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From Modern Rock to Postmodern Hard Rock: Cambodian Alternative Music Voices

University of California Press
Ethnic Studies Review
Authors:
LinDa Saphan at College of Mount Saint Vincent
LinDa Saphan
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Abstract

Cambodian modernity was driven by the political agenda of the Sihanouk government beginning in the 1950s, and Cambodian rock and roll emerged in the 1960s in step with Sihanouk's ambitious national modernization project. Urban rockers were primarily upper-class male youths. In. the postcolonial era rock and roll was appropriated from abroad and given a unique Cambodian sound, while today's emerging hard rock music borrows foreign sociocultural references along with the music. Postmodern Cambodia and its diaspora have seen the evolution of a more diverse music subculture of alternative voices of hard rock bands and hip-hop artists, as well as post-bourgeois and post-male singers and songwriters.
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