To commemorate the 59th year of our country’s independence and the upcoming Malaysia Day, five-piece homegrown rock band Kyoto Protocol has brewed musical nostalgia. Their latest video takes the viewer on a journey through the evolution of Malaysian pop music, starting from the 50s all the way to the contemporary styles we know and love today.
Timeless and memorable classics like A. Ramlie’s “Oh Fatima”, M. Osman’s “Suzana”, P. Ramlee’s “Pok Pok Bujang Lapok”, Alleycats’ “Andainya Kau Pergi Dulu”, Search’s “Issabella”, Sudirman’s “Chowkit Road” and many more are covered in the first of this (presumably) two part series.
Check out their wonderful musical medley in the video below:
1. Why did you embark on this project?
Perhaps it was a personal journey for me, being born in Singapore and mostly English educated and listening to English music almost exclusively from a very young age. I’ve been wanting to learn about the history of pop music of Malaysia for as long as we’ve been in the industry now, and then I thought it would be a good idea to make it something that we could share with all Malaysians as well! So what better day to release the video than the middle point between Merdeka Day and Malaysia Day.
We’ve had an affinity for doing medleys for a couple of years now. It started when we were asked to play a show with disco music for the opening of the H&M store in Avenue K. We realised that we were out of our depth because disco requires different instrumentation compared to rock music. To minimise that effect of “emptiness” we came up with the idea to medley the songs, which made it more surprising and exciting for the listener. Of course, an added benefit for me as a singer is that I get to remember less lyrics!
2. How was the selection of songs done?
The songs that were selected had to fulfill two criteria. First, it had to be a song that the whole band would be passionate about doing. Second, it would have to fit into a medley!
We all sat together and talked about what songs were “must haves”. There could have been a lot more songs that we could pile into the medley, but we were also mindful of the audience’s attention span. So our then manager told us to keep it within 10 minutes, and we duly complied.
There are definitely some songs in there that were maybe my personal picks, and then the other band members grew to love those songs as well! An example of this was “Lagu Untukmu”. And then there were other songs that I didn’t really know, but after seeing the passion of my bandmates in wanting to perform them it kindled my passion for the song as well.
3. How long did it take to record this?
The recording process itself only took 1 day, thanks to the guys at Melodiya Recordings and their beautiful studio in Putra Heights, as well our partners for this project Luey Motion Lab who conceptualised the visual part of the video.
The planning for the video took a lot more time. There were multiple meetings with Luey Motion Lab months before. From the music perspective, the rearrangement of the songs alone took 2 months to do. Although we had experience in performing medleys, this was our first time having to work with a short time limit! Our love song medley at the Tenacious D concert was 20 minutes long, and the #MalaysianMusic medley is under 10 minutes. It’s actually a lot more work making a shorter medley with roughly the same amount of songs!
If you want to purchase their merchandise and albums or simply want to stay abreast on the band’s happenings, do follow them on their official social handles at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
