Six Facets of the Burmese Pop Music Industry

The Myaynigone junction, one of the biggest and busiest intersections in Yangon, is located on Pyay Lan (formerly Prome Road). This junction is well known to all city residents in part because in 2007 a huge electronic billboard, the first in the city, was installed there. The “big T.V,” as it is called, plays an endless loop of advertisements for locally owned businesses. Of the two ads I remember best—probably because I saw them so often—one was for a brand of iced tea (during which a supple tenor sang the praises of said tea to the tune of John Denver's “Take Me Home, Country Roads”) and the other for a photography studio (accompanied by the theme from Mission Impossible). The combination of current technology, brash capitalism, and American hit music tempted me to think of this junction as the Times Square of Yangon; but I resisted using the label, because Burmese people do not, and I was committed to understanding their city, as best I could, on their terms. What my friends often mentioned was that this junction is the site of the famous Dagon Center, an upscale shopping mall where one can buy musical recordings and concert tickets. Accordingly, I headed off toward Dagon Center on my first afternoon in the city, and I returned frequently thereafter.

Entering Dagon Center is no uncomplicated task. The junction is the site of a major bus stop and a sidewalk market. During shopping hours, public buses, private chauffeured cars, taxis, trishaws, pedestrians, and even the odd man on horseback all compete to arrive at the entrance.

The noise is almost deafening: the bus conductors holler their vehicles' destinations, taxi drivers call out to potential customers, beggars plead for money, and parking attendants blow furiously on whistles while directing the never-ending stream of cars and S.U.V's entering the parking lot. Crossing the street is tricky; the traffic is mostly uncontrolled, with no lanes marked on the road, no speed limit, and aggressive driving on the part of most drivers. Adults often hold hands when they attempt to dart across this particular junction, as much for mutual reassurance as for safety.

But it's worth the trouble to make your way there. Once you finally make it to the front steps of the shopping center, you can feel the blast of air conditioning, a relief from the year-round tropical heat.

At the top of the steps, all customers have to pass through a metal detector, submit their bags to be searched, and then allow themselves to be patted down by security guards. The security system was installed after Dagon Center was bombed on May 7, 2005. The bombing occurred within minutes of explosions at two other locations that symbolized power and affluence: another well-known shopping center, and the Yangon Trade Center. Government reports at the time indicated that 11 people were killed and 162 wounded in the bombings. The state-controlled newspaper, The New Light of Myanmar, immediately blamed the bombings on “terrorists,” pointing the finger at their perennial enemies—the ethnic insurgents that operate in the border states and urban prodemocracy activists. The government offered no proof to back this assertion, and never brought any suspects to trial.

Burmese citizens had their own opinions. I was told, for example, that “everyone knows” that the bombings were the result of internecine fighting among members of the army: one faction, perhaps those loyal to the recently deposed prime minister and chief of intelligence, was attempting to undermine the authority of another faction, presumably that of the head of state, General Than Shwe. The fact that fire trucks, normally parked in a station nearly a mile away, were observed in front of Dagon Center an hour before the bomb exploded lends some credence to this theory. What the government does not say is that the 2005 shopping mall bombings are part of a pattern. During the last decade, civilian targets all over Burma have been bombed at the rate of nearly one per month. The bombings regularly remind the public that the country is unstable.

However, there was no sense of impending doom hovering over Dagon Center in 2007 when I first began to visit it. The mall was flooded with well-heeled customers—youth wearing blue jeans and sporting dyed hair, young mothers wearing modest yet fashionable dresses, and middle-aged professionals in business attire. Their affluence was evident in the foreign-made goods that they were able to acquire—sunglasses and jewelry, ExerSaucers, imported peanut butter and chocolate. The security procedures seemed lax. The guards performed their duties perfunctorily, barely glancing in the bags they checked.

At the Star Mart, the Burmese pop music industry is represented by a small retail shop that sells the latest releases of all of the biggest stars in the Burmese pop scene, as well as foreign-made recordings—cassette tapes, C.D's, D.V.D's, and V.C.D's—on floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall shelves. When I visited the store, music was booming over the sound system. I noticed a “Top Twenty” list, at the entrance, listing the recordings sold there, separated into the categories of “English” and “Burmese.”

