Tradition

Cambodian rock

Cambodian rock is the rock and pop music made in Cambodia from the late 1950s until 1975, when the Khmer Rouge took power. It joined Western rock, R&B and Latin dance rhythms with Khmer melodies, and its years are often called Cambodia's "golden era" of popular music.[1][2][3] The Cambodian Vintage Music Archive dates this golden age from 1955 to 1975.[4] Most of its best-known singers did not survive the Khmer Rouge years, and much of the music was lost. Recordings that people kept or carried abroad later brought it back to new listeners.[5][1]

Origins

After independence from France, the government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk encouraged new music as part of building the nation.[1][5] Sihanouk was a musician himself and made the arts a priority.[6] The scholar LinDa Saphan writes that Cambodian rock and roll emerged in the 1960s alongside his program of national modernization, and that the early urban rockers were mostly upper-class young men.[7]

The filmmaker John Pirozzi says that Western records first came in with wealthy Cambodians who studied in France.[8] Later, U.S. Armed Forces radio in Vietnam carried rhythm and blues, country and rock into Cambodia and opened the music to many more listeners.[1][8] Latin styles such as the cha-cha and rumba were another strong influence.[1][8]

Sound

Musicians mixed these Western forms with Khmer melodies, and sometimes with traditional Cambodian instruments.[1][3] A typical record might have a woman singing over surf guitar, organ, bass and drums.[9] Musicians also recorded covers, in English and in Khmer.[1] Sinn Sisamouth's "Away from Beloved Lover", for example, is a Cambodian version of "A Whiter Shade of Pale".[5] Records were often made around a single microphone, with heavy reverb.[3]

Phnom Penh was the center of the scene. Its young audience took up long hair and flared trousers, and venues such as the Mekong River Club stayed busy until late at night.[6][2] Local record labels grew in the 1960s, and by the 1970s the industry had its own distributors and clubs.[1]

Singers and bands

Inter Press Service describes Sinn Sisamouth as having become the "King of Cambodian rock and roll", and the Cambodian Vintage Music Archive calls him the king of the golden era.[1][10] Inter Press Service writes that he began as a ballad singer at the royal court and by the late 1950s was a well-known voice on the radio. He was known mostly for smooth crooning, though he also recorded rock and Latin songs.[1] He wrote at least 1,200 songs.[5]

Ros Sereysothea, from a village in Battambang province, was a major star by the late 1960s and made albums and films.[1] The Cambodian Vintage Music Archive describes her as widely considered the greatest female vocalist of the golden age.[10] Pen Ran began her career in 1963, and the duets she recorded with Sisamouth from 1966 added to her popularity.[10] The archive describes Huoy Meas as one of the best-known singers of her time and the national radio's most popular DJ.[10] It calls Yol Aularong a leader of the garage rock scene, whose songs carried social commentary. His songs include "Cyclo".[10][9]

Baksey Cham Krong was formed in 1959 by two teenage brothers, Mol Kagnol and Mol Kamach.[3][10] Reports on the documentary Don't Think I've Forgotten call it Cambodia's first rock band.[3][11] In the early 1970s Drakkar played a fuzz-driven, psychedelic rock.[9][5][3] Other singers of the period include Mao Sareth, Meas Saman, Sieng Vanthy, Peou Vannary and Sos Math.[10]

War years

After the 1970 coup, the government of Lon Nol enlisted pop stars, largely against their will, to make propaganda against Sihanouk.[5] Popular music turned nationalistic, and nearly all the pop of the 1960s was banned from national radio.[11] Musicians kept performing under the curfew of the civil war until April 1975.[6]

Under the Khmer Rouge

When the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975, the city was emptied and the scene came to an end.[6][2] The new regime banned foreign music and allowed only traditional and revolutionary songs.[8][12] Musicians were reviled as reactionaries,[5] and many recordings were destroyed.[11][1] John Pirozzi has said that the best-known singers could not hide who they were.[8]

Most of the era's musicians did not survive. Sinn Sisamouth disappeared, and accounts of his death differ widely.[5] The Cambodian Vintage Music Archive presumes that Ros Sereysothea, Huoy Meas, Yol Aularong and Mao Sareth died under the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979, and records that Pen Ran had disappeared by 1979.[10] By most estimates, about nine in ten Cambodian musicians were killed.[5][13] A few survived, among them the singer Sieng Vanthy and Drakkar's singer Touch Tana.[8][5]

The music itself survived because people hid their records and tapes or took them abroad when they fled.[1][8] One drummer, Keo Sinan, buried his record collection under an outhouse.[5]

Revival

Cambodian Rocks, a 1996 compilation from the Parallel World label, brought the music to Western listeners.[3] It was made from cassettes bought in Cambodia and named none of the singers or songs.[3][1] Songs from the era were also used on the soundtrack of Matt Dillon's film City of Ghosts (2002).[1]

Dengue Fever, a Los Angeles band with the Cambodian-born lead singer Chhom Nimol, performs many songs from the period.[1][2] The Cambodian Space Project, formed in 2009, also plays in the golden-era style.[2][5] Some producers have sampled the old records in hip hop.[1] Cambodian Living Arts, founded in 1998 by Arn Chorn-Pond, supports new Cambodian musicians.[2]

John Pirozzi's documentary Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll took about ten years to make. It had its world premiere at the Chaktomuk Theater in Phnom Penh in January 2014, sponsored by the U.S. Embassy and the Documentation Center of Cambodia, and opened in New York in 2015.[6][8][11] The Cambodian Vintage Music Archive, a U.S. nonprofit founded in 2010, collects recordings from before 1975 and reissues them.[4] In 2023 Dee Payok published Away from Beloved Lover, a book built on interviews with surviving musicians and the families of those who died.[5]

A 2023 oral-history study based on interviews with ten Khmer Rouge survivors found that golden-era music had given many of them emotional support, helping them to reflect on the past and to heal.[12]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 Inter Press Service, Andrew Nette, Culture-Cambodia: Pre-War Khmer Music Making a Comeback (August 17, 2008)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 South China Morning Post, Marissa Carruthers, Cambodia's psychedelic rock enters new phase, inspired by golden age of 1960s and '70s (February 24, 2016)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Phoenix New Times, Jason P. Woodbury, Music Documentary Traces Cambodia's Lost Musical History (May 26, 2015)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Cambodian Vintage Music Archive, home page (undated)
  5. ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 5.11 5.12 The Spectator, David Honigmann, The death of popular music in Cambodia (February 14, 2023)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 The Cambodia Daily, Alice Cuddy, Rock 'n' Roll Documentary Has World Premiere in Phnom Penh (January 13, 2014)
  7. ↑ LinDa Saphan, From Modern Rock to Postmodern Hard Rock: Cambodian Alternative Music Voices, Ethnic Studies Review 35 (2012)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 NPR, The Nearly Lost Story Of Cambodian Rock 'N' Roll (April 22, 2015)
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 KEXP, SIFF Face The Music 2015 Preview: Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll (May 19, 2015)
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 Cambodian Vintage Music Archive, The Legendary Singers (undated)
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Rolling Stone, Jason Newman, New Doc Examines Cambodia's Rich, Tragic Music History (April 28, 2015)
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Justin Kdep, The resilience of Cambodia's music through darkness: an oral history of the Khmer Rouge regime and its adverse effects on the legacy of Cambodia's golden era of music, The Young Researcher 7(1), 152-165 (2023)
  13. ↑ University of Victoria, Jay Choi, Cambodia's Long-Lost Rock and Roll Culture and Cosmopolitanism (2023)
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This page was last edited on 21 October 2026, at 16:53.