Protest music in Bahasa Indonesia: the bass doesn't get to take all the credit

I produced Korupsi by Ledakan Pemuda, an Indonesian protest-dubstep[1]Ref. 1protest-dubstep en.wikipedia.org album. Before you let me get too pleased with myself, Indonesian protest music was around long before I opened a recording session.

Iwan Fals[2]Ref. 2Iwan Fals en.wikipedia.org is central to any short account of Indonesian popular music and social criticism. His songs addressed ordinary people's lives and the conduct of power during the New Order[3]Ref. 3New Order en.wikipedia.org period. "Surat Buat Wakil Rakyat" addresses the people's representatives in its title.

That interests me as a writer because anger gets vague awfully fast in a song. Everything's broken, everybody's guilty, and the singer is very upset about something. Fine, but what the fuck are we talking about? I still don't know what the complaint is. Naming the relationship between a citizen and a representative gives me something I can recognize in the complaint.

I can claim the production on Korupsi, and I'm proud of that work. Dubstep gives protest low-frequency weight and repetition. There's also that contrast between a sparse passage and an impact, which gives me plenty to work with without pretending I invented dissent.

And those tools can get in the way. Distortion makes a voice sound furious, but it can make the words harder to understand. A drop gets people excited, and that excitement may have fuck all to do with what the preceding verse said. I have to admit that instead of congratulating myself every time the bass arrives, much as I enjoy that part.

I want the arrangement to help the statement reach the listener. I can spend all the time I want fucking with the bass knob, the words still need to get through.