Many people today know the likes of Yung Raja, Linying, Shye, Sezairi and Shabir, thanks to the NDP. These singers and musicians are leading lights in Singapore’s current pop scene, or Singapop (to borrow Dick Lee’s album title). But they are just the latest in a line of musicians that stretches back to the 1960s.
It began with a concert
The birth of Singapop is a little hazy. But many will point to October 1961, as the start of it. That was when Cliff Richard and The Shadows, then the biggest pop stars in the UK, performed at Happy World, playing the loudest rock and roll music we had ever heard.
Cliff’s concert sparked a rock and roll revolution in the Lion City. Everyone wanted to start their own band after that.
Up till that point, Singapore’s pop scene was dominated by crooners and vocal groups like Pat Boone, The Kingston Trio or The Platters and the groups here emulated that sound well.
The Sundowners, backed by the band The Tornadoes, were one of the first to release a record, “Malaysia Wonderful” in 1963. A ballad about how nice life was here, it possibly had more impact on nation-building than any propaganda the newly formed Federation of Malaysia (of which Singapore was a member) could possibly have provided.
The biggest group in those early years was undoubtedly The Crescendos. Comprising school friends Raymond Ho, John Chee and Leslie Chia, they’d been performing as a trio, but decided to add a female singer to boost their sound. Enter Susan Lim, arguably Singapore’s first teen idol. This new line-up was offered a recording contract with international label Philips.
Their debut single, a cover of Connie Francis’ Mr Twister, shot up the charts and outsold the original here. It was unheard of at the time. Over the next four years, they scored hit after hit with rocked up versions of evergreen tunes like In The Good Old Summertime, Besame Mucho and Bengawan Solo. Susan could lilt like the best torch song singer, and belt like a true rock ‘n’ roller.
Their success prompted the record labels to seek more local artists to record – and they weren’t hard to find: The Trailers, The Checkmates, Naomi and the Boys, The Vampires, Wilson David, The Silver Strings, Sonny Bala and the Moonglows, Kartina Dahari, The Dukes, The Cyclones, Veronica Young, Rita Chao, Vernon Cornelius, The Thunderbirds, Ahmad Jais, Julie Sudiro, The Swallows… you name it.
Many of the bands here also got a chance to support international pop stars such as The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Yardbirds, The Walker Brothers and Helen Sharpiro when they performed in Singapore.
But one band stood above the rest: The Quests. Named after the Queenstown Secondary Technical School magazine (although only two of the members were actually from that school), these self-taught musicians had already made waves – even performing on TV – by the time they were signed to EMI Records in 1964.
The Quests shot to No 1 with “Shanty”, an instrumental number in the vein of The Shadows, composed by bassist Henry Chua. It was backed with Gallopin’, written by guitarist Reggie Verghese, who would later be known as Singapore’s first true guitar hero. It was the first local original single to top the Singapore charts, ousting The Beatles.
They had fans in Singapore, Malaysia and as far away as Australia. Everywhere they went, “there were groupies,” Henry Chua said. “At one tour, I went back to the hotel after the concert to find my things were gone!”
The Quests became the first local band to release an album (Questing) and also backed other singers, most notably Rita Chao and Sakura, two bright stars who sang in English and Chinese. “I think EMI thought if we put the Quests’ name on the records, it will sell,” said Henry. “So it was Rita and the Quests, Sakura and the Quests, and so on.”
The Quests themselves were no slouches in language diversity, releasing a record of Malay covers of Western songs, as well as instrumental versions of Chinese and Malay songs.
As the Sixties rolled on, the music by local bands started reflecting the harder rock sounds of the era, with bands like Cells Unlimited, The Straydogs, Pest Infested, Fried Ice and others coming to the fore.
But it wasn’t always swingin’. Payments for bands was often miniscule. Despite being one of the top bands, when the Crescendos tallied up their annual earnings, they realised they only made a few hundred dollars (split four ways) on record sales alone.
But as Singapore went full-steam into nation-building, and with the departure of the British armed forces, who made up a fair bulk of the audience for local bands, it seemed like fewer and fewer people had time for music.
That ‘70s Shutdown
When the 1970s rolled around, the golden age of Singapore pop was starting to lose its sheen. Many of the bands that made a splash just a few years earlier broke as members went into other areas of the entertainment industry, or left the music industry altogether.
There was rock and roll tragedy too. Susan Lim of The Crescendos, who had left the band to pursue a university degree went missing in 1970, presumed dead, after she went on a beach holiday to Terengganu with her fiancé and some of his friends and relatives. While there, she was swept away by strong waves. Her body was never found. She was only 22.
