Asian Music

Heather MacLachlan’s Burma’s Pop Music Industry: Creators, Distributors, Censors offers a thorough introduction to the Burmese popular music industry. Grounded in six months of fieldwork between 2007 and 2009 and 77 interviews, MacLachlan argues that “Burmese Pop Music cannot be dismissed as just another instance of cultural imperialism” (4); an approach that has been used to critique the development of popular idioms in Asia as a result of the unwelcome dominance of Western cultural influence. MacLachlan feels “that the Burmese case cannot be dismissed as a straightforward imposition of American cultural values and products on a vulnerable foreign population” (4). She sees the Burmese as active consumers of Anglo American popular forms who, in fact, go to great lengths to obtain foreign products “in defiance of their own government” (5). Indeed, she conducted her study while the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), a military dictatorship, was in power, and certainly the political climate influenced the production of popular music. But MacLachlan argues that Burmese “pop”—or stereo—is not the sole result of totalitarian military rule either (6). Rather, she situates the production of pop within these complex frames in a logically organized work.

In chapter 1, MacLachlan details a studio recording session, arguing that the experience “embodied the realities of the Burmese pop scene in a number of ways. Specifically, this small group demonstrated the tendencies of the larger community with regard to gender, religion, and career path” (18). And it is these factors that she feels set the Burmese pop industry apart from the Anglo American system. [End Page 135]

For example, she explores the reasons for the relative absence of women in the Burmese popular music industry, noting that women have less access to the equipment and studios. Women have also been discouraged historically from performing instrumental music. MacLachlan also found that roughly half of the best-known singers are Christian, though Christians only account for 4 to 5 percent of the total population. But regardless of an individual’s background, the majority of performers share similar paths into the industry. And once stars, they are not seen as antiestablishment, as is celebrated in the Anglo American context, and remain accessible to fans. Musicians do not write songs critical of the government; “rather, they leverage their fame to serve another purpose, giving their energy and skills to projects that are important to local communities” (43) and promoting social causes. Burmese perform within the system, but at the same time are not naïve about the situation in Burma, as she reviews later in the book.

MacLachlan provides detailed information of the musical style that dominates the Burmese industry in chapter 2. Most Burmese pop songs can be considered ballads separated in two categories—“original” and “copied”—or copy thachin—though this distinction is not always clear. Copy thachin are common and tend to resemble the original Anglo American source material, but visual representation in video and new Burmese lyrics transform the song. The theme expressed in the lyric is most important for most Burmese (54), so even if the music is essentially “taken” from a Western song, with new Burmese lyrics, it is understood as Burmese and not “foreign.” MacLachlan argues that by Western standards—which appreciate originality—Burmese pop may be critiqued as “inauthentic” and therefore not worthy of study, but since Burmese musicians themselves find this music “authentic” it is indeed worthy of scholarly pursuit (64). Copying itself is valued in Burma, as in Japan (enka) and other areas of the world. “And it is this self-conscious modeling of local artistic expression on foreign originals, that is ironically, the most salient ‘local’ aspect of the Burmese scene” (72).

Through sharing her own experience in a recording studio, MacLachlan explores how musicians learn in chapter 3. She found that musicians typically arrive...