Recorded music is a reflection of modern Indonesian history and culture—specifically class consciousness, economics and post-colonial identity. Since the early 1970s, the production, marketing and distribution of recorded media, particularly popular music cassettes and VCDs, in Indonesia have evolved in tandem with the archipelago's ongoing integration of tradition and modernity.
History The roots of Indonesia's history of recorded music practices can be traced to the emergence of nationalism in the early 20th century and the eventual independence of Indonesia from the Dutch in the 1940s. The struggle for a national identity rooted in a synthesis of Eastern and Western perspectives extended into the realm of music, with nationalists suggesting that Indonesia's national music be a form of indigenized Western music, such as kroncong.DR Sumarsam, "Indonesia, History: Post-colonial," Grove Music Online, 2008, Online (4 January 2008). This sentiment led to the establishment of state-sponsored conservatories and academies of music in both Java and Bali during the 1950s and 1960s, with similar schools established in Sumatra and Sulawesi during the 1970s. In this roughly twenty-year period, the Indonesian government also institutionalized the recording of both traditional and popular music throughout the archipelago with its support of P.N. Lokananta, the national recording company of Indonesia, a branch of the government's Department of Information since the late 1950s.Roger Vetter, "Lokananta: A Discography of the National Recording Company of Indonesia by Philip Yampolsky (Book Review)," Asian Music 19:2 (Spring – Summer, 1988): 161, JSTOR, Online (11 January 2008). "Although scholars have detected a gradual narrowing in the geographic and genre purview of Lokananta's recording and marketing strategies, considering this to be at odds with its status and purpose as a national recording company, the introduction of audiocassette recording technology in the 1960s gave rise to a robust industry of recorded music. In the 1970s, oil wealth and the relatively unrestricted import of cheap tape and recorders led to an extraordinary boom of the Indonesian cassette industry.Peter Manuel and Randall Beier, "Jaipongan: Indigenous Popular Music of West Java," Asian Music 18:1 (Autumn – Winter, 1986): xxx, JSTOR, Online (7 January 2008).
Central to the ongoing evolution of Indonesian popular music styles was an inherent tension between dueling aesthetics: gedongan ("refined", "international") and kampungan ("vulgar," "low class," "backward"). During the 1970s, the most prominent supporter of the gedongan style was Guruh Sukarno (born 1953), son of the first president of Indonesia and a musician since his early teens. Long a student of classical Javanese and Sundanese music while at the same time familiar with Western jazz and classics, Guruh set out in 1974 to elevate existing Indonesian-Western pop music and create a kind of neoclassic, syncretic style that would be at once Indonesian and international.William H. Frederick, "Rhoma Irama and the Dangdut Style: Aspects of Contemporary Indonesian Culture," Indonesia 34 (Oct., 1982): 125, JSTOR, Online (4 January 2008) Contrasting in many ways with Rhoma Irama and the many other dangdut singers popular during the 1970s, Guruh Sukarno was a member of the elite class and saw Indonesia's culture as pluralistic and inescapably mixed with influences from the West.R. Anderson Sutton, "Indonesian Popular Music," in Worlds of Music, Ed. Jeff Todd Titon (New York, Schirmer Books, 1992), p. 312. Nevertheless, the 1970s also witnessed a gap between the rich and poor classes. Awareness of this gap, and sensitivity to the condition of the lower classes were central to the popularity of dangdut and the many genres it influenced.William H. Frederick, "Rhoma Irama and the Dangdut Style: Aspects of Contemporary Indonesian Culture," Indonesia 34 (Oct., 1982): 128-129, JSTOR, Online (4 January 2008)
Between the 1970s and 1990s, recorded Indonesian popular music grew to include, like most popular music elsewhere in the world, the use of at least some Western instruments and Western harmony. It was increasingly disseminated through the mass media, performed by recognized stars, and became essentially a "commercial" genre.R. Anderson Sutton, "Indonesian Popular Music," in Worlds of Music, Ed. Jeff Todd Titon (New York, Schirmer Books, 1992), p. 310. In the process of reformation (Reformasi) that was put into motion with the resignation of president Suharto and the fall of his New Order regime in 1998, popular music became a common vehicle of protest, and many songs, cassettes and genres were labeled with the adjective reformasi..Bart Barendregt and Wim van Zanten, "Popular Music in Indonesia Since 1998, in Particular Fusion, Indie and Islamic Music on Video Compact Discs and the Internet," Yearbook for Traditional Music 34 (2002): 71, JSTOR, Online (4 January 2008)
Popular Music Recordings in Indonesia Today Overview
