Does North Korea have any rock bands?
So, the obvious answer to the question posed above is that we don’t really know.
Not only is it true, but it’s also the obvious answer because it’s the same one we give to any question about what life is really like in North Korea.
A country that, as we all know, controls what people learn about it as strictly as it does badly. Which is pretty spectacularly badly, as that infamous clip of a news presenter being shown around a North Korean “office” filled with impeccably behaved “workers” that were all typing away on fake computers shows.
North Korea is as much a mystery as it is a country. One where you have to piece together a theory based on whatever work of fiction Kim Jong Un’s government wants to sell you on now. It’s a pretty terrifying state of affairs when the only thing one can know for sure about a country is that they have nuclear weapons. Other than that, everything is guesswork and hearsay, with vanishingly few reliable testaments from anyone who’s seen the country first hand.
The few accounts that we do speak to a nation that’s a third world country in all but name. However, it is one that keeps trying to present itself as a hub of culture and creativity. So, let’s call its bluff and ask a pretty simple question: are there rock bands in North Korea? After all, Southeast Asia is in the midst of a full-on rock ‘n’ roll revival at the moment, so it’d stand to reason that a few would be around if it really was as culturally “with-it” as it claims to be.
If you ask North Korean officials they’ll say, “why, yes we do!”
Who are the state-sponsored pop band of North Korea?
It’d take a bit of brass neck to claim that the Moranbong Band are anything other than a big, shiny, state sanctioned pop group but this is North Korea they’re talking about.
If they want this group to be a rock band, that’s exactly what they will be. If they want them to be an all-singing, all-dancing pop group, they’ll be that too. If they want them to dress as Korean military officers and sing songs literally called ‘Our Comrade Kim Jong Un’, you’d best believe they’ll do it if they know what’s good for them.
The group debuted in 2012 and was a product of a time when North Korea decided to give integrating into the Western world a try. Legitimately, there are more than a few signs that they were hugely intimidated by South Korea’s Psy having a global hit with ‘Gangnam Style’ and were trying to manufacture their own version of the mega-hit in the form of the Moranbong Band. Nothing else came of the group other than a few other state-sponsored concerts however.
In the underground, more than a few bands have claimed to be from North Korea. The black metal band Guryong claim to be from Rason, in the north of the country. Others, like Red War and Teagirl also claim to be from there but there’s quite simply no way to be sure. The truly sad part is that all we can be sure about is the presence of people who want nothing more than to strap a guitar on and rock out, but know that being caught doing that is more than their life is worth.