Raised on New Wave: exploring the bizarre music taste of Kim Jong-Un
When you see the slicked black hair and stern features of Kim Jong-Un, presiding over an army marching under banners bearing his face or inspecting nuclear missiles and – frankly outdated – military vehicles, the question of ‘What music does this fella listen to?’ probably does not spring to mind, at least not straight away. Once you’ve finished pondering the unimaginable horrors of what goes on behind the curtain in North Korea and have emerged from the existential crisis brought about by ideas of authoritarian power and the oppression of the proletariat, the answer to the question about Jong-Un’s favourite tunes reveals an interesting, often unbelievable, answer.
Before delving into the bizarre musical taste of North Korea’s Supreme Leader, it is important to note that pretty much everything surrounding the dictator and North Korea is up for debate. Such is the nature of how news is shared and confirmed in the DPRK that more or less everything could be considered hearsay. Nevertheless, the accounts of Jong-Un’s musical leanings have been affirmed by a variety of sources that knew the future dictator during his youth, when he spent time studying in Bern, Switzerland, during the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Reportedly, during his formative years in the picturesque surroundings of Bern, Un took every opportunity to soak up the culture of the West. Finding himself particularly enamoured with electronic music and basketball, the future leader of the DPRK was often noted for his party-loving personality and affection for the weirder side of popular music – two things which seem unbelievable given Un’s later persona as the Supreme Leader.
Predictably, not much is known for sure about Un’s time in Switzerland other than what is claimed by those who encountered him at the time. Perhaps the most far-fetched of these accounts is the fact that Jong-Un used to play Liam Lynch’s ‘United States of Whatever’ to his basketball teammates as a means of boosting morale.
Of course, the son of Kim Jong Il would have to be careful about espousing the joys of American rock and roll. The future leader of the Workers Party of North Korea could hardly be seen endorsing the free market capitalism that gave rise to the advent of rock and pop. So, the groups that Jong-Un was more freely able to embrace usually came from more acceptable pastures, namely Germany. During his time in Switzerland, Jong-Un was said to have obsessively collected original vinyl pressings of Kraftwerk, the pioneering electronic band that captured the industrial landscape of 1970s Düsseldorf.
If the image of Kim Jong-Un flipping through crates of second-hand records looking for the faces of Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider was not weird enough, imagine him sitting down after a long day and putting on a Heino record. Characterised by his dark sunglasses, white hair and strange persona, Heinz Georg Kramm is among the most successful German musicians of all time. Still, he is virtually unknown outside of mainland Europe – apart from within the walls of the Ryongsong Residence in Pyongyang.
While studying in Europe, Kim Jong-Un was said to have gained an interest in pornography and sadomasochism – things which are, presumably, hard to come by within North Korea. This interest soon led him towards the sleazy sexiness of psychobilly progenitors, The Cramps. It seems that nobody, not even the future dictator of an East Asian country, could deny the brilliance of Lux Interior and Poison Ivy. However, it’s unclear how much of punk’s inherently anti-authoritarian leanings filtered through to the psyche of Un.
It is said that Kim Jong-Un’s greatest love – aside from sadomasochism, basketball, and oppressing his subjects – was the German pop duo Modern Talking and their 1986 hit ‘Brother Louie’. Originally a number one in Germany and Sweden, the band re-released the song in 1998, at a time in which Kim Jong-Un was said to be studying in Switzerland. Inevitably, the track found Un and Un found a deep appreciation for the German dance-pop.
The mind boggles at Kim Jong-Un’s youthful exploration of music in Europe. It simply does not fit with the image of the dictator that has been affirmed in the years that followed. Nevertheless, the leader’s love for music has been fairly well-documented. In fact, it is said that, upon meeting former US President and part-time shoe salesman Donald Trump, the pair bonded over a mutual appreciation for Elton John – who would likely object to either authoritarian leader listening to his tunes. Whether or not his love for The Cramps and Kraftwerk remains to this day is unknown, but the image of him sitting in his mansion listening to ‘Bikini Girls With Machine Guns’ is fairly entertaining, in a bizarre kind of way.
