by ebaulch

In Indonesia these days, there is a propensity among (non Chinese) pop
musicians to take on Chinese stage names, for example, Mulan Kwok,
Meichan and Baim Wong. There is another artist called, I think, Ferry
Chow, but I cannot find the reference (an interview in Gadis magazine)
to confirm it. This strikes me as something new, that is distinct from
the rise of Chinese stars such as Agnes Monica and Leonie. I am slowly
starting to think about how to read this, and in doing so shy away
from treating it as peculiarly Indonesian, related to the
liberalisation of public expressions of Chineseness, and lean towards
beginning to explore its interAsian dimensions. This playful (Mulan
Kwok recently changed her stage name to Mulan Jameela without turning
a hair!) adoption of Chinese stage names reminds me of how some young
men I worked with in the 1990s would adopt scary, English-sounding
nicknames, and invoke the cultural power of AngloAmerica.
Alternatively, the adoption of Chinese stage names invokes East Asia,
the metropolis, hence constructing ‘Asia’, of course, in a certain
way. At the same time, in an age of Idol and MTV, the construction of
an ‘Asia’ centred on East Asia does not overtake that of an
Anglo-American metropolis.

It appears that some things have been written about the construction
of Asia in East Asia (or in ‘East Asia plus one’, including Singapore
– Chua Beng Huat), but little about the production of Asia in
Southeast Asia. My question is: does anybody in this group undertake
or know of any such work, or have an interest in comparing examples of
Southeast Asian celebrities ‘playfully becoming Chinese?’

(Emma Baulch)

by sonicscape

I was informed that these books on popular music and popular culture were just published. It feels good to see many books on popular culture in/around Asia (and especially music) are coming out.

Popular Culture in Indonesia:
Fluid Identities in Post-Authoritarian Politics
Edited by Ariel Heryanto
Published by Routledge, 2008

One of the most significant results of the deepening industrialization in Southeast Asia since the 1980s has been the expansion of consumption and new forms of media, and that Indonesia is a prime example. Popular Culture in Indonesia; Fluid Identities in Post-Authoritarian Politics details the key trends since the collapse of the authoritarian Suharto regime (1998), showing how the multilayered and contradictory processes of identity formation in Indonesia are inextricably linked to popular culture. This is one of the first books on Indonesia’s media and popular culture in English; a significant addition to the literature on Asian popular culture.

For more information about this book, please visit:
http://users.tpg.com.au/arielh/popculture/index.htm

Sounds of then, sounds of now
Popular music in Australia
Edited by Shane Homan and Tony Mitchell
Hobart: ACYS Publishing, June 2008

In Sounds of then, sounds of now: Popular music in Australia some of the country’s most respected popular music researchers, musicians and music journalists document a range of past and present Australian sounds and scenes.

The collection maps recent changes in music consumption, production and media technologies, and the implications for local industries. It reconciles local music histories with contemporary practice, and reflects upon the growth and current diversity of Australian research, music genres and contexts, including jazz, rock, folk, metal, electronica, dance music, experimental music and hip hop. Chapters examining Aboriginal, Islander and world musics offer new perspectives on local and transnational relationships between popular music, geography and culture in Australia.

This text provides a means for understanding how popular music has expressed, reflected and influenced changes in Australian society through debates about youth, nationalism, censorship, local identity, contested spaces and enduring mythologies about ‘Australianness’. While some chapters examine earlier scenes and musical forms, the emphasis is upon Australian popular music since World War 2. At the same time, every chapter is informed by global debates and themes, including popular music’s ongoing concerns with concepts such as nationalism, cultural imperialism, globalisation, authenticity, appropriation, the ‘mainstream’, subcultures, genres and the impact of new media and the internet.

The authors’ considerable experience in teaching and researching popular music studies has ensured a collection that is lively, accessible and well adapted to use in media, popular music, sociology, musicology and cultural studies courses. Each chapter contains a reference list, discography, a list of key web sites and discussion questions to assist students in linking chapter themes and issues to wider national and international debates.

At a time when Australian popular music is enjoying increasing international critical and commercial success, this wide-ranging new collection offers a critical revision of popular music’s place in Australian society.

For more information: www.acys.info/publications/acyspublishing/music

by sonicscape

Congratulations! Anthony Fung’s new book is finally out! Here is some information of his book. Please get your library have a couple of copies of this book.

Global capital, local culture: Transnational media corporations in China (Popular culture and everyday life)
by Anthony Y. H. Fung (Peter Lang, 2008)

Review
Anthony Y.H. Fungs study of the localization of transnational media in China is perceptive and fascinating. He writes with impressive insight and experience, as well as a good deal of enthusiasm for his subject. We not only learn about forms of entertainment media and popular culture in China after its entry into the WTO, but about how the cultural logic of political economy can be used to understand media. Fung has made a valuable contribution to the literature [on this subject]. –Janet Wasko, University of OregonThis book administers a much-needed antidote to some of the common myths about the politics underlying the marketization of the Chinese media industries in recent years. Drawing on extensive industry interviews, this book demonstrates the importance of taking an approach that, as Fung puts it, considers politics before economics in the study of the Chinese markets. This is a fundamental critique of the orthodoxies of globalization, which provides a highly nuanced understanding of the organization of media production and cultural consumption in China today.Graeme Turner, University of Queensland –Graeme Turner, University of Queensland

Product Description
This book examines the way transnational media companies have entered the Chinese entertainment market. Based on the authors ethnographic work and over 100 interviews with senior executives in global media corporations, including Warner Bros. Pictures, Viacoms MTV Channel, and Nickelodeon and News Corporations Channel V, the book analyzes the concrete globalization/localization strategies of these corporations and how they cope with the various political and economic constraints of working in China.

