Thailand (Lonely Planet, 13th Edition) - China Williams [50]
Jintara Poonlarp is a current fixture in the mr lam/lôok tûng rá·yúk constellation; she’s quite nouveau with a trendy haircut and Bangkok-style fashions instead of the farm-girl look. Mike Pirompon excels with the oh-so-sad lôok tûng tunes, while Rock Salaeng brings denim cool to the mr lam stage with songs that are more rock than lôok tûng.
Thai Rock & Pop
The 1970s ushered in a new style inspired by the politically conscious folk rock of the USA and Europe, which the Thais dubbed pleng pêu·a chee·wít (‘songs for life’). Chiefly identified with the Thai band Caravan, this style remains the most major musical shift in Thailand since lôok tûng arose in the 1940s. Songs of this nature have political and environmental topics rather than the usual love themes. During the authoritarian dictatorships of the ’70s many of Caravan’s songs were officially banned. Another longstanding example of this style, Carabao, took pleng pêu·a chee·wít, fused it with lôok tûng, rock and heavy metal, and spawned a whole generation of imitators as well as a chain of barnlike performance venues.
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Check out 365 Jukebox (www.365jukebox.com), which charts the hits for all the popular radio stations including Fat FM 104.5 (alt-rock), Seed FM 97.5 (T-pop), and Luk Thung FM95.0 (lôok tûng and mr lam).
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Thailand also has a thriving teen-pop industry – sometimes referred to as T-pop – centred on artists chosen for their good looks, which often means they are lôok krêung (half-Thai, half-fa·ràng) and sport English names. Thailand’s king of pop is Thongchai ‘Bird’ Mcintyre (also known as Pi Bird). His first album came out in 1986 and he has followed up with an album almost every year since. He has Madonna’s staying power coupled with a nice-guy persona. Among Thais in their 30s and 40s, Pi Bird often makes up the bulk of their CD collections.
Pop queens used to be cute ‘girls next door’, but Tata Young matured from a pop princess into a tart queen with her album Sexy, Naughty, Bitchy. In 2006 she started courting overseas approval with the release of two English-language albums and these days Thai teens sniff that she is more of a celebrity than a singer. A counterpoint to Tata is soulful Palmy (half-Thai, half-Belgian), who has cultivated a successful hippy persona. In the heart-throb boys section is Golf + Mike, two teen brothers with a crossover career in Japan. Also popular is Aof Pongsak who melts the girls’ hearts with his sweet voice and sensitive songs.
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GMM Grammy Entertainment is Thailand’s leading music producer having manufactured pop stars for decades. But a few new crooners are bubbling up through TV singing competitions like ‘Star’ and ‘Academy Fantasia’.
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The 1990s gave birth to an alternative pop scene – known as glorng sir·ree (free drum), pleng âi din (underground music) or more simply just as ‘indie’ – pioneered by the independent record label Bakery Music, which captured a youth revolution more musically sophisticated than Grammy’s mainstream machine. Bakery Music upstaged Grammy at the 2002 MTV Asia Awards but it has since gone corporate when it was bought by a larger conglomerate. During indie’s heyday, Modern Dog, composed of four Chulalongkorn University graduates, orchestrated the generation’s musical coming of age. After 10 years on the alt-rock scene, Modern Dog is still a beloved veteran with a much-anticipated album released in 2008. Another indie fixture is Loso (from ‘low society’ as opposed to ‘hi-so’ or socialites), which updated Carabao’s affinity for Thai folk melodies and rhythms. Both bands are known for their anthem status – most twenty-something Thais can sing their greatest hits by heart.
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Thais love to sing and every major band or singer releases video