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Popular cultural cringe: language as signifier of authenticity and quality in the Singaporean popular music market

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2009

YASSER MATTAR
YASSER MATTAR
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, 11 Arts Link, Singapore 117570, Republic of Singapore E-mail: socmattar@hotmail.com
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Abstract

This article looks at the popular music industry in Singapore and argues that there exists a ‘cultural cringe’ for domestic English-language music, which is considered as inferior to English-language music from Western countries. Singaporean consumers of popular music use the English language as a signifier of authenticity and consequently quality of musicians. Local musicians are deemed ‘inauthentic’ because consumers perceive the local variant of English spoken in Singapore is inferior to other variants of English spoken in Western countries. There is thus an underlying sub-text of an inferiority complex coming out of the post-colonial experience that effectively diminishes the possibility of success as English-language musicians. Yet, such a phenomenon is not observed in the vernacular Malay and Chinese-language music industries. In the final analysis, this article suggests that modernisation and modernity for Singapore is neither completely localised nor completely imposed: there exists a negotiation in the popular cultural sphere based on historical (colonial) baggage.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , May 2009 , pp. 179 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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