Javanese Pop and Javanese Keroncong: The Paradigm of Domination Strategy

Abstract

Songwriters and presenters can be viewed as the main factors for ensuring success to
lyrical songs in the music market. However, there are not many studies available that specifically
explore the strategy of composing and presenting lyrical songs in achieving market dominance in
Indonesia. This study aims to reveal the strategies used by composers as well as songwriters to
gain dominance in the music market in that particular country. Researchers collect music, photos
and videos and gather responses from audiences. Musical works produce data on scales, lyrics, and
musical accompaniment. Concert photos and videos generate information about costume styles.
Concert videos and song clips generate data about audience response and stage appearances. The
next stage is to interpret the data groups, followed by confirming the meanings of the concepts of
capital, distinction, domination and repression in the field of psychoanalysis. This study shows
that songwriters make use of the lyrics as their distinctive features. Popular landmarks in the lyrics
of songs invoke the listener’s personal memory and repression attached to those landmarks. This
study shows that songwriters achieve market dominance by creating product distinctions. At the
same time, reconciliatory feelings connected with repression are aroused by recreating the past
by means of stories and particular places. Popular landmarks invoke listeners’ sense of repression
and their memories, so that they feel at peace with their past, or at least become involved in the
songwriter’s works. The predominating works by songwriter show that elements of evoking
memories, maintaining traditions and evoking popular places of past activities have leverage on
the popularity of the music.

Keywords: music domination, keroncong music, musical strategy