Customers did not seem to consult the list, though, and the sales clerks had difficulty answering questions about it when I asked. As a foreign researcher, I was interested in the way the list organizes information: the “English” category, for example, includes all Western-made recordings, including an album by the Columbian-born artist Shakira. (In Burma, “English” songs are songs sung in English, and singers of English songs are almost always believed to be Americans. Every time I informed Burmese friends that some of their favorite “American” singers—such as Céline Dion, Bryan Adams, Shania Twain, and Avril Lavigne—are actually Canadians, they expressed surprise.) On the “Burmese” albums, most of the album titles and artists' names are written in Burmese. Group albums—series to which a group of solo artists have contributed songs—predominate in this category. On these series, the singers do not sing together, but rather perform as soloists, with a backup band. One singer usually contributes one or two tracks; on an average group album, the listener can hear twelve or fifteen different singers. Duet albums are a subset of group albums: on a duet album, two singers sing six or seven songs each—but rarely sing a duet.

The average price of a C.D at the Dagon Center Star Mart in 2008 was 1,600 kyat, or a little more than 1. To put this in context: the average daily wage in Yangon that year was 1,000 kyat. To earn this amount, workers often put in twelve-hour days. Despite the government's protestations that this amount is an adequate living wage, the fact is that it is barely enough to feed an adult for one day. This helps to explain why, when the government raised fuel prices in the summer of 2007, causing bus fares to double in price (up to an average of 200 kyat), thousands of people took to the streets. People faced the impossible choice of either paying for transportation to work or having enough to eat. The demonstrations of September 2007, which began with demands for affordable fuel, reliable electricity, and other quality-of-life issues, quickly expanded to include calls for democracy. The international media labeled the events as prodemocracy demonstrations. In reality, Burmese people were protesting not only their country's seemingly intractable political situation, but also the current regime's inability (or refusal) to provide a reasonable standard of living to the majority of its citizens.

The fact that many Burmese people, perhaps the majority of people in Yangon, have little or no money left over after paying for the bare necessities of life (food, clothing, shelter, transportation) helps to explain the significance of a C.D at the Dagon Center Star Mart: it is clearly a luxury item that can be purchased only by the economic elite. Indeed, the appearance of the customers that I saw there during my visits supports this notion. Star Mart customers tended to be young adults (under the age of thirty) and they were always dressed in the latest Western fashions. They were free to shop during business hours, suggesting that they were not obligated to hold regular jobs. It was impossible to tell by looking at them, but the conventional wisdom would suggest that these customers are the children of international (Chinese, Thai, Korean, Singaporean) businesspeople or of Burmese military officials.

If only a privileged few can shop at Star Mart, can we then say that Burmese pop music is truly popular, that is, that it is appreciated by a wide swath of the population? The answer is yes, and the proof lay just a few steps away, beyond the front entrance of Dagon Center. There, among the sidewalk vendors selling fresh food, sunglasses, locks, and a thousand other items, was a pair of men hawking pirated C.D's, V.C.D's, and D.V.D's. The discs were not in jewel cases, but their paper covers featured vivid graphics, making it easy to see what was what. Here, customers could find virtually any of the series being sold inside at Star Mart—and pay far less for them.

The sellers were engaging in what is known as “piracy”: selling cheaply duplicated recordings and pocketing the profits. It is a widespread phenomenon; on this one street corner alone, six different groups of pirates set up shop on a daily basis, and they did a brisk business selling the latest pop music recordings, often with cover art identical to that of the originals. Ohnmar Tun ruefully recounted to me the story of her most recent series, a Christmas disc released in December 2007. It was delivered to retail stores at 9 AM, and she celebrated the official release at that time.

By 2 PM on the same day, a relative of hers found a pirated version for sale on the street. She points out that some series have been pirated even before they have been officially released, so it is clear that at least one industry insider, employed perhaps in a legitimate recording studio, is working with pirates.

