Popular Music in Indonesia since 1998, in Particular Fusion, Indie and Islamic Music on Video Compact Discs and the Internet

Abstract

In this article we analyse some developments in the popular music of Indonesia, especially those that have occurred during the last five years. The concept of “popular music” in present-day Indonesia is discussed briefly along with an analysis of how it is used in the negotiation of the identity of particular communities, playing a vital role in a dialogue of power at local, national and global levels. We ask how the different pop scenes comment on and act to change society in an age of shifting identities and sensibilities. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, issues of copyright and intellectual property rights seem to have become even more important than they were in the 1990s. Examples are taken from both the national and regional pop musics with attention being paid particularly to the emergence of “world music” or “fusion”, Islamic music and the Indie music scene. The question of how these different types of pop music are represented in and shaped by the new forms of mass mediation, in particular the video compact discs and the Internet, is raised and discussed. With the demand for political change (Reformasi) and fall of President Suharto, the figurehead of the “New Order” regime, in 1998, these developments seem to have accelerated more than ever before.