Nearly all of the music sold in Indonesia today is in the form of pre-recorded cassettes, but music is also available on compact disc, video compact disc (VCD). and laser disc (LD). The latter two formats contain images as well as sounds, and are mainly used to accompany karaoke performance.Jeremy Wallach, "Exploring Class, Nation and Xenocentrism in Indonesian Cassette Retail Outlets," Indonesia 74 (Oct., 2002): 87, JSTOR, Online (7 January 2008) While the traditional, court-derived styles of gamelan and wayang kulit have been frequently recorded, sales of popular music in Indonesia have increased dramatically with the emergence of the cassette tape. Centered in Jakarta, Indonesia's music industry defines popular music as either "national" or "regional." National genres, including Pop sunda, kroncong, dangdut, qasidah modern, rock, rap, country, jazz, disco, house and Hawaiian, generally feature lyrics in Indonesian (though sometimes in English) and are marketed mainly in the urban regions throughout the archipelago, both as audio cassettes and compact discs. Sales trends, both regionally and nationally, are shifting towards popular music, which, in contrast to the field recordings of regional styles, is almost entirely a product of recording studios.Bart Barendregt and Wim van Zanten, "Popular Music in Indonesia Since 1998, in Particular Fusion, Indie and Islamic Music on Video Compact Discs and the Internet," Yearbook for Traditional Music 34 (2002): 68, JSTOR, Online (4 January 2008) In financial terms, the present day music industry in Indonesia is small by world standards, but it is the largest in Southeast Asia.Bart Barendregt and Wim van Zanten, "Popular Music in Indonesia Since 1998, in Particular Fusion, Indie and Islamic Music on Video Compact Discs and the Internet," Yearbook for Traditional Music 34 (2002): 81, JSTOR, Online (4 January 2008) Although cassette tapes are still sold in large quantities, since 1997 these have been replaced more and more by VCDs. Audio CDs have never been big sellers, as their price is relatively high.Bart Barendregt and Wim van Zanten, "Popular Music in Indonesia Since 1998, in Particular Fusion, Indie and Islamic Music on Video Compact Discs and the Internet," Yearbook for Traditional Music 34 (2002): 88, JSTOR, Online (4 January 2008)
Table 1: Average prices of popular music in different recorded formats, 2001–2002Bart Barendregt and Wim van Zanten, "Popular Music in Indonesia Since 1998, in Particular Fusion, Indie and Islamic Music on Video Compact Discs and the Internet," Yearbook for Traditional Music 34 (2002): 88, JSTOR, Online (4 January 2008) Legal cassette tape of popular music Rp.10,000 – 15,000 Legal VCD Rp.16,000 – 40,000 Legal audio-CD Rp.30,000 – 50,000 Bootlegged Indonesian/Malaysian VCDs Rp.6,000 – 10,000
Cassettes Indonesia is said to have the largest cassette industry in the world. Given the country's cultural and ethnic diversity, the recording industry, and the cassette industry in particular, has displayed great complexity in its structure and in how it serves the many ethnically distinct regions of the country. While the CD and the advent of digital technology has affected the production, dissemination and consumption of Indonesian popular music, cassette tapes remain the preferred source of recorded popular music for most Indonesians. The continued viability of the cassette medium in Indonesia springs from the fact that an audio cassette and the technology required to play it—-a simple cassette player/recorder—-are within the financial means of most Indonesians, including the peasant class.R. Anderson Sutton, Commercial Cassette Recordings of Traditional Music in Java: Implications for Performers and Scholars, 1990, http://members.ai5.net/[email protected]/cassettemythos/RAndersonSutton.html . As cassettes and cassette players have penetrated the remotest villages in Indonesia, they have also become part of the vernacular. For example, in addition to the older word ngrekam ("to record"), contemporary Javanese now includes words for the process of recording onto a commercial cassette: "Gendhing kuwi wis dikasetkz" ("That piece has already been recorded on commercial cassette."). Much of what is available can be classified as "popular" music," including pop Berat (Western pop) and pop Indonesia (Indonesian pop). Also in abundance is pop Daerah, or regional pop, which is found all across Indonesia. Virtually all genres of pop Daerah are dependent on the cassette medium for their audience. Some Pop Daerah genres are little more than cassette-company experiments, generating only a few performers and a handful of tapes, but others are firmly established, with many performers and steady production. Four genres—-Pop Batak, Pop Minang, Pop Sunda, and Pop Jawa—-are especially solid. In the case of these four, some of the production comes out of Jakarta, relying upon Jakarta-based musicians and Jakarta facilities for recording, printing and distribution. However, most of the other regional genres are produced in their home regions (or in the nearby big cities).Philip Yampolsky, ""Hati Yang Luka," and Indonesian Hit," Indonesia 47 (Apr., 1989): 13, JSTOR, Online (7 January 2008). As a result, the cassette industry is national, regional, and local in character. The broad marketing of cassettes has not led to a musical homogenization or a weakening of regional styles. Rather, local cassette industries have promoted regional styles because, rather than being large national corporations, they are regional "backyard" enterprises that record, dub, and market local music primarily for local consumption.Peter Manuel and Randall Beier, "Jaipongan: Indigenous Popular Music of West Java," Asian Music 18:1 (Autumn – Winter, 1986): 99, JSTOR, Online (7 January 2008). Commercial cassettes have also shaped the reputations of popular music performers, significantly raising the prestige and earning power of some recording artists while lowering them for others. Scholars have noted a trend towards the equalization of status for genres and marginal traditions through the distribution of cassettes; the cassette industry is said to act as a leveler, blurring the older status distinctions that were still in place a generation ago.
Video Compact Discs (VCDs)