Introduction
Theories of consumer preferences in cultural economics argue for the rigidity of consumer preferences brought about by the latter's perception of superiority in aesthetics. As Jameson (Reference Jameson1991, p. 16) aptly states, in cultural industries, ‘aesthetic production … has become integrated into commodity production’. Cameron and Welford (Reference Cameron, Welford, Towse and Khakee1992, pp. 31–2) argue that ‘the components of cultural consumption have lower elasticities of substitution with each other’ as compared to non-cultural goods. This means that consumers do not perceive much similarity between different cultural products and thus would not easily substitute one product for another. Consumers are not willing to easily substitute one musician for another because of the time and effort invested in acquiring specialised knowledge about a musician culminating in ‘consumption capital’ (Stigler and Becker Reference Stigler and Becker1977; MacDonald Reference MacDonald1988).
Caves (Reference Caves2000) argues that musicians are often stratified into the ‘A-list’ and the ‘B-list’, whereby the ‘A-list’ musicians are perceived to be of superior quality and the ‘B-list’ musicians are perceived to be of second-rate quality. ‘A-list’ musicians comprise what Rosen (Reference Rosen1981) and Adler (Reference Adler1985) term the ‘superstars’, whose products are deemed to be of such high quality that consumers would not substitute one product from the superstar for many products from lower-quality musicians. The stratification of musicians necessarily means ‘that a few talented persons can command large markets and the highest returns’ (Thorsby Reference Thorsby1994, p. 20).
It has now been established in the consumption literature that ‘consumption is eminently social, relational and active rather than private, atomic, or passive’ (Appadurai Reference Appadurai and Appadurai1986, p. 31). While idiosyncratic tastes (de gustibus non est disputandum) (Stigler and Becker Reference Stigler and Becker1977) are nonetheless present, consumers execute autonomous choice within boundaries set by existing practices and institutions. These practices and institutions suggest to consumers how to behave, which sometimes leads to rigid behaviour known as ‘habituation’ that impedes rational choice (Mattar Reference Mattar2003a). The experiential nature of consumption is such that consumers often exist in a ‘world of consociates’ and a ‘community of time’, where experiences are social and continually shared with others (Schutz Reference Schutz1932, pp. 142, 163).
This article deals with consumer preferences in Singapore, a developed country in Southeast Asia. It will show that Singaporean consumers, like many other consumers of popular music the world over, judge the quality of musicians based on their perceived ‘authenticity’. Following from this, Singaporean consumers show little support for their domestic English-language musicians because they perceive these musicians to be inauthentic. It will be argued in this article that the inauthenticity of Singaporean English-language musicians stem from the local variant of English used in Singapore which Singaporean consumers feel is inferior to other local variants of English spoken in Western countries. Interestingly, no such measure of authenticity is applied to music sung in Mandarin or Malay.
At the existential level, this suggests that consumption is used in this instance as a consequence of the desire to maintain difference rather than as a method to maintain difference (see Hebdige Reference Hebdige1988, p. 110). In other words, abstinence, rather than consumption, occurs in a conspicuous manner and is additionally socially consequential (see Appadurai Reference Appadurai and Pearce1994). It is also apparent that unlike early works in cultural economics, consumption does not follow a mimetic paradigm in order to gain social status (for example, Veblen Reference Veblen1899; Warner and Hunt Reference Warner and Hunt1941). Rather, production is required to adopt a mimetic paradigm in order to be deemed as ‘authentic’ and thus of high quality.
The findings of this empirical research show how post-colonial modernities are not only localised modernities from the perspective of cultural producers (Ang and Stratton 1996), but also ‘inauthentic modernities’ from the perception of cultural consumers. At the expense of rehashing an old cliché in cultural studies, cultural consumers perceive the medium as a message (McLuhan 1967), in that language serves as a signifier of quality. These perceptions are evidenced by uneven flows of cultural products between various localities within the English linguistic medium, lending support to Iwabuchi's (2004) concept of ‘discrepant intimacy’. This further suggests the persistence of ‘cultural cringe’ as a legacy of Pax Britannica. ‘Cultural cringe’ (Phillips 1958) refers to a collective feeling of the inferiority of one's own society as compared to a certain other society. Cultural cringe tends to operate on a holistic level, where cultural discrimination, rather than meritocratic evaluation is applied to almost every aspect of one's own society. In other words, individuals and products produced by one's own society are seen as necessarily deficient simply because they are produced by one's own society. On the reverse, individuals and products produced by a certain other society are seen as necessarily superior simply because they are produced by that society.
This article will firstly describe the notion of authenticity in consumer preferences. It will then briefly describe Singapore and discuss its linguistic and musical soundscape. It will then look at the perception of Singaporean English-language musicians and lastly provide an analysis of these perceptions.