About the Author
Anthony Y.H. Fung is an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He received his Ph.D. from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. His research interests include political economy of transnational media corporations, popular culture, and cultural studies.

by sonicscape

By no means I read these all, but I jotted down the titles of these books (actually put them in my Amazon wishlist for later). They are not necessarily “academic” books.

Governing sound: The cultural politics of Trinidad’s carnival musics
by Jocelyne Gilbault (University of Chicago Press, 2007)

I think she is a well-known ethnomusicologist especially to those who are intrested in Caribbean music and cultural identity issues around popular music. She is known as an expert on Zouk and now this work is on Trinidad’s Calypso and Soca (Soul + Calypso). The title gives a hint of Foucault, I guess.

Heavy metal Islam: Rock, resistance, and the struggle for the soul of Islam
by Mark Levine (Three Rivers Press, 2008)

I had no idea about the author, but I read a review about this book published in NYT this weekend. The fact that the author arduously observed and interviewed local heavy metal, punk and reggae musicians in Islam world makes this work itself worth reading. This book might be interesting to those whose issues are (Islamic) youth culture, identity and politics.

The pirate’s dilemma: How youth culture is reinventing capitalism
by Matt Mason (Free Press, 2008)

The title tells everything: celebration of DIY, open source music? I guess it might be a technologically-centered and naively-too-much-optimistic work. In fact, a review article in Guardian interests me in this book written by a British journalist. Worth checking out if you are intrested in digital technologies, youth culture, digital culture, digital copyright and piracy issues. It hit upon me that it might be better it is accompanied by an academic work — Bootlegging: Romanticism and copyright in the music industry by Lee Marshall (Sage, 2005).

Happy reading!

by homey81

In last April, a film “Radio Days” were released.  The film was  comedy around the production of the first radio drama in Korea in the 1930s.  There are other films that dealt with popular culture in the 1930s like “Modern Boy” and “Once upon a Time in Korea.” It has been a sort of “trend,” but the commercially so-s0.

Anyway my focus is not the film itself but the soundtrack of the film, The music director of the film, Sung Kiwan is the leader of the respected indie band The 3rd Line Butterfly (some of here saw the band play in July 2005 after Inter-Asia cultural studies conference). Recently he has been obsessed with Kim Hae-song: 金海松: 1913-1950) who was one of the important figures in Korean popular music and one of the pioneers of “jazz” and “musical” in the 1940s.

Kim Hae-song (left) and his band members (right). In the latter, the third from the right is Kim and the first from the left is Lee Nan-young who was Kim’s wife and was “the voice of colonial Korea”). Unfortunately I could not found out the date and year when the photo was taken.

In the film, Kim’s songs were used frequently. And the song “Youth Class (Cheongchun Kye-geup)” was a sort of theme song of  the film. The date of original recording is around 1938 or 1939 and the SP record was released by Columbia record (Korean branch of Japanese record company and on eof the biggest one at that time). Although Kim Hae-song concentrated on composing, arranging and conducting after 1940s, he recorded some songs in the 1930s. In my view, he can be compared to Japanese songwriter Hattori Ryoichi (服部良一) or Chinese songwriter Chen Gexin (陳歌辛). Sadly he died during Korean War (around 1951?) .

In soundtrack album, there are two versions of “Youth class.” The one is original recording and the other is cover version JODK big band which was formed by the fil soundtrack by the members of different indie bands (trivia: JODK was a call-sign of Kyongsong (Seoul) Radio broadcasting company. JOAK was for Tokyo, JOBK was for Osaka and JOCK was for Nagoya. It is said that JOEK was reserved for Taipei).

You can hear the song in the links below.

Youth Class by Kim Hae-song (recorded around 1938?)

Youth Class by JODK Big Band (recorded in 2008) 

 Youth Class

Lyrics by Cho Myung-am
Music by Kim Hae-song

Let’s sing songs, soneta of love.
Let’s sing a song until this night is gone
Oh, beautiful amoreu (amour). Oh, daririr-daririr-daradda.
Let’s dring Woka (vodka) and sing songs

Let’s dance, tap dance of love
Let’s dance until this night is gone
Oh, pretty girl. Oh, daririr-daririr-daradda.
Let’s drink shampang (champagne) and let’s dance

Let’s dance and sing. This is paresu (palace) here.
We are Eroika, the brave of the shadow.
Oh, tender devil. Oh, daririr-daririr-daradda.
Let’s drink shampang (champagne) and let’s dance and sing!

Lstly, the trailer of the film is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4vIoK_rDzk&feature=related

(HJ)