Long before Psy became a national culture hero with “Gangnam Style” and boy bands with bling attracted enormous crowds, the originators of K-pop sang about something that seemed a lot more important decades ago: unification.

In fact, foreign North Korea watchers and K-pop enthusiasts may be surprised to know that some of the masterpieces of early K-pop had unification, not love or dancing, as their theme.

When South Korea’s first pop idol, consideredto have set up the wireframe for modern K-pop dance music, was finally given freedom of choice of what he wanted to sing about other than love,