Consumer preferences and the problem of ‘authenticity’
An established body of literature in popular music studies has targeted the idea of ‘authenticity’. These studies show that musicians and music genres are often evaluated by consumers on how ‘authentic’ (or ‘genuine’ or ‘real’) they are, where the more authentic a musician or genre is, the better their quality. The evaluation of a musician's or genre's authenticity and consequent quality is subjective and socially constructed. As Moore (Reference Moore2002, p. 210) states, ‘authenticity is a matter of interpretation which is made and fought for from within a cultural and thus historicised position’. More often than not, consumers require that ‘the sounds and the style of the music should continue to resemble the source from which it sprang’ (Redhead and Street Reference Redhead and Street1989). Here I will review some of the recent studies in which authenticity has been dealt with in depth.
In the case of rap/hip-hop, Armstrong (Reference Armstrong2004) argues that there are three kinds of authenticity that consumers use to judge musicians. The first kind of authenticity is being an individual who does not copy the style of others (known as ‘biting’). The second kind of authenticity is having pride in one's local area, most usually a hometown. The third kind of authenticity is being from or having relations with the area where rap/hip-hop is popularly thought to have originated from. Armstrong shows how Eminem, a white rapper from Detroit, is able to authenticate himself by writing original lyrics, referring to his hometown in his lyrics and strongly associating himself with the ‘West Coast’ variant of American hip-hop through his mentor, Dr. Dre. This is in comparison to the Sugarhill Gang, who Bennett (Bennett ‘Rap’ in Armstrong) reports to be thought of as un-original and merely ‘derivative’ due to their origin in Brooklyn, instead of the Bronx (both in New York), which is thought of as the birthplace of the original hip-hop before it splintered into the ‘West Coast’ and ‘East Coast’ variants (see Krims Reference Krims2000). Hess (Reference Hess2005), on the other hand, argues that the definition of authenticity within hip-hop is when musicians are undeterred by their material successes and still write on issues of the ghetto. He also notes that there have been some artists such as Bobby Digital and MF Doom who circumvent the practice of authentication by adopting a performance persona and obscuring their real identities, thereby effectively creating a new subgenre that is not authenticated as hip-hop per se.
‘Non-urban’ musical forms such as folk, country and blues also have been subjected to authentication by consumers. Redhead and Street (Reference Redhead and Street1989), for example, argue that in the case of folk music in the United Kingdom, musicians are deemed authentic if they are in touch with the common people and their issues. Musicians should adopt a persona that is ‘down to earth’ by dressing like the common person and writing lyrics in a personalised way. According to Jensen (Reference Jensen1998), country musicians in the United States are deemed authentic if they are not affected by commercialisation, have rural origins, visually follow the style of dressing and performance associated with the genre, are able to improvise on the fly, are accessible to their audience, write heartfelt lyrics, come from a familial line of country musicians, and offer reverence to predecessor musicians. Bloomfield (Reference Bloomfield1993) argues that in the case of blues, musicians are deemed authentic if they are able to relate their personal experience to that of the audience. This includes ‘emotional honesty and sincerity, autobiographical truth and political correctness’ (Bloomfield Reference Bloomfield1993, p. 17).
Non-Western music has also been subjected to measures of authenticity. In the case of Japan, for example, according to Atkins (Reference Atkins and Craig2000), consumers hold the idea that only African-American jazz is authentic jazz, thereby subsuming the musical form under an ethnic category. Japanese jazz musicians, therefore, are thought as being not authentic in two ways. Firstly, Japanese jazz musicians are thought of as being simply the ‘Japanese version’ of African-American jazz musicians, suggesting that they are derivatives and not originals. Secondly, Japanese jazz music is thought of as being stylistically inferior to African-American jazz because of the seemingly ‘inferior physique’ of the Japanese. Yano (Reference Yano2005) studied the traditional Japanese musical form known as ‘enka’ and showed that in enka, consumers prefer exact mimicry of the original. In this sense, musicians often sing their songs more than once in a single performance, maintain the same melody and tonality as heard on the official phonographic release whether they are singing their own songs or covering others', and sell karaoke versions of their songs so that consumers may mimic them. Cogan and Cogan (Reference Cogan and Cogan2006) show that men and women are subjected to different authenticity benchmarks, where women are thought to represent ‘commodification’ and ‘consumerism’ and men are thought to represent ‘pure art’ unaffected by commercial concerns. In this regard, music produced and consumed mainly by females is deemed to be of lower artistic quality than music produced and consumed primarily by men. Female artists in male-dominated genres such as punk rock are thus thought of as less authentic than male artists.
These works on authenticity show that assessments of authenticity are largely variable and dependent on consumers and peer producers of popular music. They also demonstrate that authenticity is very closely correlated with quality, where inauthentic artists are considered to be of lower quality than authentic artists. This demand-side phenomenon of authenticity lends credence to criticisms of the ‘formulaic’ nature of popular culture (Nord 1980), where cultural producers are required to follow the formula expected by consumers if they wish to successfully sell their cultural products. This article will show that in the case of authenticity in Singapore, the formula lies in the way that the English language is (re)presented in vocal form, where English variants from Western countries serve as formulae to be mimicked by Singaporean English-language artists.
