Modern Noise, Fluid Genres: Popular Music in Indonesia, 1997–2001

1. Indonesian Popular Music Genres in the Global Sensorium

1 Indonesian Popular Music Genres in the Global Sensorium Saya suka semua jenis musik, dari jazz sampai . . . musik daerah! [I like all kinds of music, from jazz to . . . regional music!] taxicab driver, Jakarta So what if we’re a shitty metal band. printed on a sticker for Puppen, a veteran underground rock group from Bandung, West Java One result of Indonesian music’s complex history, upon which the description in the introduction barely scratches the surface, is a wide array of music genres that coexist in the Indonesian music market and significantly shape the consciousness of Indonesian listeners. The following abbreviated list of genres is meant as an introduction. Certain national genres, especially dangdut, pop Indonesia, and musik underground , will reappear frequently in the following chapters, but all the genres discussed here are important, and examining the ways they interrelate is crucial for understanding Indonesian popular music as a whole. The list is based on categories Indonesians themselves use to discuss music, primarily in verbal interaction but also in the mass media, although their presentation here incorporates an etic viewpoint that synthesizes various data sources to create a branching taxonomy of 27 genres. Descriptions of additional popular music genres of secondary importance to the present study appear in appendix B. The following discussion begins with Western imported music, moves to Westernsounding Indonesian pop music, and then considers two genres with prominent non-Western elements: dangdut and regional music. The final genre to be considered is underground rock music, which, while sharing many musical features with pop, is unique due to its grassroots mode of production and its specialized youth audience. As will be made clear, each of these categories carries with it expectations of musical form, assumptions about the composition of audiences, social prestige factors, and a distinct significance in the context of Indonesian national culture. Pop Barat (Western Popular Music) Published shortly before a general session of the People’s Consultative Assembly, the cover of the August 9–15, 2000, issue of Gamma (an Indonesian news magazine akin to Time or Newsweek) depicts the principal political actors of the time (President Abdurrahman Wahid, Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri, Golkar Party chairman Akbar Tanjung, and House Speaker Amien Rais) as members of the Beatles: their faces had been quite convincingly superimposed over a vintage photo of the Fab Four posing with their instruments. The caption underneath them reads (in English), Don’t Let Me Down. In addition to being a clever way to send a message to Indonesia’s perpetually squabbling leaders, this illustration on the cover of a respected Indonesian news magazine demonstrates both the familiarity and the cultural cachet of Western popular music in that country. Imported popular music from Western Europe (primarily the United Kingdom), Australia, and the United States has long maintained a strong presence in Indonesia. The names of the most prominent international artists, from Elvis Presley to Britney Spears, are quite well known, despite the fact that most Indonesians understand very little of the English lyrics they sing (although I have been told that listening to Western pop songs is a common way for Indonesians to learn the English language). Despite its extensive promotion in Indonesia by marketing divisions of multinational conglomerates, music imported from the West constitutes a minority of the nonpirated cassettes sold in Indonesia. In the first ten months of 1999, domestically produced music outsold foreign music by 3 to 1 (Theodore 1999, 4). In 1996, before the economic crisis reduced the buying power of all but the most affluent 28 Sites • Indonesian Popular Music Genres 29 • (and most westernized) Indonesians, the ratio was 6.5 to 1 (ibid.). One reason for local music’s dominance is undoubtedly the higher price of Western artists’ cassettes relative to those by Indonesian artists (up to 40 percent higher); another is the persistent language barrier. Differing sociomusical aesthetics also play a role, however, and these will be discussed in subsequent chapters. Magazine cover featuring major Indonesian politicians as the Fab Four. In general, Indonesian tastes in Western pop music tend toward two extremes: loud rock music at one end and treacly sentimental love songs at the other. Heavy metal and hard rock are among the most popular genres of Western popular music among both rural and urban youth, while the appeal of sentimental love songs is cross-generational and seems to be even greater than their appeal in the United...