Figure 4.1 summary: A black and white photograph depicting the interior of a retail shop called Star Music in Dagon Center. The image shows employees behind a curved counter and near shelves stocked with recordings, with a Star Mart sign visible in the foreground. It is a documentary photo showing a music retail environment.

Figure 4.2 summary: A black-and-white photograph depicting individuals selling musical recordings and films from a makeshift sidewalk stand outside the Dagon Center, with a bus and car in the background. It is a documentary image illustrating the sale of pirated media in a public urban space.

Burma's Music Distribution System

As a consumer, I participated in the system that I describe in this book as the Burmese pop music industry. I purchased pop music series at both the Star Mart and at one of the ubiquitous stalls on the sidewalk outside. Both the legal vendors and the pirates are important to the distribution of Burmese pop recordings.

To organize my description of distributors of pop music in Burma, I will rely on a theoretical framework developed by sociologist Richard Peterson, who has spent his career developing ideas about how cultural products (books, films, paintings, musical recordings, and so on) come to be produced, articulating what he calls the “production-of-culture perspective.” According to this perspective, cultural products take the shapes they do in part because of the nature of the system that produces them. Certain kinds of books are published, for example, because the nature of the book publishing industry facilitates their publication. Though it is helpful (and convenient) to privilege the ideas of the author in this process, the production perspective argues that the author's work is fundamentally shaped by the reality that her ideas must be presented in such a way that the existing industry will be willing to publish them. This perspective takes the focus off individual initiative and creativity, and places it on the institutions and organizations that work together to make cultural products. As Diana Crane, another prominent sociologist, asserts, “It is impossible to understand the nature and role of recorded culture in contemporary society without examining the characteristics of the organizations in which it is produced and disseminated.

In his masterful review of the literature on the production perspective, Peterson presents a “six-facet model of production.” The six facets are: industry structure, the market, organizational structure, technology, law and regulation, and occupational careers. Changes in any of these six facets, even seemingly minor changes, lead to changes in the kinds of cultural products that are created by the system. And “a major change in one of the facets can start a cycle of destabilization and reorganization in the entire production nexus.” In this chapter, I will use Peterson's six-facet model to analyze the processes by which Burmese pop music is distributed. As we will see, recent changes in some of these facets have already resulted in a restructuring of the industry, and further looming changes promise to affect, and even remake, the music itself.

Industry Structure

One of the most immediately noticeable features of Burma's pop music industry's distribution system is its lack of lack of formal institutions. This is, of course, a"lack" only from the perspective of the field of popular music studies, which has developed its models and theories based on Western norms. In Burma, most pop musicians do not belong to bands, or at least, do not work exclusively with a stable group of colleagues. In addition, there is no Ticketmaster-like entity; concert tickets are sold through beauty salons and upscale retail shops. Furthermore, in Burma, there is no such thing as a record label.

The individuals (or very small groups of individuals) who create and produce albums have no long-term relationships with businesses that fund their work. Instead, these individuals, known as producers, raise private funds to cover the costs of making a series.

Producers pay composers for songs, musicians for performances, studio owners for duty (time spent recording music), and the City of Yangon for advertising space on billboards. These costs add up to anywhere from 150 lakhs (approximately 12,000) to 400 lakhs (30,000) per album. Producers are also required to submit recordings to the Press Security Board (P.S.B) for censorship. When I asked Aung Shwe (who has produced three albums) what producers do, he smiled and said, “Everything!”—noting that sometimes producers who are musicians like himself also create the arrangements of the songs on the series. They also liaise with music distribution companies, who send copies of the recordings to retail shops around the country.

There are three main distribution companies in Burma: Chokyithar, Manthiri, and Yadana Myaing. All three are headquartered in downtown Yangon. on or near Thirty-Sixth Street. These distribution companies are private entities whose owners are solely concerned with making a profit. Therefore, they ship their wares only to major population centers, where they can be sure that enough customers will purchase recordings to make the shipping costs worthwhile. They hedge their bets when dealing with producers: if the distributor believes that a series will sell well, the company will accept one master copy of the recording from the producer and then arrange for retail copies to be made, packaged, and shipped. However, if the company predicts that the disc will not sell many copies, the producer must supply for-sale copies to the distributor, and provide further funds if more copies need to be made. The distribution companies send representatives around to retail shops to collect profits generated by the sales of recordings. The profits are split with producers.

