Phumphuang Duangchan and (non)Transition of Lukthung music (late 1970s - early 2000s)

Abstract

The success of Phumphuang Duangchan’s music career between the late 1970s and mid 1990s—especially her works in 1985—made a great transformation to the Lukthung music industry by combining the Lukthung genre and the String genre together. Besides, she also adjusted her public image to keep up with domestic and international contemporary fashion. Phumphuang’s success is the milestone in the new era of the Lukthung music. Nevertheless, many Lukthung songs that followed Phumphuang in order to gain the same success were criticized of lacking “Lukthung-ness”. This study argues that Lukthung music conservation events that were held between the late 1980s and early 2000s were a hindrance for the Lukthung music industry in modernizing itself. The success of those events influenced the last three years of Phumphuang’s music career and the Lukthung music market in general. The events furthermore froze the characteristics of the Lukthung music genre and fused it into an ideology of Thainess and an ideal of the countryside. Up until now, the debate on what is Lukthung has been going on, and many people have been criticizing Lukthung songs of deviating from the norms set by those conservation events.