Friday, November 20, 2009

(A) 'Suzana' - M. Osman Kugiran Pop Melayu

MALAY POPS SINGAPORE 60s:

The Pop Yeh-Yeh genre was in Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei in the 60s. Pop Yeh-Yeh ruled Malay pop music from about 1965 to 1971. The music and fashion of The Beatles and other U.K. rock and roll bands during the 60s were a strong influence of these Malay bands and also generally influenced the Mat Rock (an endearing term for Malay rock lovers) music industry then.

It has been suggested that the term pop yeh-yeh was taken from a line from the Beatles song, She Loves You (She loves you, yeah-yeah-yeah). This may not be true as the writer from Wikipedia explained that the term was never used in the 60s but much later when such music was revived in the 80s by a group called M. Shariff & The Zurah. It is possible that music magazines of the 1980s coined it and used the phrase when referring to music of its earlier genre.

Personally blogger has never heard of the phrase itself, even in the earlier 60s when he sang for a short while with The Swallows and The Velvetones. The first song associated with the term was one, Suzana, by M Osman in 1964 (image).

During the height of this craze, a lot of the bands tried to mimic The Beatles in everyway. But the musical style was still taken from The Shadows and The Ventures. Usually the bands, called "KUmpulan GItar RANcak" (fast-beat guitar group) or "ku-gi-ran" consist of four members who play... and sing.

These bands were formed in Singapore and Malaysia. The southern state of Johore in Malaysia and Singapore were the hub of activity for these bands. Most of the recordings were done in Singapore the old EMI Studio at MacDonald's House in Orchard Road or at smaller, privately owned studios.

Reference: (1) Wikipedia, (2) http://www.antya.com//
Image: Wikipedia Bahasa Melayu.

No comments: