From Production to Consumption: The Socialist Realism/Personality Cult Divide in North Korean Popular Music

Abstract

While several historical works have explored the notion of ‘communist consumption’ especially in regards to Eastern European countries, few have looked at the relationship between consumption and the personality cult in a place like North Korea where the state has tended to respond to material shortages with ideological campaigns. This paper uses the lens of popular music to re-conceptualize the notion of consumption as not simply about “how much one consumes” but instead “what kind of things one consumes” and the consequent relation to state objectives for the national economy and political control. From around the time of the state founding in 1948 to the mid-1960s, North Korean music was largely in line with transnational principles of socialist realism, stressing the utilization of local folk forms and the tying of them lyrically to messages of industriousness and socialist construction. However, from the late 1960s when the leadership personality cult kicked into high gear, music simultaneously embraced more outside forms of music while at the same time exhibiting lyrical themes that associated particular items and experiences with a new national heritage centered on exhortations to revere Kim Il Sung and members of his family. The result was a shift in emphasis from exhibiting virtue through production to promoting loyalty through practices of consumption, and this gave impetus to the light music genre in popular music.