ABSTRACT
This chapter explores sonic icons of Korean musical identity, asking how they are used today to establish an image of place that is far from what they stood for in the past. It considers the nationally and internationally familiar soundworld of kugak, Korean traditional music. The chapter introduces the normative and representative soundworld of North Korea: ideologically correct songs, but songs which tell of a socialist utopia distant from the reality experienced by citizens today. Where the soundworld of kugak celebrates the past, the dominant soundworld of North Korea celebrates the proletariat, adds elements absorbed from Chinese and Soviet artistic policy, and, seeking payback for colonial control and the destruction of war, looks to a utopian future. While censorship and control is routinely practiced to police music, it is lyrics, and aspects of performance other than music as sound, that typically frame concerns.