Back in Singapore, rock and roll faced the first government action. Thanks to perceived associations with sex and drugs – as well as rising gangsterism – Sunday afternoon tea dances, where youths would patronise clubs to listen to live music and dance, were banned, with the authorities saying that they were “bad for the character of teenagers”.
Then, long hair on men – the style of choice for rockers back then – was also banned, because of its perceived association with “hippism, yellow culture and a decadent lifestyle”.
Next, entertainment taxes for live bands in nightclubs and restaurants were increased, making it difficult to sustain live music. When the police rounded up 32 local and foreign pop musicians on suspicion of supplying drugs to teenage schoolgirls at a nightclub; the writing was on the wall. Nightclubs along Orchard Road came under surveillance and live performances at these nightspots were eventually banned.
“We were literally locked out of the club,” Horace Hutapea of The Flybaits told the Today newspaper. “All our instruments and equipment were inside and we couldn’t get them out.”
“I made music when long hair and rock music was banned and … if you played guitar, you were a drug addict, that was what I grew up with,” said Dick Lee. “In my career, I played in libraries in tuck shops in schools, wherever I could play. You have to find another way and you have to be smart about it. And you have to be calculative and plan and manoeuvre and scheme.”
Some musicians decided to leave Singapore. Jerry Fernandez and his band, the Neu Faces, went to Europe. They had previous circumvented the long hair rule by shaving their heads, leaving only a queue. While the audiences loved seeing an Asian band play Western pop music, the rigours of the road took its toll on them, as members upped and left without notice. Others like Sweet Charity, M Nasir and the Flybaits pivoted to the Malaysian market, where they had better success.
Local musicians also faced the wrath of the censors. Dick Lee had songs from his 1974 debut album, Life Story, banned on Radio Television Singapore, including the now-popular Fried Rice Paradise (for including Singlish); making him possibly the first local artist to get banned.
“I remember seeing a copy in their music library later. A couple of tracks were visibly scratched to prevent rebellious deejays from playing them,” Dick said. (More than a decade later, Rasa Sayang, from his 1989 album The Mad Chinaman, would run afoul of the censors yet again for its use of Singlish)
There were other hazards for bands. Unfair management contracts meant that bands had to work daily, with no days off (“you don’t work, you don’t get paid”, said Horace). And record sales were dismal. The lack of proper promotion was also a drawback. Dick’s Life Story sold only a few hundred copies. Ten years earlier, The Crescendos sold 10,000 copies. Local artists would have to wait for few more years before public acceptance could be regained.
The Eighties and the Moral Panic
In the early 1980s, a local doctor and “lover of serious music”, Dr Tow Siang Hwa, took a public stance against rock music, urging authorities to keep young people away from “violent and destructive” music. It was for “the benefit of the country’s security” and Singapore could not afford “this type of liberalisation”.
“There is nothing wrong with someone who wants to play or listen to rock music in the privacy in his own room (sic). But when it’s held in open spaces, there is always the potential of group influence on drugs and sex which go hand in hand with rock music”, he was reported as saying in the Straits Times.
Even in open spaces like parks, “think of the problem in controlling a crowd of about 30,000”, he added.
It seemed that this lone voice had much influence. A couple of days later, the National Theatre, the home of many pop and rock concerts, banned such shows, citing “wanton vandalism” and “senseless outbursts”, with unruly audiences that required control.
One group of musicians that weren’t deemed to provoke outbursts were the Chinese singers, who were making their mark with their brand of acoustic folk music, called xinyao (which translates loosely to “Singapore songs”).
Led by the likes of Liang Wenfu, Eric Moo and Billy Koh, xinyao borrowed from the Taiwanese folk song movement and became extremely popular with students, who formed many xinyao groups, such as The Straws, The Merlion and Underpass. Its popularity soon spread beyond the schools and concerts were organised regularly, along with recordings like the compilation Tomorrow 21, considered by fans to be the landmark album that brought xinyao to the mainstream audience.
But in 1985, it seemed that the authorities were lightening up when the Singapore Police Force made headlines … for organising a rock concert.
Called the Police Rock Concert, it was held at the Police Academy, ostensibly to “strengthen the relationship between the police and the youth” wrote Rosli Mohalim, the guitarist of rock band Sweet Charity in his book Perjalanan Muzik Rock.
The five-hour concert started after sunset with 10 bands on the bill: Eurasia, Hangloose, Speedway, Gypsy, Gingerbread, Rusty Blade, Tokyo Square, Unwanted, Zircon Lounge and Sweet Charity, which hadn’t performed at any rock concerts since the National Theatre closed.
