Singaporeans are a practical lot, I think.
How many people do you know actually carry on the 'rebellion' right till they get married and have kids?
And how many people actually succumb to society's expectations for you to conform and 'normalize' yourself and fit in?
Dreams change. Hearts change. All the time.
But people? They'd always have prejudices. They'd always stereotype. They'd always judge.
What more in a racially diverse nation full of 4 million people cramped into such a small place, and a majority living in pigeon holes in the sky.
With people from very different colours, languages, cultures and histories - you'd easily get people with fear in their hearts, and with fear comes ignorance and simplistic perspectives.
And oh, with fear comes labels.
You'd label anything that you fear, so that you'd fit it with the rest and feel secure. Just like when the first colonial Americans even called the native Indians 'agents of the Anti-Christ' just because they were different, with backward ways of living and practices, and because they needed to find reasons to connect elements to justify their beliefs in the bible's book of revelation, the end of the world. Now, every Muslim is a potential terrorist. In Singapore, of course it is the Malays.
Such is how people react.
If you ask me, I don't think we humans will change, as long as we don't see beyond what our eyes see - the surface. The fact that we look different, that we have evolved into different peoples of different nose shapes, hair colour, heights and whatnot - there'll always be people who feel insecure and find reasons and ways to make themselves feel better.
I know you may find this lorsor or long-winded but I feel these are the fundamental elements in which it is critical if we really want to move and progress as the human race. Or 'change' for that matter.
In connection with local music, you cannot deny that a lot of us still perceive the Western musicians as better in all aspects - aesthetics, skills, creativity. It is true - they all look much better on television and print, they come up with the latest tunes that speak to your souls and everything. That's why we try to emulate them, no matter how strongly you deny it. Obviously, big corporations have realised this for the longest time.
It is a fact of human nature. That's why most of us realise that how hard we try, a huge percentage of us Singaporeans will still perceive local products as inferior. Just take a look at Creative Technologies. You want to compare the Zen with iPod Touch?
What about the Taiwanese, Hong Kong and mainland China you ask? Their music scene is always vibrant and they have such a large talent pool of superstars. Why can't Singapore be like that?
Of course, the most obvious reasons would be our size. With a large country comes a large market and with a large market comes very stiff competition. Everybody needs to be better and aim to be the best when there is so much competition.
So, Singaporeans tend to give up easily because we realise that no matter how strong our passion is, no matter how much fight we have in our souls, society still demands you to 'live like the rest', have a stable career, build up a family unit and contribute to the decreasing population and yada yada yada.
Sure you see people who'd want to be different all their lives but I suspect most still feel that they'd want to feel accepted. Such is the nature of the human being.
So, can music change the world?
Maybe.
Music is already a 'universal language'.
But diversity is what may be holding us back.
It'll always be a case of 'I am better than you' because we have different music and people want to 'belong' to different types of music and the lifestyles behind the different music genres. Anti-establishment kind of music ie. metal, punk, thrash etc will always be viewed negatively by most people.