Singapore: a brief description
Singapore is a small country in Southeast Asia, with a total area of 692.7 km2, 1′ 22″ N, 103′ 48″ E. Its economy relies on entrepot trade, semiconductor manufacturing and high-end financial services (Peebles and Wilson Reference Peebles and Wilson2002) and recorded a GDP of S$ 209,990.9 million in 2006 (Statistics Singapore 2007), which is comparable to ‘the leading nations of Western Europe’ (Central Intelligence Agency 2006). Modern Singapore began with its founding as a colony of the United Kingdom in 1819 by Sir Stamford Raffles. Singapore achieved self-governance from the United Kingdom in 1959 and subsequent independence from the British Empire in 1963 as a state of Malaysia. It later gained independence from Malaysia in 1965 (Turnbull Reference Turnbull1989).
Demographically, Singapore is populated by peoples from diverse ethnic backgrounds, which have been bureaucratically simplified into four ‘designated’ (Birch Reference Birch1993, p. 38) ethnic groups, namely, Chinese, Malays, Indians, Eurasians and ‘others’. Chinese, Malays and Indians refer to people of Chinese, Malaysian/Indonesian and Indian-subcontinent descent, respectively, while Eurasians refer loosely to people deemed to be of East-West ‘mixed’ parentage, and ‘others’ refers to the smaller populations of Jews, Arabs, Anglo-Saxons and the like (Pereira 2006). This is known as the CMIEO ‘model of ethnic management’ (Siddique Reference Siddique, Sandhu and Wheatley1989), where ethnicity is ‘simplified’ by co-opting together ethnic groups with more outstanding similarities. Thus, for example, while there may be cultural differences amongst people of Indian descent, such as the Punjabis, Tamils and Gujaratis, these differences are downplayed within the ethnic relations system of Singapore. As of June 2006, the Singaporean population consisted of 75.2% Chinese, 13.6% Malays, 8.8% Indians and 2.4% Eurasians and ‘others’ of a total population of 3.6 million people (Statistics Singapore 2007). In Singapore, it seems that ethnicity ‘is the main official basis for social classification and most residents accept this as appropriate’ (Neville Reference Neville, Roseman, Laux and Theime1996, p. 251). Most Singaporeans thus seem to identify themselves first and foremost by ethnicity, rather than by gender or class (Chua 2003, Lian 2006).
Language in Singapore
Singapore is a multi-lingual society in which English, Malay (a Western Polynesian language), Mandarin (a Sinic language) and Tamil (an Indic language) are given the status of ‘official’ languages. Besides these, other languages exist, such as those which are given the status of ‘dialects’ (‘derivatives’) such as the Chinese dialects of Hokkien and Cantonese and the Malay dialects of Baweanese and Javanese, as well as the languages of small ethnic groups within the ‘Indian’ and ‘others’ categories.
According to Kuo (Reference Kuo1978, p. 1,067) ‘as a compromise to the three major, and potentially competitive, ethnic communities, the leaders of Singapore decided at the time of independence that there would be four official languages in the new republic … English was selected because of its international status and Singapore's colonial background’. At the onset of independence, therefore, English in Singapore began to serve four functions (Kachru Reference Kachru1983), namely, an instrumental function, where it is used as the language medium of educational instruction, a regulative function, where it is used as a language of business and government, an interpersonal function, where it is used as a link between people of different linguistic backgrounds and as a language of the elite, and an imaginative function, where it is used in artistic and literary expressions. In the context of Singapore, therefore, English has been ‘nativised’ (Bhatt Reference Bhatt2001, p. 534) to the extent that it was initially imported as a foreign language and was localised. Today, Tan, Ooi and Chiang (Reference Chng2003) consider Singapore as a ‘non-Anglo native-English speaking country’. This is because as Kuo (Reference Kuo1978, p. 296) argues, English has shifted from a ‘high language’ of the colonial sponsors and their protégés in the civil service’ to a lingua franca used by the common people. MacDougall and Chew (Reference MacDougall and Chew1976, p. 295) further report that significant numbers of Singaporeans are fully competent in English but not in their own ethnic languages.