Apart from Sweet Charity, the biggest group in that line-up was Tokyo Square, who had a massive hit that year, with their cover version of Within You’ll Remain.
This concert paved the way for more shows, including a police “disco night”, the Let’s Rock Concert organised by the National Crime Prevention Council in 1986, and the Swing Singapore street parties in 1988 to 1990. Organised by SAFRA and the then-Singapore Joint Civil Defence Force, a section of Orchard Road was closed with different stages featuring different acts.
That the authorities were the ones organising these shows didn’t go unnoticed, especially with anti-drugs slogans like “Good times can go on forever if you keep away from drugs” or “Stay off glue – it can lead to a sticky end…” peppering the bands’ sets.
Then in 1989, Dick Lee released The Mad Chinaman (the title is a reference to the man who stood in front of the tanks during the Tianenman massacre).
At the time, Dick’s contract with the record label here had almost run its course. So he decided to just have fun and fill it with songs purposely targeted at the Asian audience, like Mustapha, Rasa Sayang and Bengawan Solo. Surprisingly, Dick found a new audience … in Japan, where fans snapped up the album. The controversial ban on Rasa Sayang also brought the album to the public eye. The Mad Chinaman eventually achieved platinum status in Singapore.
But this was the exception to the norm. The scene still couldn’t match the fervour of the 1960s. That would soon change.
New school rock: the indie years
In the mid-1980s, former journalist brothers Philip and Michael Cheah – along with their friend Stephen Tan – started a fanzine called BIGO. The title is derived from “before I get old” – a line from the 1965 hit, My Generation, by The Who – and it featured alternative music, and championed the local music scene.
Apart from publishing articles about music, BIGO also helped to organise concerts and released cassettes – and later, CDs – featuring local bands, such as the 1987 No Surrender concert, organised by BIGO, which was recorded live at Anywhere Lounge.
The concert featured a range of bands, including Corporate Toil, and Chris Ho’s band, Zircon Lounge. “Back then the crowd was tough… you get booed or jeered at if they don’t like you,” Patrick Chng, the singer of The Oddfellows, told Power of Pop. “Corporate Toil were heckled and jeered throughout their set because their experimental electro music didn’t appeal to the audience who were more into guitar-rock. I guested on guitar on Corporate Toil’s last song, a cover of Joy Division’s “Exercise One”. Before I came on, I was thinking to myself, “oh shit” and played with my back to the audience!”
BIGO’s persistence in supporting local music proved vital a band that would be synonymous with the indie music scene of the 1990s: The Oddfellows.
The Oddfellows – the name is derived from the REM song, Oddfellows Local 151 – began as a trio with Patrick Chng on lead vocals and guitars, Casey Soo (drums) and Stephen Tan (bass). They made their debut appearance at the Arts Festival Fringe concert at the Botanic Gardens in 1988 after being invited by Philip Cheah. They performed four songs: three originals by Patrick and a cover of Knocking on Heaven’s Door.
Within two years, they had released two demo cassettes of original material – Mild and Phoney Accent – recorded by simply putting a tape recorder in front of the band and finding the sweet spot in a jamming studio before pressing record, said Patrick. BIGO remained a strong supporter of The Oddfellows: When BIGO released the New School Rock compilation CD, The Oddfellows contributed two songs – Lost My Head and Song About Caroline – which were crowd favourites. Their popularity in the fledgling scene soon saw them signed up by BMG.
In 1991, they released their debut album, Teenage Head, which spawned the catchy single, So Happy. It shot to No.1 on the charts, the first time in years that an original local song topped the charts.
Throughout the 1990s, The Oddfellows became the highwater mark for local music, and many musicians were inspired to start their own bands. They released two more albums, Carnival (featuring the hit, Unity Song) and Bugs And Hisses, a collection of outtakes, live recordings and demos. The band went on hiatus in 2001, although they would make regular one-off performances in the years that followed. In July 2021, they recently released a “best of” compilation called Up In The Clouds, and their an album of new material, What’s Yours And Mine, is dropping in September.
Thanks to BIGO’s strong support – through their New School Rock and Singles Review CD series, and organising regular gigs – by 1995, many local artists came to the forefront. And they were as varied as the musical genres: pop (AWOL, Lizard’s Convention, The Sugarflies), folk-rock (Humpback Oak, The Ordinary People), punk/hardcore (Opposition Party, Psycho Sonique, Stompin’ Ground), solo artists (Tanya Chua, Art Fazil), alt-rock (Livonia, Neural Vibe) and funk (Stoned Revivals).
