Music of Singapore
[3] In the 1960s, local bands in Singapore were inspired by Western groups such as Blue Diamonds, Cliff Richard & the Shadows, and The Beatles.
Popular groups of the period included The Crescendos who performed in English with hit songs like "Mr Twister", The Quests who had hits like "Shanty", "Don't Play That Song", "Jesamine" and "Mr Rainbow", as well as other pop-rock bands including The Thunderbirds, The Trailers, The Crescendos, The Western Union Band, October Cherries and The Silver Strings.
[7] From the 60s to the 80s, local stars such as Chang Siao Ying (張小英), Sakura Teng (樱花), Rita Chao (凌雲), and Lena Lim (林竹君) were popular in Singapore and Malaysia.
Starting in the mid 1980s, a genre of Mandarin ballads called xinyao began to emerge with singers and/or songwriters such as Liang Wern Fook, Lee Shih Shiong, and Billy Koh.
From the 1990s onwards, many Singaporean singers such as Kit Chan, Stefanie Sun, JJ Lin, Tanya Chua, Corrinne May, Fann Wong, and Mavis Hee had achieved wider success outside of Singapore.
[13] During Chinese festivities there was also a minstrel tradition called zouchang (walk-sing), which involves walking performance by members of the operatic troupes.
The first Chinese orchestra was formed in 1959 by the Thau Yong Amateur Musical Association (陶融儒乐社), which was established in 1931 by former members of Er Woo.
The song became an often-sung staple of the National Day Parade, and gained international exposure when it was performed for the opening ceremony of the 117th IOC Session at the Esplanade.
Some, such as conductor Darrell Ang and Vanessa-Mae, are expat working overseas, there are however an increasing number of local musicians who are actively involved in the classical music scene of Singapore.
Alternative and indie rock music influenced bands in the 1990s such as Concave Scream, Humpback Oak, The Padres, Oddfellows, Astreal, and Livionia.
According to a 1992 Straits Times report, in that year, 15 other albums were released on independent labels and around 200 local bands were writing their own music.
[27] Recently, alternative, metal, grindcore, punk rock and rock acts from Singapore who gained some profile outside Singapore include Analog Girl, Amateur Takes Control, Cockpit, John Klass, Firebrands, Stompin' Ground, Ling Kai, Inch Chua, Ronin, PsychoSonique, Anna Judge April, Electrico, Force Vomit, The Observatory, 4-Sides, Vermillion, West Grand Boulevard, Plainsunset, Etc., sub:shaman, Caracal, Popland, The Great Spy Experiment, Sky In Euphoria, Rancour, Saw Loser (formerly known as Pug Jelly), Gorbachev, Helga, Malex, A Vacant Affair, For Better Endings, Death Metal and Rudra, who are significant for creating the genre "Vedic Metal".
The heavy metal scene in Singapore therefore has established its own ways of disseminating information by utilizing popular internet based social mediums such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs.
In the late 1980s, Corporate Toil baited audiences with noisy electronic performances influenced by industrial/new wave bands like Suicide or Einstürzende Neubauten.
Zai Kuning, largely known as a visual artist and dancer, lived for a period in Japan and collaborated musically with Tetsu Saitoh, a famed Japanese cellist.
By the late 1990s and into the 2000s, a group of experimental laptop artists appeared: George Chua, Yuen Chee Wai, Evan Tan, Ang Song Ming, and Chong Li-Chuan, the last having received the bachelor's and master's degrees in music at Goldsmiths College, University of London.
Straddling the world of digital effects and acoustic instruments was the duo aspidistrafly, who eventually gained an enormous following in Japan, producing their own music and running their Kitchen.
"[30] Musical outsiders Engineered Beautiful Blood (Shark Fung and Wei Nan) blazed a hot trail of no wave improvised rock, then stopped playing in 2009.
Shark Fung himself has been a key figure in the musical margins, with his idiosyncratic solo drums-and-electronics noise outfit Awk Wah, and forming the collective structured improv group BALBALAB with Wu Jun Han, Dennis Tan and Zai Tang in late 2014.
Around the middle of the 2000s, another grouping calling themselves Under the Velvet Sky wowed audiences with their performances that evoked prog rock, free jazz, traditional Malay and Chinese music, and more.
Again, the loose nature of the collective enabled them to create other projects such as Gulayu Arkestra, Five Leaves Left and Cactus - not to mention the solo efforts of members Jordan Johari Rais and Imran Abdul Rashid.
[45][46] The tradition began in the 1980s, stemming from "Operation Singalong"—a project conducted by the National Folk Songs Committee to help bolster the solidarity of Singapore's citizens by encouraging communal singing.
A prominent example was the song "Moments of Magic", written by Hype Records CEO Ken Lim specially for Singapore's millennium celebrations towards the end of 1999.
