Sonic Modernities in the Malay World Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde Edited by Rosemarijn Hoefte KITLV, Leiden Henk Schulte Nordholt KITLV, Leiden Editorial Board Michael Laffan Princeton University Adrian Vickers Sydney University Anna Tsing University of California Santa Cruz VOLUME 290 Southeast Asia Mediated Edited by Bart Barendregt (KITLV) Ariel Heryanto (Australian National University) VOLUME 5 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/vki Sonic Modernities in the Malay World A History of Popular Music, Social Distinction and Novel Lifestyles (1930s–2000s) Edited by Bart Barendregt LEIDEN • BOSTON 2014 This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported (CC-BY-NC 3.0) License, which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. This work is part of the research programme Articulation of Modernity: The Making of Popular Music in 20th Century Southeast Asia and the Rise of New Audiences (NWO 360-63- 070), which is (partly) financed by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Cover illustration: Photo adapted from an 1963 EP released by Singaporean band The Crescendos (Philips BE 430 801). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sonic modernities in the Malay world : a history of popular music, social distinction and novel lifestyles (1930s-2000s) / edited by Bart Barendregt. pages cm. -- (Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde ; volume 290) (Southeast Asia mediated ; volume 4) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-25986-7 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-26177-8 (e-book) 1. Popular music--Malaysia- -History and criticism. 2. Popular music--Indonesia--History and criticism. 3. Music--Social aspects--Malaysia--History--20th century. 4. Music--Social aspects--Indonesia--History--20th century. I. Barendregt, Bart A., 1968- editor of compilation. II. Contains (work): ML3502.A785S66 2014 781.6309595’1--dc23 2013035273 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1572-1892 ISBN 978-90-04-25986-7 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-26177-8 (e-book) Copyright 2014 Copyright by the Editors and the Authors. This work is published by Koninklijke Brill NV. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing and IDC Publishers. 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This book is printed on acid-free paper. <UN> <UN> CONTENTS List of Illustrations .................................................................................................vii Contributors .............................................................................................................. ix 1. Sonic Histories in a Southeast Asian Context ............................................. 1 Bart Barendregt PART ONE AN EMERGENT ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY 2. Music on Dutch East Indies Radio in 1938: Representations of Unity, Disunity, and the Modern ..................................................................47 Philip Yampolsky 3. ‘Dirty Dancing’ and Malay Anxieties: The Changing Context of Malay Ronggeng in the First Half of the Twentieth Century ............. 113 Jan van der Putten 4. Disquieting Degeneracy: Policing Malaysian and Singaporean Popular Music Culture From the Mid-1960s to Early-1970s ............. 135 Adil Johan PART TWO THE SOUND OF MELAYU 5. Pop Goes Melayu: Melayu Popular Music in Indonesia, 1968–1975 ...................................................................................................... 165 Andrew N. Weintraub 6. Pop Melayu vs. Pop Indonesia: New Interpretations of a Genre into the 2000s ................................................................................. 187 Emma Baulch PART THREE NEW SUBJECTIVITIES AND UNOFFICIAL IDEOLOGIES 7. Worlds of Sparkling Lights: Popular Music and Youth Cultures in Solo, Central Java ....................................................................................... 219 Lars Gjelstad <UN> <UN> vi contents 8. Seductive Pleasures, Eluding Subjectivities: Some Thoughts on Dangdut’s Ambiguous Identity .......................................................... 249 Bettina David PART FOUR MUSICAL NATIONALISMS 9. Notes on Dangdut Music, Popular Nationalism, and Indonesian Islam ......................................................................................... 271 Jeremy Wallach 10. Politicians who Love to Sing and Politicians who Detest Singing ............................................................................................... 291 Kees van Dijk PART FIVE THE ETHNIC MODERN 11. Musical Aspects of Popular Music and Pop Sunda in West Java .... 323 Wim van Zanten 12. Modernizing Songs of the Forest: Indigenous Communities Negotiate Tensions of Change in Malaysia ........................................... 353 Tan Sooi Beng Index ........................................................................................................................ 371 <UN> <UN> LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 3.1. How ronggeng captured the imagination (Nieuw Indisch ABC / teekeningen van J. van der Heyden, 1925) ........................... 118 4.1. The Cyclones (courtesy of Joseph Clement Pereira) ...................... 146 4.2. The Thunderbirds (courtesy of Joseph Clement Pereira) ............. 146 4.3. Ismail Haron’s single, Delilah (courtesy of Joseph Clement Pereira) ........................................................................................................ 147 4.4. Joseph C. Pereira and his personal record collection (photo by author) ..................................................................................... 151 5.1. Pop Melayu album covers, c. 1975 ...................................................... 171 5.2. Album cover Kepantai Florida ([Let’s go] to the beach in Florida) ....................................................................................................... 179 7.1. Bedroom of Agus (photo by author)................................................... 234 7.2. Bedroom wall of Roni, with a drawing where the boys style themselves in skater imagery next to their gang name, an intersection of alternative masculinities (photo by author) ........ 235 9.1. Dangdut performance in Jakarta nightclub (photo by author) ... 174 10.1. Dari ulama untuk bangsa (1999) ......................................................... 298 10.2. The cassette Untukmu Indonesia-ku (2000) ..................................... 299 10.3. The Video CD A place in my heart: Sing Singapore that was released in 2003 ....................................................................................... 305 11.1. Tanjidor musicians with Western brass instruments (photo by author) ..................................................................................... 329 11.2. Women at a party in Jakarta, 14 July 1979 ....................................... 331 11.3. Drums and a few gamelan instruments accompanying the dancing ................................................................................................ 332 11.4. Transcription Bajing luncat by author ............................................... 340 11.5. Transcription Sorban palid by author ................................................ 347 12.1. Mak Minah on the cover of the Akar Umbi album ......................... 359 12.2. Amplified sape at the Rainforest World Music Festival, Sarawak 2003 ............................................................................................ 364 <UN> <UN> <UN> <UN> CONTRIBUTORS Bart Barendregt is an associate professor at the Institute of Social and Cultural Studies, Leiden University in the Netherlands. He is currently coordinating a four-year project funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), which is hosted by the KITLV. This proj- ect, ‘Articulation of Modernity’ (2010/2014), focuses on societal change through the prism of popular music, emphasizing the appeal of modernity rather than that of the nation-state, and thus offering a new way of studying Southeast Asia that foregrounds the movement of people, music, ideas, and technologies among the region’s cosmopolitan centres. Bart has published on Southeast Asian performing arts, new and mobile media and (Islamic) pop music; he has also produced several films on this subject. He is now finishing his book on Islamist popular music in Southeast Asia. Philip Yampolsky has been studying one