About Thailand Popular Music

All song and music materials gathered from www.Wikipedia.com and www.Youtube.com .

By the 1960s, Western rock was popular and Thai artists began imitating bands like Cliff Richard & the Shadows; this music was called wong shadow, and it soon evolved into a form of Thai pop called string. Among the groups that emerged from this period was The Impossibles. The '70s also saw Rewat Buddhinan beginning to use the Thai language in rock music as well as the rise of protest songs called phleng pheua chiwit (songs for life).

The earliest phleng pheua chiwit band was called Caravan, and they were at the forefront of a movement for democracy. In 1976, police and right wing activists attacked students at Thammasat University; Caravan, along with other bands and activists, fled for the rural hills. There, Caravan continued playing music for local farmers, and wrote songs that would appear on their later albums.

Da Endorphine (One of my favourite Thai Band)

In the 1980s, phleng pheua chiwit re-entered the mainstream with a grant of amnesty to dissidents. Bands like Carabao became best-sellers and incorporated sternly nationalistic elements in their lyrics. By the 1990s, phleng pheua chiwit had largely fallen from the top of the Thai charts, though artists like Pongsit Kamphee continued to command a large audience.