The complexity of genre and discourse in Indonesian popular music: a systematic literature review

As a large Asian country with the world›s fourth largest population, Indonesia is known for its rich and diverse culture. The potential value of its modern culture is also reflected in its popular music culture, which has been developing since the 1950s. A number of researchers and experts have studied and analyzed this phenomenon, but a complete and systematic description of the results of such research is still missing. The purpose of our Systematic Literature Review is to fill this knowledge gap. Through the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) method, 958 records of journal articles, scientific papers, and music magazine publications were examined. From there, 48 records were selected and analyzed in the final stage. Specifically, frequencies/percentages were calculated for (a) output within a five-year period; (b) type of publication; (c) methods used and; (d) topics found. A content analysis was also conducted on the topics covered. We found that there has been a steady increase in Indonesian popular music research output over the past 20 years. These studies mostly examined the topic of dangdut genre. The majority of the research uses a qualitative approach with interviews, observation and document analysis as its data collection techniques. An important topic covered in them is the complexity of Indonesian popular music genres. There we also discussed the key findings of studies that used historical, case study, ethnographic, discourse analysis and sociolinguistic designs. From this literature review, most of the existing studies are more interested in the political and social discourses of Indonesian popular music in the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and 1990s. Thus, we suggest a number of Indonesian popular music researchers to focus on the 2000s to the present decade on top of the technological advancement of its music industry.