Overview
Explore the modern genres of Thai music and where they came from. See how the music has changed along with Western pop music.
Pop & Rap
Origins
Pop music is a much more modern genre and didn't even start to gain popularity in Thailand until after it already had an established presence in the West. It started to emerge around the 1970s to 1980s and it was referred to as Pleng String (เพลงสตริง). This early era of Thai pop came from the music that the American and Australian soldiers serving in the Vietnam war would play. As music in the west continued to evolve, so did Thai pop right alongside it. Today Thai pop shares a close resemblance to the Western pop that is heard on the radio.
It wasn't until the 1990s that rap began to gain popularity with hip-hop becoming popular in the West. Nowadays Thai rap is becoming more popular, especially amongst the younger generations and we can expect to see an increase in Thai rappers.
Influence
Thai pop, or as it was later come to be called T-pop, tends to be used in a broad sense to refer to rock, EDM, rap, and any western pop-sounding song. In early Thai pop, much of the music was inspired by R&B and surf-rock artists from the 50s. Then as music evolved in the west it began to take on more of the sound that was heard during the British Invasion in the mid-60s. This had a more rock and Hollywood film sound. Later during the 70s-80s Thai pop started to mix with many genres like disco, metal, and dance music. Starting in the 90s, it continued with these many genres following the west, but there was also a rise in rap. From the 2000s on T-pop and rap became most similar to what is heard in the west, following similar styles with the language being the only main differentiator.
Citations
"Thai Pop Music". Dbpedia, 2023, https://dbpedia.org/page/Thai_pop_music. Accessed 14 Mar 2023.