Importantly, producers trust distribution companies (who trust retail shop owners) to calculate profits honestly and to pay the correct amount owed. These business deals do not operate according to written contracts. Rather, like other aspects of the Burmese pop music industry, the distribution of recordings seems to depend largely on personal relationships, friendships of long duration, which provide the basis for entering into an unwritten financial agreement.

Just as the producers and distribution companies work together without written contracts, there are usually no formal agreements made between other industry members. Typically, a producer and a composer (for example) will verbally agree to work together for the duration of one recording project or concert. However, it is true that certain producers fund multiple albums by the same musicians. In addition, well-established bands tend to appear in live shows with the same singers.

For example, band manager Thet Htaw Mya explained to me that when he organizes a live show for his band, he routinely asks five singers—individuals whose names he rattled off—to participate. He says that he always invites these particular singers, because the band has performed with them many times before and likes to work with them. Likewise, show organizers (or “contractors”) may focus on promoting the same few singers and bands.

Composers often end up writing songs for a handful of singers or movie directors, and some musicians routinely record in only two or three studios.

So while the Burmese industry is marked by individual rather than institutional activity, the reality is that individuals know each other and, over many years, evolve working relationships that are as stable as (or more stable than) those governed by legal documents or formal business arrangements. In fact, in Burma professional relationships tend to be like family relationships, where unwritten but extremely powerful expectations of loyalty govern behavior.

Among the many stories that my Burmese friends told me how these expectations had come to bear on their working lives, two exemplify the informal yet deeply familial aspect of the Burmese pop music industry—the stories of Htay Cho and Mo Lwin. Htay Cho worked as a recording engineer in a studio in North Yangon while simultaneously building a performing career as a guitarist. Eventually he realized that his guitar playing was taking so much of his time that he needed to quit working for the studio. He asked the studio owner's permission to quit—it was inconceivable that he would simply write a resignation letter—but the owner refused. Htay Cho had to find a replacement to work in the studio before he could honorably leave the job.

So he recruited his younger brother. The brother had never previously worked in a studio, but because the business atmosphere was (as in many Burmese businesses) somewhat akin to that of a family, the new employee was welcomed: he was, in a sense, a relative.

Mo Lwin began his recording career very young. A family friend funded his very first series, since he was unknown to professional producers. (And knowing people, or being known by them, is essential to getting anything done in Burma.) The album was a success, and Mo Lwin was able to attract a professional producer for his second series. However, before embarking on a new project with the new producer, he asked permission to do so from the original producer.

He shared that, nearly forty years later, he still visits this now-elderly friend regularly, to show his respect and gratitude. As these two stories illustrate, professional relationships in the Burmese music industry are sustained by personal relationships rather than by formalized agreements. This system is problematic, and a system of written contracts would no doubt be problematic in other ways, if Burmese musicians chose to adopt it. But the “honor system” has worked well enough until now that they are loath to see it change.

The industry does not pay royalties to composers and performers. Rather, these musicians receive a flat fee for their services (usually the equivalent of a few hundred U.S dollars) from the series producer when they either compose the song or record the series. I asked a number of full-time professionals if they recognized the word “royalties,” and none of them did.

The one exception was Thida Zay, who has been active as a singer since the early 1980s. He recalled that in 1996 a large group of professional musicians met to discuss the possibility of establishing a system of royalties. After the idea was explained, the group took a vote. Thida Zay rather bitterly named off the five people (including himself) who voted for the idea. Since the large majority was not interested—either not understanding the concept, or preferring a bird in the hand to two in the bush—the proposal died. Thida Zay was the only person I met who remembered any such proposal.

Indeed, most of the others (who are younger) had only the vaguest notion that pop musicians are paid differently in Western countries, and that these payments have historically been the source of their wealth. When I asked Ma Khin Sein, for example, about payment methods, she seemed a little surprised: of course she always gets paid once, up front, for her work, she said. “It's the rule of Burma.”