Rock and the Regime: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Cambodian Subculture
In the mid-1950s, violin-backed syrupy ballads like “Violon Sneha” made a young Sinn Sisamouth a household name across westernizing Cambodia. By the late 1970s, he was dead. Sisamouth wasn’t the only martyr of a bygone age created by the Khmer Rouge, the communist-aligned regime that took control of Cambodia with the sacking of the capital Phnom Penh in 1975. Joining him were other members of the blossoming Cambodian rock scene centered on Phnom Penh: Pen Ran, a beehive-donning songstress with a sensual, pouty rasp; Ros Serey Sothea, whose well-controlled high voice lent itself to trippy psychedelic
rock tracks backed by intense electric guitar; and Mao Sareth, armed with a soberingly prophetic somber sound. Like many of the two million other Cambodian lives lost between 1975 and 1979, the exact circumstances of their disappearances and death are unclear—whether they died as a part of the forced exodus from cities to countrysides, or from conditions of strenuous forced labor, sickness, starvation, and disease in villages, or from direct execution by Khmer Rouge cadres at sites such as S-21, will likely remain a mystery.
Prior to the fall of Phnom Penh, the Cambodian rock scene was in full swing. Breaking from the dramatic tone of “Violon Sneha,” Sisamouth, like his contemporaries, would embrace the new music age fostered by postcolonial connections with France, growing international imports from the Americas and Europe, and the U.S. Armed Forces Radio tracks broadcast during the achingly close Vietnam War. A mix of the previously dominant traditional Cambodian folk music and emerging international artists such as Chuck Berry and The Shadows, the musical stylings were a groundbreaking example of cultural syncretism that held a grasp on not just the youth of Cambodia, but the pro-American monarchy and republican government. Rock, as a genre, wasn’t shunned: it was embraced as a cultural artifact of a newly independent nation. Collaboration between artists, inducing that between Sareth and Drakkar (a hard rock band inspired by earlier group Baksey Cham Krong, with only two of the four members surviving the Khmer Rouge) with “Have You No Mercy” and the numerous duets of Sisamouth and Sothea, cemented a unique, culture-defining niche.
The association of this music scene with pro-American, westernizing, and capitalistic ideals is what sealed the artists’ fates upon the victory of the Khmer Rouge in the Cambodian Civil War, and their persecution of any individual representing outside influence and ties with the previous government. A threat to a radical agrarian lifestyle could not be tolerated by the new regime. Still, with the exact fates of the artists lost being largely unknown with a lack of quality identifying death records and execution investigation files, those who idolized and deified the martyrs would begin to circulate rumors of their supposed final moments.
The death of music sensations didn’t mean music disappeared—it meant music could now be controlled. The dissemination of regime ideology had to be entrenched in every aspect of life, from the clothes one was forced to wear to conscripted dance troupes, all furthering the goals of the revolution. Music was not exempt from propaganda - far from it. The Khmer Rouge circulated at least a hundred songs with traditional melodies (ones unscathed by Western influence) set to lyrics promoting hypernationalism and an agrarian lifestyle:
Bright red blood which covers the town and plains of Kampuchea, our motherland,
Sublime blood of valorous workers and peasants,
Sublime blood of revolutionary men and women fighters,
The blood changes into unrelenting hatred and resolute struggle,
17 April, the day the revolutionary flag was raised,
Blood liberates us from slavery.
Music as a method of propaganda is far from being unique to the Khmer Rouge, nor is it something echoing only in the throes of history: the modern-day Moranbong Band of North Korea serves a similar purpose to the Khmer Rouge-propagated songs, with the North Korean girl group promoting military-themed lyrics. Neither is propagandistic music isolated outside of democracy: the United States was particularly prolific in producing musical World War II propaganda, with modern niche acts like the USA Freedom Kids additionally furthering imagery of the US as an international bastion that must defeat “enemies of freedom.” Seldom did propagandistic songs, however, come so soon after a massacre of mainstream music.
The Khmer Rouge regime lost its hold on Cambodia in 1979 and would be mostly stamped out by the end of the 90s (excluding former cadres entering high-ranking political positions, such as current Prime Minister Hun Sen). As Cambodia saw the final breaths of the dying regime, New York saw an unexpected release by underground reissue label Parallel World. Emerging onto the scene in 1996 was Cambodian Rocks, a bootleg of 22 songs from the golden age of Cambodian rock, accompanied by rudimental album art: charcoal rubbings of Angkor Wat, a Buddhist temple in Cambodia. Compiled from cassette tapes purchased in Siem Reap by American tourist Paul Wheeler, the album reignited an international fascination with Cambodian music and its legendary sensations.
In a recovering nation, these ghosts of a bygone era can be felt. As a tourist myself in Cambodia prior to the pandemic, it wasn’t hard to find the soft music of artists like Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Serey Sothea thrumming from a mom-and-pop restaurant or streetside tuk-tuk. My first true induction into this golden era, though, was in Phnom Penh, inside a combination record store and art gallery situated at the back of an alley: this was Space Four Zero. After some time wandering alone, the only living soul alongside posters of rock legends, old records, and oddly placed Texan festival badges, I was joined by the lone staff member, a graying expat and Radio, Film, and Television University of Texas graduate. We talked about finding a taste of home a world away in the form of SXSW passes and Cynthia Woods Pavilion tickets. He’s the one who first introduced me to Sinn Sisamouth and others—and who told me about their untimely demise, just hours after I had visited S-21. Rock, so linked with rebellion and resistance, symbolized an easier, freer time: one of greater innocence, without the weight of death and pain.
This music is a capture of the Cambodian past, full of unfulfilled possibilities and unsung futures.
It would not be silenced. No matter the suppression, no matter how much blood stains the radio, music will rise again when held in the heart of the people who need it most.
Essential Listening
“Chnam oun Dop-Pram Muy (I’m 16)” - Ros Serey Sothea
“Mou Pei Na” - Sinn Sisamouth, Ros Serey Sothea
“Jam 5 Kai Thiet (Wait 5 More Months)” - Ros Serey Sothea
“There’s Nothing to Be Ashamed Of” - Pen Ran
“If You Wish To Love Me Don’t Laugh Or Cry” - Sinn Sisamouth, Ros Serey Sothea, and others
“Have You No Mercy” - Mao Sareth, Drakkar
Selected Bibliography
Panh, Rithy. “Bophana: A Cambodian Tragedy.” Manoa 16, no. 1 (2004): 108-126
Tyner, James A. “The Lyrics of Revolution” in The Nature of Revolution: Art and Politics under the Khmer Rouge, 93-108. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2019.
Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll, directed by John Pirozzi (2014; Argot Pictures)
Edited by Sofia Delgado, editor of Features
Cover art and graphic by Sofia Delgado