There are several peculiarities, however, with the way that English is used in Singapore. Platt and Weber (Reference Platt and Weber1980) argue that Singaporean English exists as a continuum between the British ‘Queen's English’ on one side and the other languages on the other side. In other words, Singaporeans may use English as a pure form of the Queen's English or in various mixtures with Malay, Chinese and Tamil. This is dependent on their educational attainment and their ethnicities (Tan Reference Tan and Sankaran2003). In an ideal-typical formulation, there may be said to be four types of English used in Singapore, namely, standard English, standard Singaporean English, colloquial Singaporean English (more popularly known as ‘Singlish’) (Gupta Reference Gupta and Gopinathan1998) and ‘learner English’ (Tan Reference Tan and Sankaran2006). ‘Standard’ English refers to ‘a form of English that is both understood and respected in every corner of the globe where any knowledge of any variety of English exists’ (Quirk 1985, p. 6), while standard Singaporean English refers to the form of English that exists in formal settings such as the government and educational instruction. Standard Singaporean English differs from standard English mainly in vocabulary. For example, ‘hazing’ is known as ‘ragging’ in Singapore. Colloquial Singaporean English refers to a mixture of English and ethnic vernaculars where English has a stronger linguistic influence, and ‘learner English’ refers to a mixture of English and vernaculars where ethnic vernaculars have a stronger linguistic influence. Most Singaporeans speak colloquial Singaporean English but write in Standard Singaporean English (Tan Reference Tan and Sankaran2003). The switching of registers is often done smoothly and subconsciously (Gupta 2006). Colloquial Singaporean English differs significantly from the other three kinds of English found in Singapore as well as other forms of colloquial English spoken in Anglo countries (such as Cockney and AAVE [African American Vernacular English]). Vocabulary-wise, colloquial Singaporean English uses locally invented words (for example, ‘thongs / flip-flops’ are known as ‘Japanese slippers’), loanwords from other Asian languages (for example, the metaphor for a lecherous man is ‘buaya’ [crocodile, borrowed from Malay]) and acronyms (for example, MRT [Mass Rapid Transit, city rail system]). Grammar-wise, colloquial Singaporean English relies on the context in which a statement is made, thereby leaving plurals, tenses, subjects and copula as optional (Gupta Reference Gupta and Gopinathan1998, pp. 124–5). For example, when a Singaporean asks another, ‘Why so many mistake that day?’, he actually means, ‘Why did you make so many mistakes the other day?’ (emphasis added). Colloquial Singaporean English also utilises eleven particles that serve as directional and emphatic markers (Gupta 2006), such as the ‘lah’, ‘ah’ and ‘eh’ particles. Lastly, colloquial Singaporean English has particular features of pronunciation. Long and short vowels are not distinguished (‘beach’ and ‘bitch’ are pronounced similarly), syllables are often unstressed and recur at equal intervals of time, referred to as a ‘syllable-timed’ or ‘machine-gun’ rhythm (Low and Grabe Reference Low and Grabe1995), and vowels are pronounced without diphthongs (Tan 2006).
Popular music in Singapore
Popular music in Singapore exists in a variety of genres and is sung in English, Malay and Chinese. The popular musics of the Indian languages primarily exist only as soundtracks to Indian-language movies. A much smaller subset of popular music is sung in other languages too. In this section I will briefly look at the history of English-, Malay- and Chinese-language popular music in Singapore.
English-language popular music in Singapore began after World War II. Blues and rockabilly from Western countries were introduced in this period through the media of radio and phonograms. This led to the creation of Singapore's first performing popular music artists. These artists marketed themselves proudly as ‘imitators’ of popular Western acts (Fu and Liew Reference Fu and Liew2006) and performed in (now defunct) hotels such as The Adelphi Hotel, Seaview Hotel and Hotel de I'Europe which also served as social clubs for British colonials and Singaporeans of Anglophilic orientation. These ‘imitators’ played covers of the Western artists they emulated as well as their own compositions which were written in the style of the aforesaid artist. The Quests, for example, were local imitators of The Shadows, The Cyclones were the ‘Beatles of Singapore’, Wilson David was an Elvis Presley imitator, and Rahim Hamid was an imitator of Nat King Cole (Kong Reference Kong1999, p. 16). Bennett (Reference Bennet1979) would refer to such a phenomenon as ‘secondary popular culture’, where the success of local performers depends on the accuracy and precision of their imitations of commercial recordings of other artists during live performances (see Blaukopf Reference Blaukopf and Bortinck1974, pp. 18–19). Singapore's English-language popular music continues to be influenced by English-language music from Western countries. English-language musicians today produce music in various kinds of genres known to the Anglophonic world, such as rock, pop, jazz, blues, punk and hip-hop. Many of these artists cite Western artists as their primary influence. For example, in the second season of Singapore Idol, ‘top-12 finalist’ Nurul Maideen cites Natalie Imbruglia as her ‘inspiration’ (Singapore Idol 2006). Similarly, bands such as UrbanKarma cite American band Machine Head and Brazilian bands Soulfly and Sepultura as their main influences (Brader Bo Reference Brader2007).
Malay-language popular musics in Singapore (and Malaysia) before the modern era were of traditional varieties known as keronchong and dondang sayang (Lockard Reference Lockard1998). These two forms of music were played in an orchestral set-up, using violins, flutes and a variety of percussion instruments such as tambourines and the traditional kompang drum. They were presented to consumers initially during festivals and road shows and later on through phonograms. In the 1960s, a new genre of Malay-language popular music appeared, which came to be known as ‘Pop Yeh Yeh’ (Burhanudin 2001). This genre derived its name from the famous Beatles' line ‘She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah’ (Lockard Reference Lockard and Lent1995) and derived its musical stylings from the British Merseybeat (Mattar Reference Mattar2002). Such bands included, for example, the Siglap Five, Naomi and the Boys, and the Swallows. The mid-1970s saw the decline of Pop Yeh Yeh and the rise of melodic hard rock through bands such as Sweet Charity and Black Dog Bone, which remains the mainstay of Singaporean Malay-language music to the current day.
Chinese-language music in Singapore before the modern era was primarily the traditional kind heard at wayang (opera) performances (Lai Reference Lai1986). Chinese-language popular music in Singapore began in the post-World War II era, largely influenced by the stylistics and development of Chinese-language popular music in China and Hong Kong (which was a British colony until 1997). While sung in Mandarin, Hokkien (Fujian) and Cantonese, these songs were written in the Western pentatonic/heptatonic scales. Another recognisable characteristic about Chinese-language music in this era is that it often featured embellishments with Asian musical instruments and melodies derived from ‘ethnic’ music, namely, traditional Chinese, Japanese, Malay, Indonesian and even Latin American folk songs. Singaporean musicians in this era included Sakura Teng and Rita Chao. From the 1980s onwards, Chinese-language music began to take the appearance of genres familiar to Western music. In the mid-1980s, Chinese-language ‘college indie rock’ known as xinyao (literally meaning ‘Singapore ballads’) was invented. Early xinyao artists include musicians such as Eric Moo and Mavis Hee; see Kong (Reference Kong1996) for an analysis of this genre. Singaporean Chinese-language artists remain partial to Cantonese pop and xinyao for the most part to the present day, with few exceptions (such as hip-hop crossover band Chou Pi Jiang) (Liew Reference Liew2003).
Consumer perceptions of english-language music
Academic researchers and industry practitioners have both noted that Singaporean consumers prefer English-language music from the West over and above their local English-language musicians. Lim (Reference Lim1993) found that English-language musicians are always on the ‘fringe’ of the music industry because of what he refers to as a ‘colonial hangover’ which posits that the culture (and consequently the cultural products) of Western developed countries are superior to those of their former colonies. Lai (Reference Lai2000) found that many Singaporean musicians who began their musical career in English have switched to producing Chinese- or Malay-language music as they felt that the latter linguistic media were more profitable.
Practitioners in the industry are also reserved about the popularity of local English-language musicians among the local consumers. Record company executives hold the idea ‘that the public does not support local groups’, leading sales to be ‘generally disappointing’ (Wells and Lee Reference Wells, Lee and Lent1995, p. 31). The Director of BMG Asia, Alan Ho, feels that it is not lucrative to invest in local artists because of the low sales potential of about 2,000 to 3,000 copies sold (cited in Lai Reference Lai2000, p. 17). Kevin Lee, Executive Producer of Fierce Rabbit Records, related ‘a sale of 1,000 pieces of an independently released album is considered a good achievement’ (e-mail communication). Roy Ong, the founder of Mouse Records, estimates that local English-language phonograms take up only 10 per cent of total album sales in Singapore (e-mail communication). DJ Jeremy Phua of Perfect Ten 98.7 FM found that radio-programme playlists based on listener preferences rarely included local English-language music (cited in Ong Reference Ong2000). Kevin Matthews, a member of local group The Watchmen, reported that they have themselves been told several times that their music was ‘good’ but there was simply no market for it in Singapore (Matthews Reference Matthews, Chen and Ismahil1996). Indeed, many Singaporean English-language musicians have had more success in other countries than in Singapore. These include Anita Sarawak, who from 1990 to 2001 was a resident singer at Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas, Nevada (A Tribute to Anita Sarawak 2003); Impiety, who still regularly tour Scandinavia (The Metal Observer 2006); and Dick Lee, who from 1990 to 1996 recorded, composed and performed intensively in Japan (Metropolis Tokyo 1999, p. 32).
Methodology
In order to determine the reasons behind consumer perceptions, it is important to address the relationship between consumer preferences relative to product attributes (Hauser and Shugan Reference Hauser and Shugan1980). The primary data for this article was collected in two stages in 2005 and 2006. Firstly, observations about the availability of Singapore-produced English-language music and the buying patterns of Singaporean consumers were made through visits to various retail outlets. It was found that only two retail outlets conscientiously stocked Singapore-produced English-language phonograms. These were HMV (260, Orchard Road, #01–11) and Roxy Music (5, Coleman Street, #02–15, Excelsior Shopping Centre). It was also found that consumers expressed little interest in the section of these stores where Singapore-produced English-language music was displayed. In this manner, I played the role of what is referred to in qualitative methodology as the ‘complete observer’ (Junker Reference Junker1960; Gold Reference Gold, McCall and Simmons1969; Denzin Reference Denzin1989) as I observed buying patterns of consumers in an unobtrusive manner.
The second stage of research for this article involved interviews with selected patrons of these stores. Patrons who made a purchase were asked whether they wanted to participate in this current research and were given a brief description of the project in question. Only patrons who made purchases were chosen because such patrons had made a conscious economic decision to exchange part of their disposable income for a good. Such decisions are increasingly significant because of the increasing number of ways to obtain music without purchasing a tangible product; on top of the established methods of recording from radio and cloning a CD, music in the various digital formats and MP3 players do away with the need to make a physical purchase. This method of sampling is referred to as ‘purposive sampling’.
I interviewed a total of thirty-nine patrons. Most of them agreed to be interviewed at the retail outlet itself, while about a quarter of them agreed but requested to be interviewed at a later date. I asked questions that were initially ‘descriptive’ ones, followed by ‘structural’ questions, and lastly, ‘contrast’ questions. The questionnaire may be found as an Appendix to this article. Similar to Ang (Reference Ang and During1993), I found that respondents offered both rational and irrational, as well as both simple and elaborate responses to the questions asked. For this reason, following Kong (Reference Kong1995, p. 193), this article tries to understand the meaning behind the consumption of popular music by engaging with the text (lyrics and instrumentation), context (the society within which music production and consumption occurs) and intertext (the relationship between associated cultural goods).
The anecdotal evidence used in this article has been cleaned up for academic presentation. Where respondents had used colloquial Singapore English, their expressions have been converted to standard English, as has been done elsewhere (Mattar Reference Mattar2003b). Firstly, the notation of ‘…’ represents a break in the respondent's monologue, especially when the researcher (myself) had interjected with a question or asked for clarification. Secondly, parentheses in anecdotes ( ( ) ) represent a clarification for a certain article in the response. Thirdly, square parentheses in anecdotes ( [ ] ) represent an addendum to or a replacement of an article in the response. Lastly, in order to strike a balance between confidentiality and validity, only the first names of respondents have been used here.
Language and the problem of authenticity
The Singaporean respondents interviewed by the author generally seem sceptical about the quality of Singaporean English-language musicians. As respondent Jason simply stated, ‘Singapore musicians? Are they any good?’. Even consumers who reported that they attended concerts held by Singaporean English-language musicians regularly mentioned that they would not readily purchase the latter's phonograms. As respondent Di stated:
I go to concerts almost every other week. Most of them [are] free, some of them cost money, but nothing more than five dollars usually. I just go to check out the bands. But I won't buy their CDs unless it's less than ten dollars … They are good, yes, but only good according to Singapore standards.
Respondents, on the other hand, did not think of their local Malay-language and Chinese-language musicians as inferior to the latter's respective counterparts in Malaysia and Indonesia, and Hong Kong and Taiwan. Respondent Ridwan stated in defence of Singaporean Malay-language music:
We all are just as good as the Malaysians if not better. The biggest name in Malay rock history is Sweet Charity. Where are they from? Singapore. The person who writes the majority of songs for Malaysian singers … M. Nasir … also from Singapore. Yantzen … a famous producer in the Malaysian music industry and trailblazer of heavy metal … from Singapore. I can name you many, many others … Jatt Ali, Firhad … in short we give the Malaysians and Indonesians a run for their money.
Respondent Simon, made a similar comment regarding Singapore Chinese-language music:
[There is] no point in comparing between ours (Singaporean) and the ones from Hong Kong and Taiwan. They have their FIR, we have our Chou Pi Jiang. They have their A-Mei, we have our Kit Chan. They can sell in our market, we can sell in their market. Both [are] equally good.
Indeed, Singaporean Chinese-language musicians have shown their capabilities. Mavis Hee's album Listen Quietly (1997) topped the Hong Kong Cantonese Charts for 3 consecutive weeks (Sim Reference Sim1997), winning her the Most Popular Female Singer award in Hong Kong Metro Hit Awards. Tanya Chua's self titled Mandarin album (1999) sold 100,000 copies in Taiwan alone (Seah Reference Seah1999) and she more recently had won awards at the Global Chinese Music Awards in 2005 and 2006.
Several respondents seemed to think that Singapore English-language music is only limited to the nationalistic songs written under the auspices of the government. As respondent Cherry asked the author as a response to the author's question, ‘Singapore music? You mean like Sing Singapore?’. Sing Singapore was an initiative of the Singapore government in 1988 to inculcate national values through music (Kong Reference Kong1995). Phua and Kong (Reference Kong1996) note that in this regard, the Singapore government was trying to communicate its political values to the general population, to legitimise its rule and to encourage politically and socially acceptable behaviour. These were done to ‘invent’ a sense of ‘heritage’ for the ethnically heterogeneous nation-state which did not have a long history as compared to other nation states (Kong Reference Kong1999). While early Sing Singapore songs were composed and recorded as specific tracks commissioned by the government, since 1998, Singaporean English and Chinese-language artists began producing patriotic songs (beginning with Kit Chan's ‘Home’) independent of the government programme. Many of these songs were subsequently used by the government in the Sing Singapore programme, which explains the perception this respondent had.
Several other respondents replied bluntly that they would not support local Singaporean English-language music. As respondent Cheng stated, ‘Support Singaporean music? Why? [I'm] just wasting my time. There are many better musicians from overseas. If I want to listen to punk, I will listen to a British band. If I want to listen to reggae, I will listen to a Jamaican band. I don't want to listen to their clones’. This response is representative of other responses that suggest that the idea of Singaporean English-language musicians being ‘imitators’ of Western acts has maintained itself since the colonial era.
Various responses from the simple ‘They just don't sound right’ (respondents Kelvin, Yvonne and Ariana) to more analytic ones were derived from queries regarding what made Singaporean English-language musicians sound inferior to Western musicians. Respondent Helmi stated that the instrumentation in Singapore-produced English-language music was fine:
It's not the instruments. The instruments are okay. There are some good guitarists here. I've seen guitarists like Royhan (of Dancing Nancies) and Asta (of Axed Ministers) play live. They're quite ribut (Malay colloquial word meaning ‘rocking’).
Respondent Amber expressed his opinion on the compositions of songs:
I think the songwriting is quite okay. I think there are some good composers here. I think Tanya Chua's songs are just as good as other indie rockers from America.
A limited number of respondents found a dislike for the lyrical content of Singaporean English-language music. Respondent Shakil, for example, said:
Actually I don't like the lyrics very much. Many songwriters write about Singapore … Nothing happens here! Look, we have a low crime rate, everything occurs efficiently, there are no interesting social issues here! There are no ghettos, no guns, no homeless people on the street … It's just plain boring!
This response supports the findings by Phua (Reference Phua1993) and Kong (Reference Kong1996) who studied the reflection of place and space in local Singaporean music and argued that Singaporean popular music for much of the time projects images of Singapore, depicts the relationship of Singaporeans to the local and are environmentally concerned.
A larger number of respondents found dislike in the actual singing in Singaporean English-language music. Respondent Selena stated ‘If you ask me, I think it's actually the singing that's not as good as overseas musicians’. Respondents noted that it was not the tonal quality that made them inferior. They noted that many singers in Singapore can hold notes well and are able to utilise various vocal techniques. The problem, however, is with sounding ‘authentic’. Respondent Feroz stated:
You see, only a few singers can actually sing like the real thing. If you watch Singapore Idol (Season 2), you can see that only Mathilda [D'Silva] and Jonathan [Leong] can pronounce the words properly. The rest sound like Mat and Beng.
The terms ‘Mat’ and ‘Beng’ are two derogatory terms referring to lower-class Malay and Chinese males, respectively. Their female counterparts are ‘Minah’ and ‘Lian’, respectively. These terms are caricatures of the ‘uncultured’, ‘uncouth’ Singaporeans who have low educational and economic expectations, are more concerned with issues of their ethnic groups than that of the Anglophonic world and are more fluent in their ethnic languages than English. Consequently, they are only able to use ‘learner English’ which is spoken with thick ethnic accents (Chua Reference Chua1999, Talking Cock 2007) and their diction during the rendition of songs would also thus be affected.
Respondent Danial provided more insight on the issue of sounding ‘authentic’:
I've been to a few rap battles. Let me tell you, most of these wannabes can't even speak proper English. How do you think they are going to sell records? … You know like Black [American] people talk different from White people right? They have their own style of speaking, which you can hear clearly in rap. That is what makes rap special. If you don't have that style, you cannot pull rap off properly.
When the author inquired about non-African-American rappers, respondent Danial elaborated:
Look, like Kottonmouth Kings and Beastie Boys and all those white rappers, yes, it's true they don't sound black but at least they sound like a proper English speaker. Even like Japanese rappers they don't sound black but at least they sound proper because they are rapping in Japanese. Singaporean rappers might as well rap in Malay (most contemporary rappers in Singapore are Malay ethnics).
A similar phenomenon was documented by Trudgill (Reference Trudgill1983), who noticed that in the 1960s and 1970s, many British pop bands used American features in their singing accents. This, however, declined when the British popular music industry gained legitimacy and its own identity among consumers and musicians from other parts of the world. Carlsson (Reference Carlsson2001) has documented this movement away from American singing accents to more British ones. Simpson (Reference Simpson1999) extends this line of argument by arguing that there are now many forms of pronunciation in singing, of which the ‘American’ style is one. He notes that it is not possible to speak of a single American or British singing accent because imitations are almost always never perfectly accurate. A singer's pronunciation, according to him, depends on the speech of the ‘model’ to which the singer aspires, the singer's own speech and the speech of the singer's intended audience.
Respondent Bianca made a similar comment regarding the authenticity of the Singaporean sound, ‘I think Tanya [Chua] sounds better in Chinese than in English. At least she sounds more realistic’. When the respondents were queried as to why Singaporean English does not sound like ‘authentic’ English, many of them referred to the localised limitation of Singaporean English. Respondent Kanna summarised the sentiments of most of the respondents:
Singlish can only be used in Singapore. Singaporeans understand Singaporeans but other English speakers don't understand them. An American can tell a Briton ‘Could you do this for me please’ and the Briton would understand. A Singaporean would say ‘Eh, do this for me can?’ and nobody will understand.
