13 Million People Can’t Be Wrong
Jun 17th, 2007 by Jinja
– can they?
Cambodia loves karaoke. To the Western musical palate, love ballads that are regularly recycled from other asian countries may not quite… appeal.
So when I hear pop music that does, I query whoever I can – ‘Just what was that song?’ If you don’t seize the moment, it can take forever to track it down.
I first saw this video on a Karaoke cruise with co-workers. (Pich Sophea feat. BIG). Entertaining enough that I’d include it on a mix tape of Khmer pop.
It’s hard to go wrong with a bit of Bollywood; the Indian words clued me in that it was a cover, and I soon found it was a popular one at that. Apparently this came by way of neighboring Thailand; Tata Young appears in a much steamier video with stars of an Indian film.
The Thai singer had been signed on to perform an English version of a Hindi theme song. For Indian film fans, Dhoom Dhoom was a popular adventure flick which had a hit soundtrack and led to a sequel. The general idea behind all the motorcycle chases in the film? Inspired by Luc Besson’s Taxi.
Where does inspiration cross the line from borrowing to copying? It’s tough to say.
Latest in this lineage is Doom Doom (Sok Sreyneang feat. DJ Rock).
(Of course, each version has a rapper doing an intro. The genericization of hip hop continues.) I wonder how many times this song will be remade until it loses its luster?
Tags:cambodia,music
