A keen critic of culture in modern Indonesia, Andrew N. Weintraub shows how a genre of Indonesian music called dangdut evolved from a debased form of urban popular music to a prominent role in Indonesian cultural politics and the commercial music industry. Dangdut--named onomatopoetically for the music's characteristic drum sounds "dang" and "dut"--is Indonesia's most popular music, heard in streets and homes, public parks and narrow alleyways, stores and restaurants, and all forms of public transportation. Despite dangdut's tremendous popularity in Indonesia and other parts of Asia, it has seldom received the serious critical attention it deserves. Dangdut Stories is a social and musical history of dangdut within a range of broader narratives about class, gender, ethnicity, and nation in post-independence Indonesia (1945-present). Quoted material from interviews, detailed analysis of music and song texts, and ethnography of performance illuminate the stylistic nature of the music and its centrality in public debates about Islam, social class relations, and the role of women in postcolonial Indonesia. Dangdut Stories is the first musicological study to examine the stylistic development of dangdut music itself, using vocal style, melody, rhythm, form, and song texts to articulate symbolic struggles over meaning. Throughout the book the voices and experiences of musicians take center stage in shaping the book's narrative. Dangdut was first developed during the early 1970s, and an historical treatment of the genre's musical style, performance practice, and social meanings is long overdue.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction; 2. Mythologizing Melayu: Discourse, Practice, and the Stakes of Authenticity; 3. A Doll from India: Mr. Mahmud, and the Elvis of Indonesia; 4. Music and Rakyat: Constructing "the people" in Dangdut; 5. "Suffering" and "Surrender": Dangdut and the Spectacle of Excess; 6. Dangdut Nation: "We bring the Happiness of Dangdut"; 7. "Dance Drills, Faith Spills": Islam, Body Politics, and Popular Music; 8. "Dangdut Daerah": Going Local in Post-Suharto and Indonesia; 9. Conclusion: Why Dangdut?

Reviews

"In Dangdut Stories, Weintraub has written a masterful, engaging, and exemplary portrait not only of a colorful music genre--with an audience of tens of millions--but also of a dynamic society in transition." --Peter Manuel, Professor, Music Department, the Graduate Center of the City University of New York

"From an Indonesian perspective, Weintraub's contribution to the debate about the construction of national identity in Indonesia is quite original. By focusing on dangdut popular music, he recognizes the importance of the cultural industry's role less in shaping a definite musical identity than in underlining its continual slippage as a meaning. The book, rich with field notes, suggests that a discourse on cultural identity is necessarily a discourse on cultural fluidity." --Goenawan Mohamad, founder and editor, Tempo

"Andrew Weintraub's Dangdut Stories is at once the definitive work on this important genre and a methodological tour de force. Dangdut Stories promises