If I may...
I'm not following the music scene very closely. I've always hoped that there would be a great music scene in Singapore, but I suppose not.
It's not very fair to compare Singapore with the rest of the world, but I suppose it's the natural thing to do. I think that great music scenes only survive for 10 years in 1 place, and then after that they die out. Motown was a great place in the 60s, but nobody would want to go to Detroit now. Seattle for grunge - wonder what's up with that place today.
Music does not have a great place in people's lives in Singapore. If you were to look at a place like Manchester in the 80s, it was a crummy place, many people were bored, jobless. They only had the music, and it was like a religion to many of them. It's like saying, why are Brazillians the best in the world at football? Because they have the best youth academy in the world - the inner city slum, full of desperate street urchins. Now, who wants the best youth academy in the world in your backyard?
The other thing is the material. I'm a believer that great songwriters make great bands. What we need are quality songs, ground breaking material. Compare us with, say Ireland, since we have the same population. Do we have a U2? A My Bloody Valentine? Let's not even mention Van the Man.
The last time I heard a local band make me prick up my ears was 1994, when "Pained Stained Morning" was released. But Leslie Low doesn't seem to be writing any more melodies nowadays, now that he's moved on to Observatory stuff. Thing is, Singapore does not lack for good songwriters. We have Dick Lee, Li Weisong/ Li Sisong, Tanya Chua, a few others I don't know. The question is not whether we have them, but why they gravitate away from English pop.
Do we have bands that are brave enough to push the boundaries? More importantly, do we have an audience who will allow them to push boundaries? People in Singapore don't even listen to imaginative music, let alone make it. Can you imagine a band like Sonic Youth ever coming out of Singapore? They would probably be beaten on the heads and told to play proper music. I would say that in a scene, the audience and the bands generally deserve each other. Maybe the Singaporean scene could be better, but it's hardly unjust.
Do we have intelligent bands? Sorry to the other ppl around here complaining about GP essays and long words. Passion is not nearly enough.
Music education: I've had the benefit of formal musical education. But I'm using the word benefit loosely because the way it was back in the 80s, they didn't encourage very much creativity. You played it the right way, you passed your exams, in that way you had something to show for at the end of the day.
In fact over here I'll make a sweeping statement about Asians. We just aren't interested in creativity. And that's why, when you think about great Asian musicians, you're far more likely to think of concert pianists / violinists who are experts at playing stuff written by dead white men a few hundred years ago, rather than people creating something totally fresh.
But here, I'll say something about music in general. From the time when rock and roll was invented, until around 2000, there seemed to be something truly cutting edge happening all the time. Soul, hard rock, funk, fusion, progressive, disco, punk, post-punk, heavy metal, alternative rock, rap. Last 10 years, music seems to have been treading water. Is it because everything has already been discovered? So much about noughties music is just doing the same old shit that somebody else has done before, and better. So dun get too upset about Singapore's scene being crap because it's the same everywhere.
