JP/20/YEAREND

JP/20/YEAREND

Mainstream languishes, indie rises by leaps and bounds

M. Taufiqurrahman
The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

At the outset, 2005 showed little promise for music fans who
were hoping for new sounds and exciting gigs.

They year started with a three-date benefit concert from
Scandinavian soft-rock has-beens Michael Learns to Rock -- a
fitting omen for worse things to come, namely the release of a
self-titled album by the Surabaya, East Java-based pop-rock band,
Padi.

Space in this article is too precious to be reserved for any
lengthy comments about Michael Learns To Rock's concert, suffice
it to say that the group have never grown up musically -- their
output is, in a word, musak.

As for Padi, although they had already shipped 300,000 units
before the official release date, the new self-titled album
marked an artistic impasse in the band's professional career.

So desperate were Padi for new inspiration that they looked
for help from such old hands as classically-trained violinist
Idris Sardi, jazz pianist Bubi Chen and prog-rock veteran
keyboardist Abadi Soesman.

Despite that help, Padi's fourth album in six years failed to
repeat the success of their previous outing.

The only single from the album that got decent radio airplay
was Menanti Sebuah Jawaban (Waiting For An Answer), a song on the
soundtrack of the god-awful flick Ungu Violet.

Other songs in the album failed to chart.

Twilight of old idols

A similar predicament has befallen other veteran rock outfits.

Gigi -- the brainchild of guitarist Dewa Budjana and vocalist
Armand Maulana -- has in past years been pushed to the sidelines
of pop and in 2005 the group dropped to new depths.

Seemingly acknowledging their waning popularity in the rock
scene, the band released a religious album that glossed up
traditional songs such as Perdamaian (Peace), once sung by
Islamic-oriented female group Nasida Ria.

In a series of concerts billed and hyped as the "U.S. East
Coast Tour", Gigi's gigs were actually to small crowds of
Indonesian college students enrolled at American universities.

Later, in what seemed to be a desperate effort to recoup past
glories, the band even spun a tale about their own dismemberment.

A publicist for the band in late May said Gigi was on the
verge of a break-up following the decision of Armand to leave for
the U.S. to join a talent show Rockstar: INXS.

Fans bought the news and flocked to a concert billed as Gigi's
last show at the Hard Rock Cafe. But after vee-jaying for the
local TV station that aired the talent show -- instead of
actually joining the contest -- Armand went back to his pals
after all. None of the fans seemed to mind.

Sheila On Seven, once a phenomenal force from Yogyakarta who
have sold million records, are almost unheard of now, out touring
the country's remote regions.

These once-popular bands have had to step aside to make room
for Peterpan, a Bandung-based powerhouse who have cast their
spell on millions of fans with their bubble-gum rock tunes.

With Eddie Vedder-style husky vocals and Stone Roses-meets-
Pearl Jam melodies, Peterpan carried on with their successes this
year.

Their second album, Bintang di Surga (Stars in Heaven), sold
more than two million copies -- far more than the combined total
of Padi and Gigi's recent releases -- and came off the back of
the one million records sold of first album Taman Langit (Sky
Garden).

Cashing on the mass appeal of Peterpan, the band label Musica
Studios recently released an EP soundtrack to teen flick
Alexandria that contains old material from the band touched up
with the maximum studio wizardry.

The band broke another record by shifting 500,000 units in the
first week of Alexandria's release.

But beyond these commercial successes, there was nothing to
celebrate for fans until a "Big Bang" occurred midway through the
year, punching a big hole in the country's musical consciousness.

This very positive explosion did not come from the majors but
from the fringe -- a slew of free-thinking musicians who inhabit
the capital's incestuous indie music scene.

Since the early 1990s these musicians have performed, made
demos and recorded songs with an earnest do-it-yourself attitude
-- but until this year they never had a vehicle to push them to a
wider audience.

Their luck changed with the release of JKT:SKRG by indie label
Aksara Records -- the country's equivalent of American indie
powerhouse Matador records -- a compilation album that set the
pace for the local indie scene.

A bigger break came with the soundtrack to the film Janji
Joni, an even more polished compilation of indie bands and one of
the best local soundtracks ever to accompany an Indonesian film.

Then bands such as the Adams, Goodnight Electric, the
Upstairs, Sajama Cut and the White Shoes and the Couples Company
took turns to release their albums.

Rise of Cerebral Rock

Mostly the brainchild of musically-literate and sometimes
overseas-educated musicians, these bands produced some stunningly
original material.

Band members of the White Shoes and the Couples Company are
graduates from the Jakarta Arts Institute (IKJ).

Some members of Sore were educated in the U.S. and the group
sampled Eric Satie's Gymnopedie I for their debut album
Centralismo.

Marcel Thee, lead singer for the Sajama Cut is also the editor
for Deathrockstar.com an online magazine that models itself on
Pitchforkmedia.com, a left-field music webzine.

Breaths of fresh air in the record-sale-worshiping, dumbed-
down local music scene, these bands are also getting
international recognition.

Centralismo, for instance, was voted as one of five must-buy
albums in Asia by Time magazine.

This debut has the brilliance of the Beach Boys' baroque pop
inclinations and the rich sonic pallette of the Beatles'
psychedelic pop.

Meanwhile, garage rock trailblazers the Brandals are billed to
perform in Singapore, while Mocca is the one of the first indie
bands to achieve commercial success overseas, headlining a
Japanese rock festival in November.

Another noteworthy phenomenon is the perseverance with which
prog-rock outfit Discuss stand their ground.

Little noticed in their home country, the band have traveled
abroad and won a cult following overseas.

They have played ProgDay in the U.S., the Baja Progressive
Rock Festival and recently wrapped up a European tour.

But while critics and foreign audiences are impressed with
this slew of new talent, the same cannot be said for many local
radio stations.

Although some indie songs have made it onto station
programmers' playlists, most of these bands get little airplay
and can only dream of equaling Peterpan's record-selling
successes.

But while their innovative music will likely remain on the
fringes, perhaps that is as it should be -- their indie output
provides a fresh alternative to the less-than-interesting
mainstream.