Dangdut is the music of my country

May 9, 2008 1:55 PM

Introducing Project Pop (Formerly Indonesia's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-suling metal-dangdut-comedy folk sextet). Their hit "Dangdut is the music of my country" [youtube link--music starts at 0:58] code-switches between pop metal and dangdut, affectionately mocking the cheesy pop of their parents' generation. Here is a great play-by-play translation of the details of the video.

Many of their songs, however, need no translation, like this battle of the metalheads vs. the techno kids.

posted by umbú (12 comments total)

Massive bizarre (personal) coincidence for me. I know this song very well though I had no idea where it came from; there's a set of very cool collections from Sublime Frequencies, a label that has all sorts of radio hits from foreign places.

A propos of a completely unrelated set of coincidences I literally have the Sublime Frequencies page, the dangdut video, and my Indonesian grammar all sitting out at the same time, for totally unrelated reasons - and no other web pages up (I usually have a dozen).

It's like a little dangdut moment just for me and I'm happy to see I can more or less follow the language.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 2:37 PM on May 9, 2008

Well, reading the translation my hit rate wasn't as good as I thought :-D but it was still very educational.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 2:44 PM on May 9, 2008

That's crazy that you were just looking at the dangdut video! I really like how seamlessly the two parts of the song fit together, and their timing is spot-on. The chorus is such an earworm.

Also, what's up with the guy with James Brown hair that pops up from that oil drum to tell everyone to get along? And the baby at the end? It just keeps getting more random.
posted by umbú at 4:44 PM on May 9, 2008

DOUBLE PLATINOOOOOM!!!

I like the guy with the stringy goatee in the barrel.

This is funny and charming and catchy. Nice find, umbú.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:53 PM on May 9, 2008

Here are some examples of the earlier dangdut that inspired Project Pop:

Rhoma Irama (The King of dangdut)

Elvy Sukaesih (The Queen of dangdut)
posted by umbú at 4:54 PM on May 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

Ha! I was about to go digging for some Elvy to post in this thread (she's great!) but you beat me to it, umbú.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:56 PM on May 9, 2008

Oh wow, this is kickass. Anyone know what "konser damai = asix!" means? It's at the end of the metal vs. techno one, and that graphic would make a great T-shirt.
posted by echo target at 5:35 PM on May 9, 2008

2nd flapjax, that was a great moment. the song, also cool, i love music from other countries. it is also great to be american because whether true or not, pop culture from other places at least seems like a bizarro parody of US pop culture.
posted by snofoam at 6:07 PM on May 9, 2008

"konser damai" means "peace concert".

There's no "x" in Indonesian, but asyik is a root word meaning "passionate". (However, asix and asyik aren't too similar in Indonesian...)
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:57 PM on May 9, 2008

I should add that one of the things I really lament is the demise of the catchy pop song in the West... I'm glad it still exists somewhere.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:10 PM on May 9, 2008

the demise of the catchy pop song in the West..

True. There are shockingly few really memorable melodic hooks, and essentially no catchy lyrics: all in all, a really depressing lack of catchiness! These days it's pretty much all about production values and nothing else, when it even bothers to be about that...
posted by flapjax at midnite at 10:24 PM on May 9, 2008

In the Project Pop video, one of the 'gang members' has a tattoo on his arm in solidarity with Inul Daratista. She got a lot of press a few years ago for pushing the boundaries of hip-shaking for an Indonesian Muslim woman. Particularly iffy in the eyes of religious conservatives is her dance move known as 'drilling.' Rhoma Irama is especially anti-drilling.

This video of hers is Shakira meets Bollywood with a touch of rock guitarmony thrown in. [no nudity but perhaps mildly NSFW]
posted by umbú at 1:15 AM on May 10, 2008