By Razaleigh Zain,
Music
Ambassador for Mnation, Universal Music Malaysia.
When we want to talk about
music in Malaysia, definitely we would relate it to our diversity of culture.
For some music is life. When the British gained complete political,
administrative and economic control of the country (1905-1957), they
established their own educational system through which western music - namely
Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin, was introduced first to the Malay aristocracy,
and later filtered down to the masses (AsiaRecipe, 2000). In post-Independence
Malaysia, the movies, especially Broadway musicals, also had a hand in
popularising western music. Malay movies followed suit with songs of Malay
flavour based on western tempered scale and arrangement. The songs of the late
Malay movie legend P. Ramlee bear testimony to this fact.
To date, we can see there are many talented singers
cherish our local industry with their unique taste of music. Yuna, Ziana Zain
and Siti Nurhaliza are names that we are familiar in the local music scene
today. Back in the days we only get the chance to listen to their songs through
radio or we need to buy their album. Now, the advancement of technology has
created new created new way to get closer to your favourite artistes. A
reversal of tides has slowly changed people’s mindsets about our entertainment
industry as some of our homegrown talents have even been making it
internationally such as Zee Avi. The use of social media platforms such as
Facebook, Twitter, Youtube or Instagram have all played a part in boosting this
industry, helping artists gain support from their fellow Malaysians (Pang,
2012).
Social media is a new trend among Malaysians today.
According to SocialBakers, social networking statistics show that Facebook
penetration in Malaysia is 49.94% compared to the country's population and
77.29% in relation to number of Internet users. The total number of FB profiles
in Malaysia is reaching 13 063 580 and grew by more than 606 020 in the last 6
months. This statistic has proven the effectiveness of using social media as
tool to reach larger audiences. In the article, “Social Media & the
Malaysian Entertainment Industry” written by Sara Pang in Intergrity.com, she
questioned the readers does social media really aid local artists and the
Malaysian entertainment industry in increasing fan support locally as well as
globally?
Sources
1.
Malaysia Facebook Statistics. (2012). Retrieved September 15, 2012, from SocialBakers: http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics/malaysia
2.
Malaysian Music.
(2000). Retrieved September 15, 2012, from Asia Recipe.com:
http://asiarecipe.com/malmusic.html
3.
Pang,
S. (2012, July 17). Social Media & The Malaysian Entertainment Industry.
Retrieved September 15, 2012, from Beneath The Red Hood:
http://www.integricity.com/blog/social-media-the-malaysian-entertainment-industry
Raz, i love this article coz im doing my AW on this topic so!
ReplyDeleteThanks dear. I wrote this because it is closer to my heart plus this is my field of work. It is really hard to be part of music industry in Malaysia where everything is mixed up. You need to be tough and strong in order to bring back the age of music glory in Malaysia once upon a time ago.
ReplyDeleteLocal artists with their musics are getting use with the use of new media but does the artists reaching and penetrate the cyber space wisely? We can see the effort but it doesn't sustained. Where did it went wrong? The target audience or the approach of their content didn't stick in the audiences' heart & mind? Sometimes the local music industry need to have a solitude breakthrough that could maintain music lovers loyalty and the same time bring back the glory.
ReplyDeleteyup. i feel you raz because both of us are doing the same stuff. i really upset when i think about it.
ReplyDelete