I read an article last week by Ariel Heryanto called “Popular Culture for a New Southeast Asian Studies?” [in The Historical Construction of Southeast Asian Studies; Korea and Beyond, edited by Park Seung Woo and Victor T. King (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2013), 226-262.]
Essentially what Heryanto argues in that article is that popular culture is a topic that scholars have traditionally not focused on, but that if we examine what kind of popular culture is popular in certain areas we can gain an interesting perspective on “what is Southeast Asia.”
In that article, Heryanto focuses on TV dramas that were popular (in recent years) in certain areas of Southeast Asia, such as Meteor Garden and The Little Nyonya, and examines why such dramas were popular in certain places (and not in others) and what that can tell us about Southeast Asia as a region.
I agree that this is a productive way to think about “Southeast Asia,” and given that popular culture encompasses much more than TV dramas, there are countless ways that one could approach this topic.
One such way could be to look at “cover versions” of pop songs in Southeast Asia. In North America there are artists like Kina Grannis and Boyce Avenue who produce incredibly professional cover versions of songs and upload them to YouTube, and then there are many, many “common people” who produce their own version and do the same.
So who is creating cover versions in Southeast Asia? And which artists are they creating cover versions of? Does this differ across the region?
These are all interesting questions that one could ask, and the answers could tell us something about contemporary Southeast Asia.
My own superficial observation is that there is a much stronger following of North American popular music in places like Indonesia and Malaysia than there is in places like Thailand and Vietnam. Why would that be the case?
I’m not sure, but I think a first step would try to document the influence of various pop culture “sources” by trying to map out who is making cover versions of which songs where and in what way.
I’ve posted above a link of a Thai cover of the Chainsmokers’ song “Closer” which looks very “K-pop-influenced” to me in its style and aesthetics, and the other link is of Indonesian musician Isyana Sarasvati’s (killer good!!) version of the same song (after a brief Justin Bieber intro).
Meanwhile there are many more cover versions by “common people” from Malaysia and Indonesia, but I don’t see that many from Thailand and Vietnam.
I’m not sure what this all means, but I agree with Ariel Heryanto that examining the various forms that popular culture takes in Southeast Asia takes can tell us a lot about Southeast Asia today.
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There are lots of covers in Vietnamese popular song, but their reception can be tricky. The typical approach to popular song has been in what I would call a tin-pan-alley mode with a division of labor between composer/lyricist, singer, arranger, recording company. In that relationship a lyricist could write words to a foreign song, supply the words to a singer who would perform or record them. Phạm Duy was very prolific in this regard.
The adoption of rock music as nhạc trẻ in Saigon of the 1960s and 1970s led to a recognizable culture of covers. The nhạc trẻ rock bands often tried to sing the songs in their original language (relatively easy if they sang French songs, but many learned to at least phonetically sing in English, especially if they were employed to play for GI clubs and posts). In this process they created Vietnamese language version sof songs for Vietnamese language audiences. (In the North young people created lyrics to foreign songs — most famously the Tuýp Sông Hồng (Red River Twist) that was based on the Ventures cover of the old cowboy song Red River Valley – after a long introduction this link gives a rendition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ0W9wqovk8
In the 80s a style called “new wave” was very popular among overseas Vietnamese. This involved alternating the original and Vietnamese lyrics to electro-disco, Euro-pop songs. Lynda Trang Đài was the leading figure here see – https://youtu.be/uPbBtjegW2o
In the “tin-pan-alley” vein, Khúc Lan also wrote many popular and successful lyrics to foreign songs – here is a Japanese song she used
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj-myCaf4-U
I’ve written a blog about her lyrics to this song –
https://taybui.blogspot.com/2012/01/sa-mac-tinh-yeu-desert-of-love-khuc-lan.html
More recently there has been a concern about copying foreign songs and claiming them as one’s own – popularly called đạo nhạc (usually in the interest of shaming the copier). Cover songs are today found mostly in what is thought to be the lower class area of music and are usually copies of K-pop. This can be an interesting creative phenomenon. I blogged once about the transformation of a Korean song by the k-pop boy band FT Island to a Vietnamese ballad by Khánh Phương:
http://taybui.blogspot.com/2012/07/i-hope-anh-hy-vong-ft-island-2009.html
https://taybui.blogspot.com/2012/07/nguyen-uoc-wish-nhac-lee-hong-ki-loi.html
And there was the whole sensation created by a Vietnamese video that copied the music of a Korean song and the music video of a Chinese song – “Anh không đòi quà”
https://taybui.blogspot.com/2014/01/anh-khong-oi-qua-i-wouldnt-ask-for.html
The link to the Vietnamese is broken in my blog – here is the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlPH5jWbTpAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlPH5jWbTpA
There is a certain amount of anxiety about originality and creativity that makes covering songs a little complicated in Vietnam. I think this is a fairly recent idea. In essence, in traditional music almost all vocal music was copied — the same skeletal melodies (whether folk songs or of Chinese original) were reused with new lyrics all the time. Part of the anxiety today is that foreign culture may overwhelm local culture. But I think the two recent examples show creative recreation of existing songs.
But on this subject, there’s the other whole topic of nhạc chế – doggerel, often controversial, rude and obscene lyrics to existing songs.
Thanks for this!!
I think you’re talking more about music that ends up getting recorded. I was referring to music that people record themselves performing and then put on YouTube.
Ultimately, looking at both would be really interesting. 🙂
I guess my reply proves your point. There is a musical phenomenon in Vietnam called nhạc chế that performs the function that you talk about. But the people who make this music seem to only choose Vietnamese songs to cover or parody. This video has more than 16 million views:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdaA3QNsQWU
It’s a new version of the 1970 bolero “Sương trắng miền quê ngoại” by Đinh Miên Vũ, made famous by Duy Khánh. I’m sure the song is banned in Vietnam.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFNoTFwSg74