Crossing borders and crossing the line

ABSTRACT

In 1989, the Malaysian music group, Search, were a popular culture phenomenon across the Nusantara, successfully exporting their Malaysian brand of hard rock and heavy metal retrospectively termed rock kapak (lit. axe rock). Their success set the stage for cross-border collaboration in Indonesia, which included recordings, tours and a feature-length film. In 1992, the group was subject to a long hair ban that restricted broadcast of their music on television and radio in Malaysia. As a result of their defiance of the ban, the band’s live performances in the country were denied permits. This study conceptualises the connections and contestations mobilised by Malay rock as a crossing of nation-state borders and a crossing of moral boundaries. The former is viewed in inter-regional popular culture exchanges within the Nusantara region, while the latter is analysed in terms of Malay rock’s defiance to authoritarian moral policing. The boundary crossings of Search signify the musical mobilities of Malay rock, read as an informal cross-Nusantara ‘movement’ of mostly male, working-class youth who challenged conservative ethno-national states. While Search’s mobility across the region clearly represents a porous crossing of domestic and regional borders, it was the affectively ‘moving’ aspects of their ballads that appealed to a wide demographic of Nusantara audiences and the politicians that were complicit in controlling their public image.

ABSTRAK

Pada tahun 1989, kumpulan muzik Malaysia, Search, menjadi satu fenomena budaya popular di rantau Nusantara. Mereka berjaya mengeksport jenama rok dan heavy metal Malaysia yang dikenali secara retrospektif sebagai ‘rock kapak’. Kejayaan ini mewujudkan pelbagai pentas kolaborasi secara rentas sempadan dengan Indonesia, termasuk penghasilan rakaman, kegiatan jelajah konsert dan sebuah filem. Pada tahun 1992, kumpulan ini dikenakan pengharaman rambut panjang yang menyekat penyiaran muzik mereka di televisyen dan radio Malaysia. Akibat penentangan mereka terhadap pengharaman tersebut, persembahan pentas mereka di Malaysia tidak diberikan kelulusan permit. Kajian ini memberi tumpuan kepada pertalian dan kontestasi yang timbul daripada pergerakan rok Melayu yang merentasi sempadan negara dan juga merentasi batas moral yang ditentukan oleh pihak kerajaan. Yang pertama dilihat di dalam perkongsian budaya popular antara wilayah di rantau Nusantara, manakala yang kedua dianalisis dari segi penentangan budaya rock Melayu terhadap kepolisan moral kerajaan autoritarian. Rentasan sempadan Search menandakan mobiliti muzik rok Melayu, yang dilihat sebagai satu ‘gerakan’ informal merentas Nusantara yang kebanyakannya melibatkan belia lelaki kelas pekerja yang mencabar negara-negara etnonasional konservatif. Mobiliti Search jelas terlihat dengan perentasan sempadan domestik dan serantau, namun, aspek afektif lagu-lagu balada juga dapat ‘mengerakkan’ jiwa dan menarik perhatian demografi luas khalayak Nusantara, termasuk ahli politik yang terlibat dalam mengawal imej awam mereka.

KEYWORDS:

• border crossing
• Malaysia
• Indonesia
• Nusantara
• rock music
• Search

KATA KUNCI:

• Indonesia
• Malaysia
• muzik rok
• Nusantara
• rentas sempadan
• Search

Acknowledgments

Research conducted for this article was funded by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education Fundamental Research Grant (FRGS), Development of Framework on Intercultural Musical Mobilities of Malaysian Popular Music (1970s to 1990s) (FRGS/1/2020/WAB10/UKM/02/2). The newspaper articles cited were from The Star newspaper’s Information Centre, with invaluable assistance provided by Amin Omar and Ravi Chandran Muniandi. This study was presented at a panel on ‘Concepts, Genres and Scenes: Nusantara Popular Music Across and Within National Contexts’, for the Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM), held (hybrid online and in-person) in Daegu, South Korea on 7 July 2022. The author also wishes to thank the two reviewers of this article for their invaluable feedback and comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Note on sources

All newspapers cited in this article were retrieved on February 2021 from The Star newspaper’s information centre in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia. These compilations of press clippings from Malaysian newspapers on selected issues and people of note do not include page numbers.

Notes

1 All song titles listed in this article adhere to Malaysian spelling (e.g. fantasia, not fantasi) as they are referenced from Malaysian print or discographical sources.

2 In 2019, Amy was a commentator on the Indonesian singing competition television series on the Indosiar network, Golden Memories Asia, which features singers from across the Malay-speaking Nusantara. One episode saw Amy reunite with his duet-mate Inka Christie for a rendition of their hit 1990s song, ‘Cinta kita’ [Our love], <https://youtu.be/_NWktrLvnKQ> Accessed 3 April 2023.

