if you have money and if you assure that you are not a US spy). Visit Jason Carter’s blog for more stories about his visit to NK.
Other than nuclear threat and poverty, how is NK represented outside world? Well, in terms of music and “culture,” the incredible “mass game” would be the one (Visit this youtube link to flavor it. To the audience outside, does its “unreal” quality confirm the “un-human-ness” (whatever it means) or a further understanding of the NK society and culture? Well, maybe both.
The musical equivalent to this might be “revolutionary” songs celebrating their “great leader.” “Radio Pyongyang: Commie Funk and Agit Pop from the Hermit Kingdom” from the Sublime Frequencies series captures really well the “novelty” aspect of karaoke-like NK music. Especially if you can understand the lyrics, you cannot miss the clashing harmony and/or calcophony. The mixture of agitational Soviet operatic tune structure and Korean traditional tunes, and the almost sublime content and Casio-quality synth pop form sounds funny and perplexing, interesting and boring at the same time. Actually, South Koreans like me cannot possibly describe the feeling from this music in a simple way because it involves the history lesson, politics and the personal emotional gut reaction as well. Thousands of feelings are simutaneously passing through.
That’s it for NK music? I don’t know except that South Korean popular music (especially “Japanese Enka-style” South Korean tunes are popular there. Maybe. But I hope not. I want to hear more beyond the “official” tunes. I like “Radio Pyongyang” but that’s enough for “novelty” representation which is not 100% comfortable to me.
I found a bunch of North Korean “music videos” on Youtube which seems “official.” The uploader “juchekorea” seems to be a “Zainichi” (Korean-Japanese). Anyway, the music for these visual materials are similar to (though not as fun as) typical tunes featured in “Radio Pyongyang.” I am linking one of them by the famous Bochonbo Electric Orchestra (보천보전자악단) here, but not sure this “music video” is accessible from South Korea. Enjoy (whatever it means)!
Comments 3
Granted they are “official” tunes, but for more NK music - including full versions of some of the songs on Radio Pyongyang - a visit to this site is highly recommended: http://www1.big.or.jp/~jrldr/
당신이 없으면 조국도 없다, 통일무지개, 내 마음 즐거워라, 바다의 노래, 병사들은 대답했네, 밀양아리랑, 내 이름 묻지 마세요, 간호원의 노래, 젊음은 급행렬차 and 우리의 총창우에 평화가 있다 are titles too look over while there ^^
Posted 17 Sep 2007 at 12:46 pm ¶Thanx Anna for the link. I really like “당신이 없으면 조국도 없다,” which is featured in “Radio Pyongyang” CD as a “title” track mix.
Posted 17 Sep 2007 at 6:34 pm ¶keith howard has a chapter about nk pop in his edited volume, ‘korean pop music: riding the wave.’ (global oriental 2006)
Posted 09 Nov 2007 at 2:39 pm ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 1
[...] how they choose to pleasure their ears. For simplicity’s sake, and the fact that I don’t know what music North Koreans listen to, I’m going to focus on defining these categories from a western [...]
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