SINGER-songwriters are a dime a dozen nowadays thanks to the popularity over the past decade of the genre many of them perform in. This has been further propelled by the acoustic guitar-accompanied heart-on-my-sleeve earnestness of Ed Sheeran.

Although singer-songwriters are often depicted as acoustic guitar-wielding troubadours in popular imagination, they aren’t limited to this particular instrument, even though it is the most pragmatic and mobile of instruments for song-writing.

Locally, there have been some positive developments in this trend, primarily the increased numbers of female singer-songwriters who have been taking the form to the next level encouraged by the likes of Yuna and Zee Avi, two artists I knew before their careers skyrocketed after catching the attention of American-based record labels.

 Although uncommonly used in music culture lexicon and carrying a different meaning, the term “new wave” is commonly used in cinema culture to describe the arrival of a group of like-minded filmmakers that shake things up and break away from the old order.

The singer-songwriter in Malaysia of the early 2000s is most apt to this description.

Allmusic.com has identified this period at the start of the new millennium as a period of growth for independent musicians and in their entry of my (outdated) biography described me as “part of the wave of independent musicians hailing from Malaysia and neighbouring regions in Asia as the 21st century dawned.”

And, like most waves, they come to shore and then recede back into the ocean. This is the state of any “scene” once it’s popular – if you caught such trends at the height of its popularity chances are it’s actually at the dipping end of the bell curve.

What you have at this point are both established and emerging artists riding the crest of the wave and it’s always interesting to see who is left after the tide has settled.

The ones who are still around are the ones you can hedge your bets on since they are still active and productive and are probably in it beyond just “recognition” but are driven by a desire to build a body of work, be it in recordings or performances.

Unfortunately, Malaysia has never been fertile soil for the singer-songwriter circuit to flourish to the extent of Ed Sheeran-ness, and it’s not because of a lack of talent.

Simply put, we have a small market and an unsustainable consumerist culture. When I came back home and started out in the still-seminal circuit at the turn of the millennium, the “alternative” rock boom of the late 1990s had also receded. So, as per tradition, it was a fertile period for something new to emerge.

It is also important for me to add that this period in the early 2000s was still not the age of the independent artist; there was still a strong preference for singers and musicians who play cover songs live and sing songs composed by others, the de facto mode of our music industry since way back.

Singers performing their own songs and forwarding their own ideas and points of view were unheard of, at least popularly speaking.

For me, there are the likes of Rafique Rashid, Kit Leee (now known as Antares), Hassan and Markiza, and Wan Zawawi amongst others – all whose works I admired and got to know personally – who are equally important figures in Malaysian arts to whom due has never been, and may never be, paid unless coming from the community.

They spearheaded the earlier “wave” in the 1980s into the 1990s. In other words, none of the current generation of singer-songwriters are vaguely aware of their works except their children and their peers, if they are active musicians.

And the site of this earlier “wave” was either events they organised themselves or in the pub live music circuit.

While our pubs were popular sites for live music pre-pandemic, they were mostly to entertain the crowd and cover songs remained the popular mode of performance.

The musicianship of these pub artists (they deserve to be called “artists”) are top notch; we have some of the best live and session musicians in the region if you didn’t know already.

A lot of these musicians’ children, nephews and nieces have carried on the torch but, of course, the pandemic has dampened the number of live shows but not their spirits.

As usual, I digress. My point is that while the word “wave” has taken on a sinister and anxiety-inducing tone, it is a useful metaphor to comprehend a cultural, social and political phenomenon objectively.

Change is a wave and while I used the singer-songwriter circuit as an example, this can be applied to whatever endeavour or vocation you are trying to historically trace and make sense of.

The only thing that is certain now is that, culturally, the “wave” has receded and the tide is low.

However, while not much is seemingly happening now on the surface, just under, things are bubbling and the next “wave” by the current generation would be something interesting to observe now that I’m closer to the age of being put out to pasture in terms of hipness, and am charting the lost coastlines that the previous waves left behind. – January 7, 2022.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.