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LP
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ELE 037LP
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Dang dut is the biggest musical genre in Indonesia. Dangdut, onomatopoetic name from the sound of hand drums used in this type of music, is what reggae to Jamaicans, country to Americans or skiffle to mid-20th century British people. And in this genre of dang dut, the name Rhoma Irama looms large. He is to this day the undisputable king of dang dut and his role as pioneer of the music is already in the history book. Most of Rhoma's well-known compositions may have been influenced by Indian tunes but some of his best quality works owed much to the West. Rhoma had long found home in Western pop music. In the early 1960s, after honing his guitar playing skill, Rhoma set up his first band Gayhand to play the tunes of The Beatles, Paul Anka, and Tom Jones. Yet, nothing changed Rhoma's fortune in the music industry, to a point where he decided to leave pop and switched to playing Orkes Melayu (Malay Orchestra) music, first with Orkes Melayu Purnama and later with Soneta Group. His career soon took off with Soneta, especially after he introduced what ethnomusicologist William H. Frederick considered as "theatre", through which Rhoma borrows many elements from stage performances of British and American rock bands. These elements, kitsch and pomp, he liberally adopted and became an inseparable part of dangdut itself; tight pants, long hair, platform shoes, glitter and glamour which would not be out of place in Elton John and David Bowie stage show. From technical point of view, Rhoma not only replaced the acoustic elements from Melayu Music with electric instruments but also created new synthetic sounds that has never been attempted before in Indonesia's music industry. Notice how Rhoma reproduced funk, which is all the rage in early 1970s, in the song "Santai" (Relax), this album's closer, or "Credit Title (Instrumentalia)" which opens this Darah Muda (Young Blood) soundtrack. The rubbery bass lines that open both songs can easily find home in any Sly and the Family Stone's or Isaac Hayes' tunes from that era. The 13 tracks contained in this compilation Begadang: Soneta Group Best Songs, 1975-1980 are some the most innovative music that came out of Indonesia's music scene in the 1970s, tunes that has cemented Rhoma Irama's status as the king of the genre. Only 500 copies were pressed for this compilation.
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