As a teacher, I am unfortunately privy to some of the music that my students like to listen to. In my ten months in Malaysia I have had an unhealthy diet of Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, Beyonce, Sean Kingston, My Chemical Romance, and all of those teenage-faux-punk-emo rock bands that kids love so much. Not my usual fare at all. But my students also love their fare share of local Malaysian and Indonesian artists, and two of my students, Yana and Jumaatun, formally introduced me to ADA Band.

Indonesian bands enjoy fame in Malaysia and the more mainstream rock bands play the sort of mature sounding “rock ballads” that are found in Rock en Espanol (akin to La Ley, Mana, Enanitos Verdes, etc) and, except for the different languages, could be mistaken for such. The subject of all of these songs are love in its melancholic forms – unrequited love, a love that got away, a love that one lost for making a mistake. There are surely Malaysian and Indonesian bands that take after the A Simple Plans of the world and others that do not.

“Pemain Cinta” is off of ADA Band’s 2008 release Harmonious (EMI Music Indonesia). They are not available in the US iTunes store but you can grab a download online.

Here’s ADA Band’s “Pemain Cinta”:

peace,
b do c