3 See Nóvoa (2012) for a study on how the mobilities of touring ‘on the road’ features as an essential identity of rock musicians.

4 Azmyl and Adil (2023: 277) also drew on Mandal’s (2004: 50) notion of ‘transethnic solidarities’ in consideration of Malaysia’s multi-ethnic reconciliations that can be found in creative practices.

5 It is further important to consider the obfuscations of area studies terminology. For example, a consideration of the musical-historical dynamics of the Indian Ocean are equally important (Byl and Sykes 2020).

6 The term Nusantara also includes non-Malay speaking communities and the nation-state of the Philippines (Evers 2016: 8, 11, 12). However, this study refers specifically to the impact of Malay rock in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Brunei. Amalina and Zawawi (2017) offer a specific case study of heavy metal in Brunei. Prudente (2021: 38–41)) outlines a discographical genealogy of ‘Pinoy rock’ in the Philippines, while Augustin and Adil (2021: 196, 199–200) discuss the circulation of Filipino musicians such as Freddie Aguilar within and beyond the Nusantara.

7 For Mahathir’s implementation of Vision 2020 see Jeshurun (1993).

8 The studies cited here acknowledge bands such as Search, Lefthanded, Wings and their contemporaries as early exponents of global heavy metal music in Malaysia. Thus, forming a loose geneology of metal in Malaysia that directly or indirectly opened commercial and aesthetic pathways for the formation of ‘heavier’ metal bands such as FTG, Infectious Maggots, Suffercation and Cromok who sang in English. Such bands would flourish in Malaysia’s sprawling metal underground scene towards the 1990s and early 2000s. There is yet a dedicated study that traces these connections thoroughly.

9 Ferrarese (2014; 2016) does, however, contribute compelling ethnographies of Malaysia’s underground heavy metal and punk scene in the early 2000s. Such insider accounts are provided in English by Azmyl (2010) and Azmyl and Adil (2023). In Malay, the most comprehensive and well-researched study on Malay rock was recently published by Muhamad Takiyuddin (2023).

10 The songs are ‘Nigina’, ‘Metropolitan’ and ‘Sederhana’ (Modest).

11 Translated as Nusantara ballad (balada Nusantara) and Malaysian beat (irama Malaysia). For more on irama Malaysia, see Tan (2005: 303–305).

12 For more on this technique, see Walser’s (1993: 68–78) analysis of Edward, alias Eddie, Van Halen’s solo in ‘Eruptions’.

13 See Farram (2014) for ganjang songs made in Indonesia during the Confrontation between Indonesia and Malaysia, Saidah (2017) and Adil and Shazlin (2020) on Malaysian patriotic songs. Of particular note is the Indonesian composer Saiful Bahri, who wrote patriotic songs for Malaysia during the Confrontation years (Saidah 2017: 229–231; Adil and Santaella 2021: 7–9).

14 Vatikiotis (1993: 360) highlights how Indonesia’s ‘protectionist instincts and interests’ were often at odds with the open economic exchanges between ASEAN countries in the 1990s. Cassing (2000: 166) characterises the economic and political culture of the Soeharto era during the 1990s as pervaded by ‘protected monopolies’.

15 For more on Malaysia’s very own, ‘Queen of Rock’, Ella, see Thompson (2002).

16 ‘Saya juga menyenangi lagu rock kerana bebas, tidak formal. Pakai jean dan jaket sudah boleh tampil ke pentas.’

17 ‘perlu pasaran kita, kita yang memerlukan pasaran mereka’

18 Interestingly, such observations of class and heavy metal youth conditions from the West resonate well with the case of rock youth in Malaysia. For more insights on local Malaysian youth experiences in heavy metal see Azmyl and Adil (2023). Although, this is contrasted with Baulch’s (2020) thorough discussion on the complex class demarcations of gedongan (urban/metropolitan/ middle class) versus kampungan (rural/village/working class) music culture in Indonesia.

19 Najib Razak is now notorious for his implication in the global National Sovereign Wealth Fund [1MDB] scandal (Gabriel 2018; Saravanamuttu and Maznah 2019).

20 Foucault’s (1997) elaborations on the disciplining of the body and panoptic surveillance are instructive in this analysis.

21 The act empowers the Home Minister to revoke or suspend a printing or publishing licence if that publication is deemed ‘prejudicial to security, morality, public order, public interest or national interest’ (Tapsell 2013, citing Section 22(1) of Printing Presses and Publication Act, Malaysia 1984). In addition, media entities in Malaysia are subject to an annual renewal (and review) process for their publication permits.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Adil Johan

Adil Johan is a senior lecturer in the Department of Music, Faculty of Creative Arts, University of Malaya. He is author of Cosmopolitan intimacies: Malay film music of the independence era (NUS Press, 2018), and co-editor of Made in Nusantara: studies in popular music (Routledge, 2021). Email: [email protected]