Even Siva Choy, the founder of Sixties blues duo The Cyclones, had success in the 1990s with his comedy album, Why You So Like Dat? Attributed to the Kopi Kat Klan, it was filled with corny skits and songs, and also spawned other copycat comedy acts.
The bands found a home at The Substation on Armenian Street, which offered their Garden space for concerts, some of which lasted from noon to midnight. Fans would simply turn up to enjoy the music. Other venues soon offered platforms for local bands: MPH, Tower Books, the amphitheatres at Marina Bay and World Trade Centre, clubs like Fire and Sparks, shopping centres and even restaurants! Bands also opened for big-name acts like Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams, The Buzzcocks and Fugazi, when they performed here.
The mainstream media jumped on the bandwagon, getting behind local artists, with radio stations like Perfect 10 and Heart 91.3 regularly featuring local bands. Every week, local artists would battle international acts for the top spot on the radio charts. And it wasn’t surprising to see a local artist top the charts: The Oddfellows, Watchmen, Art Fazil, Kick!, Ger, Stoned Revivals, Concave Scream, Tanya Chua, Humpback Oak, Padres and Livonia, among others all had Number Ones.
But all things must pass. In the 1992, the media ran a story about slam-dancing, describing it as “a pandemonium that seems so punishing it might put off a rugby player” and “like a violent street scuffle”. Were people shocked? Yes. Was it banned? Yes.
The Public Entertainment Licensing Unit gave new rules: all live performances required a permit along with a $2,000 deposit. Gig organisers would lose this deposit and the concert would be stopped if the crowd was “dancing violently”.
When the Asian Financial Crisis hit in 1997, the market for local music shrank. Pony Canyon, the record label with the biggest roster of local acts, especially under their sub-label, Springroll, was unable to remain viable and folded. Several local bands, some of whom were halfway through recording their albums, were left in the lurch.
Despite the acclaim and accolades, many bands couldn’t make a living from music. In his book, No Finer Time To Be Alive, about the 1990s music scene, editor Andy Chen noted that bands would be lucky to move 1,000 units in sales. Like the 1960s, many bands called it quits by the time the decade ended.
Once again, musicians looked overseas for audiences. Perhaps the most successful of these was Kit Chan, who recorded in Chinese and released her debut album, Heartache in 1994. She went on to become a household name in Taiwan and Singapore, where her rendition of Home (written by Dick Lee) at the 1998 National Day Parade was so well-received that it started a tradition of having a local artist perform a song composed specifically for the NDP.
Tanya Chua followed suit in 1999 with her self-titled Chinese album. She later became a prolific songwriter, penning tracks for artists like A-mei, Stefanie Sun and Faye Wong. Art Fazil too, became known not only as a singer who could perform in Malay and English, but also as a songwriter for several of Malaysia’s biggest pop stars.
Music in the new millennium
Arguably, the biggest Singaporean pop star at the beginning of the 2000s, was Stefanie Sun. Like Kit and Tanya, Stefanie cut her teeth in Taiwan, mentored by the Lee brothers, Si Song and Wei Song. Recording in both English and Mandarin, the former NTU grad was industrious, releasing eight albums from 2000 to 2005, and soon became a superstar in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and Singapore.
In the meantime, the English music scene didn’t get going until 2003. The biggest names leading this new wave were Electrico and The Observatory. Electrico comprised singer/guitarist Dave Tan, Desmond Goh (bass), William Lim Jr (drums), Daniel Sassoon (guitar, formerly of Livonia) and Amanda Ling (keyboards).
Their ability to craft catchy pop-rock tunes like I Want You and Love In New Wave both hit the top spot on the radio charts, and they became one of the first bands from Singapore to play at the famous South by Southwest festival in the United States. From 2004 to 2008, Electrico’s fans not only included Singaporeans but also those from Taiwan, Australia, the Philippines and Malaysia, where the band toured.
A couple of years after Daniel and Amanda left (they’d become instrumental rock outfit In Each Hand A Cutlass), Electrico eventually took a break in 2010, resurfacing to do the odd gig. But like The Oddfellows, they have returned with a new EP this year, called Left of the Century.
Musically, the Observatory took a very different tack. Led by Leslie Low of Humpback Oak, The Obs offered experimental and progressive musical excursions and were often hailed for pushing the boundaries of pop music. They found favour with an audience that were yearning for something more than pop ditties. They also found fans abroad when they played around the globe, including Norway, Germany, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand, where their albums like Dark Folke and August Is The Cruellest, were well received.
