Disquieting Degeneracy: Policing Malaysian and Singaporean Popular Music Culture From the Mid-1960s to Early-1970s

Abstract

This chapter provides some much needed amplification of the study of Malaysian and Singaporean music in this era by observing the ways in which Malay youth of the mid-1960s to early-1970s were implicated in cultural policies and conservative regimes. It discusses the ideas of two Malay film music icons: Zubir Said and P. Ramlee, whose ideas on Malay music culture inspired the implementation of the Malaysian National Culture Policy (NCP) that was drafted in 1971. The chapter discusses the youth music culture in 1960s that Singapore and Malaysia followed by an observation of the 'yellow cultures' or subversive youth trends that caught the negative attention of Singaporean and Malaysian government authorities. Finally, to provide an insight to the discourses on Malay youth and moral degeneracy in the mid-1960s, the chapter turns to the movie A Go Go '67 directed by Omar Rojik for the Shaw Brothers' Malay Film Productions. Keywords: Malay youth; Malaysian music culture; moral degeneracy; Omar Rojik; P. Ramlee; Singaporean music culture; Zubir Said

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