Other respondents expressed a shameful sentiment towards Singlish. Despite it being a marker of national identity, it seemed to be a cause for embarrassment for these respondents. Respondent Roza stated bluntly:
Singlish is laughable. It's not real English … especially the accent … it's just weird. I have heard many Aussies in my uni[versity] make fun of the Singaporean accent. Whenever a group of them walked around my university, the Aussies will go ‘Hey lah, how are you lah’ … some of them will split up their syllables and imitate the Singlish accent … like ‘you-are-so-fun-ny’ (‘You are so funny’) … I just hide my face and run away, man.
While Singlish is an inexorable part of Singaporean culture and identity (Chong Reference Chong2006), it seems that consumers of popular music agree with the Singapore government's view of it. The Singaporean government seems to dislike Singlish so much that it discourages its use, even in comedy (Chng Reference Chng2003). In 1999, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and Senior minister Goh Chok Tong both denounced Colloquial Singapore English as a burden to Singaporeans in the knowledge-based economy (Goh Reference Goh1999). This is because Colloquial Singapore English is unintelligible to other English speakers around the globe and Singaporeans would thus be handicapped if they speak colloquial Singapore English. In 2000, a campaign called the ‘Speak Good English Movement’ was established to eradicate colloquial Singaporean English and inculcate ‘good speaking habits’ in the form of standard English (Srilal Reference Srilal1999).
This is a stark contrast with certain other forms of ‘localised’ popular musics in other parts of the world. Mitchell's (Reference Mitchell2001) influential work on rap and hip-hop outside of the USA suggests that rap and hip-hop today has evolved from being solely an expression of African-Americanism to become a conduit for organising youth globally on one hand and a tool for expressing and representing local identity. Rap and hip-hop bands in other countries have retained the staccato vocal-drum syncopation that has become a signature sound in the genre, but have augmented this with local melodies in the instrumentation and local topics in the lyrics.
Similarly, Weintraub (Reference Weintraub and Hayward1998), in his discussion of ‘Jawaiian’ music, shows how Hawaiian local identity is an integral part of this genre. ‘Jawaiian’ music is a musical form that is portmanteau of the words ‘Jamaican’ and ‘Hawaiian’ and emerged in the early 1990s in Hawaii. More than just a ‘fusion’ in name, the sounds that characterise it, the lyrical texts embodied in the songs and the discourse about the genre as discussed by musicians and consumers alike all serve to affect how Hawaiians think of themselves. The idea of ‘localness’ is celebrated through the musical form: As compared to Singapore, the ‘localness’ of both hip-hop and Jawaiian is embraced as a positive phenomenon.
When respondents were queried as to whether they felt that English was not the native language of Singaporeans, they surprisingly defended the nativeness of English in Singapore. As respondent Jesse stated, ‘English is native in Singapore. It's just a different type of English’. They maintained, however, that Singlish is not an ‘authentic’ form of English that suits popular music. Respondent Hassan clarified the issue of nativity in language:
[There have been] many singers who do not sing in their native language, actually. They sound fine. Michelle Saram is Indian. She sounds fine singing in Mandarin. Even older artists … in Malaysia for example … Francesca Peters is Eurasian but she sings in Malay … Alleycats cannot even speak Malay but they sing in Malay!
The responses in this research suggest that language is an important component of popular music production. Musicians are judged on whether they are able to convey their songs in a similar linguistic mould of their contemporary artists. As most of the English-language artists originate from Anglo-Saxon native-English speaking countries (with some exceptions, for example Abba from Sweden and Scorpions from Germany), English-language music in Singapore is deemed ‘authentic’ if and only if artists sound like the former.
Conclusion
This article has dealt with consumer preferences in Singapore, specifically towards popular music in different linguistic presentations. It has shown that Singaporean consumers show little support for their domestic English-language musicians because they perceive these musicians as inauthentic. These consumers, however, do not assess Malay or Chinese-language music in the same way as they do English-language music. Rather than the actual quality of the musicianship, consumers find that the use of colloquial Singapore English does not sit well with genres imported from English-speaking Anglo-Saxon countries. This causes Singapore-produced English-language music to sound ‘inauthentic’ and thus be perceived as a ‘B-list’ product. The English language, as a cultural product of Pax Britannica, exists as a signifier of modernity in this post-colonial era. The image of modernity which exists in the minds of Singaporean consumers is that of ‘inauthentic modernity’, or a modernity that ‘does not quite make it’. This article shows that modernities are not just perceived as different, but may also be ranked in an ordinal fashion. Following Chatterjee (1996), the case of popular music in Singapore shows how the experience of the colony defines the imagination of the post-colonial nation. As a case of cultural cringe, Singaporean consumers have imposed Orientalist perceptions upon themselves as the result of conceptualising the binary Occident as a positive stereotype.
Appendix: Questionnaire
A. Introduction
B. Purpose of research
C. Assurance of ethical consideration
How important is music to you?
How do you rate artists and albums against each other?
How important is an artist's appearance?
How important is an artist's background?
How would you rate Singaporean artists as compared to other Asian and Western artists?
Would you say that it is hard to make a living as a musician in Singapore?
D. Concluding remarks and thanks given.