Although the band now sports a different line-up, Electrico and The Observatory helped pave the way for a new group of artists, each offering music that spanned the genres. Notable names included Lunarin, Great Spy Experiment, Plainsunset, and B-Quartet.
As technology improved, many musicians adopted the DIY sensibilities of the 1990s, uploading their music videos to online platforms gaining an army of followers there. Technology also helped musicians overcome the heavy costs of recording music, as home recording programmes like Audacity, GarageBand and Logic Pro, made it inexpensive to put out a track that sounded good.
Even the mainstream media wanted back in: There was Lush, a radio station that targeted indie music and featured several local acts. There was Live ‘n’ Loaded, a TV show featuring live performances from local bands. And several concerts once again featured local bands.
One of the biggest successes in the 2010s was The Sam Willows. Comprising Benjamin Kheng, his sister Narelle, Sandra Riley Tang and Jonathan Chua, the quartet’s online popularity saw them in good stead as they chalked up YouTube views with singles like Glasshouse, for which they were handpicked to re-record with Grammy-winning English producer Steve Lillywhite.
They were eventually signed to Sony, and in 2015, their single Take Heart, shot to the top of the Singapore iTunes charts in one day, beating out the likes of Taylor Swift and Jessie J. US band Matchbox Twenty’s lead guitarist Kyle Cook even offered congratulations and asked them to “get over here to the States ASAP”.
Although the band took a hiatus in 2019, the individual members have done solo outings, with Benjamin arguably having the biggest presence, thanks to songs like Wicked and Make Do, as well as collaborations with other artists like J Sheon and Gentle Bones.
The 2010s also saw the emergence of the solo artist. Back in the 1990s, solo acts were few and far in-between, but in the last eight years or so, the solo artist – or duos – have become the mainstay.
Gentle Bones (the stage name of Joel Tan) one-upped The Sam Willows success in 2016 when he also topped the Singapore iTunes charts with his EP, Geniuses & Thieves, ONE HOUR after it was released. About a week later, he sold out two concerts at The Esplanade.
This was a boon after a disastrous 2015 where what was supposed to be a 12-day regional concert tour turned into a 3.5-month ordeal in Indonesia, when Gentle Bones, popular American singer-songwriter Kina Grannis and 12 others in the entourage had their passports impounded in Indonesia and were barred from leaving the country because of a problem with their performance permits.
Needless to say, Gentle Bones has bounced back since. He has been collaborating with several others, including Gareth Fernandez, Charlie Lim, Joie Tan and, most recently, Tay Kewei, with whom he made his Mandopop debut on the 2020 single, ‘你還不知道?’ (‘Don’t You Know Yet?’). And he’s not stopping any time soon: 2021 marks the release of his debut album.
Rapper Shigga Shay, singers Inch Chua and Nathan Hartono, are but three who’ve made an impact in recent years. Shigga started rapping when he was still in school, and made a big splash in 2013 when he released Limpeh, which garnered nearly 1 million views on YouTube, helped by a hilarious music video he produced himself. His latest offering, URight, features South Korean star Jay Park.
Inch experimented with various music genres and styles, from acoustic to electronica. She was the first solo artist from Singapore to perform at South by Southwest and in 2021, released her first bilingual tracks, Do I Do I and Trees, which part of an EP set for a 2022 release.
Nathan Hartono made a name for himself as an actor and singer, before his major breakthrough as a contestant on Sing! China, the first Singaporean to pass the audition stage. Under his mentor Jay Chou’s tutelage, he advanced to the finals and finished second overall. He has performed in English, Mandarin and Bahasa Indonesia, with his latest EP, Edge Of Days, dropping this year.
But if there’s one artist who’s really lighting up the scene right now, it’s Jasmine Sokko. Ever since her single 1057, which she wrote and produced, topped Spotify Singapore’s viral charts in 2016, she has gone from strength to strength. Jasmine’s 2019 single Tired now has more than 8 million streams on Spotify and her 2021 single Medusa garnered more than 1 million views on YouTube. Having recorded in Chinese and English, her latest EP, θi = θr (the representation of The Law Of Reflection) and featuring collaborations with Gentle Bones and Hey Violet, has just been released.
With strong support from online platforms such as Indiego, Bakchormeeboy, Bandwagon, NME and Life in Arpeggio all supporting new music from this new breed of musicians – whether it’s synth-pop duos like Little Spiderhunter and Kekko to rock-out bands like The Intimate Friends and Sobs – it seems like the music momentum won’t be letting up anytime soon.
And if you don’t believe me, just Google “Singapore pop music” and take your pick from the 100,000,000 or so entries. You won’t be disappointed.
