Music Is Never Neutral To The Ears
The ancient line from Psalms, "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord,” captures a timeless truth: music is a universal human reflex, a tool that binds human communities together.
Whether through sacred hymns or secular laments, sound has always been our first language. Music is rarely just background noise for dancing or crying; we use it to mark the heaviest moments in human survival.
Take the Batak song “Anakkonhi Do Hamoraon Di Au” which beautifully captures how Indonesian parents will sacrifice everything for their kids' future. On a darker note, music is how we survive grief, such as when Eric Clapton wrote “Tears in Heaven” just to process losing his young son.
Beyond Entertainment
Historically, music has always been about survival and social change, not just entertainment. During the transatlantic slave trade, enslaved African Americans sang work songs and coded spirituals—the roots of blues and jazz—to share escape routes and keep moving. As Frederick Douglass pointed out, these songs weren't happy. They were raw, painful cries from people fighting to stay human.
Singing The Melodies Of Rebellion
In Indonesia, Iwan Fals became the ultimate voice for this kind of rebellion. Armed with just an acoustic guitar, his lyrics fearlessly attacked state oppression and corporate greed in classics like "Manusia Setengah Dewa," "Bento," and "Tikus-Tikus Kantor." He named the political villains of his era, forcing crowds to sing along and share a collective rage.
His gritty style leaned heavily on Bob Dylan, whose iconic "Blowin' in the Wind" questioned the endless cycle of war. Decades later, bands like Efek Rumah Kaca (ERK) and .Feast picked up the torch.
Times change, yet the spirit never dies
While Iwan fought the old regime, ERK and .Feast sang about the forgotten history and voices: the unfinished business of justice. They used their music to call out a state that refuses to punish human rights violators, reminding young people to never forget.
But music doesn't always preserve history. Sometimes, it deliberately erases it. Today, political amnesia isn't forced on us through boring, heavy-handed propaganda like the New Order’s Baru TV anthem “Mars Pembangunan.”
Post-Reformation, forgetting has become far more insidious because it hides in plain sight—specifically, in catchy, upbeat tunes made for TikTok challenges.
How A Cute Abductor Abducts People’s Attention
Look at "Oke Gas," the viral campaign anthem for Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka. The song's easy rhythm turned a serious presidential race into one massive online dance floor. It worked perfectly. The lighthearted spectacle completely sanitized Prabowo's public image.
It made people forget his military record, which includes the 1997-1998 abduction of pro-democracy activists—an era the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) officially labeled a gross human rights violation. By turning a powerful politician with a dark history into a cute, dancing ‘gemoy’ caricature, the music weaponized nostalgia.
In a country where young people rarely open thick history books, a catchy beat became the ultimate shortcut. Why stress over accountability when you can just dance to a meme?
Shameful or shameless?
This digital ‘clownification’ acts as a shield for politicians. Take "MBG – Mas Bahlil Ganteng," a viral song created entirely by AI. It sampled ridiculous internet comments about the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Bahlil Lahadalia, with silly lyrics like "my little bolu ketan."
What started as a joke was quickly hijacked by political parties to market the minister, showing him dancing to the rhythm. Soon, people softened up, leaving nice comments about his personality.
Dancing To The Tune Of Misery
This addictive jingle completely washed away his severe controversies. It covered up the disastrous February 2025 restructuring of subsidized 3-kg LPG distribution, which forced elderly citizens into grueling lines and tragically caused an old woman to die from exhaustion.
It also drowned out heavy public backlash over how quickly he handed out mining permits (IUP) to elite corporations, sparking conflicts over lands that ruined indigenous livelihoods. The damage of these policies was instantly lost in a catchy beat.
Burying The Crime In Catchy Tunes
The same distraction machine shields disgraced celebrities too, like the recent internet storm around actor Roby Tremonti. After Aurelie Moeremans released her memoir Broken Strings—detailing allegations of abuse and trauma— Roby Tremonti became the target of massive public anger.
Yet, shortly after, a clip of his defensive interview where he muttered “give me my glasses” (‘intinya kacamata’) remixed into an upbeat club track. Almost overnight, the conversation shifted. Instead of demanding accountability for domestic violence, the internet turned him into a harmless clown—a funny character to laugh at.
As the remix went viral, Tremonti used the sudden fame to boost his own profile, while the victim had to watch her trauma become a playful TikTok dance trend.
It is wild how much times have changed.
Enslaved people originally created music like jazz as a painful cry to survive torture. Today, we turn music into a tool for convenience. We use catchy TikTok beats and AI remixes to cheerfully dance for the politicians, the abusers, and the corrupt politicians.
Who needs the exhausting burden of reading the news or fighting for justice?
As long as the bass drops and the rhythm is to dance for, the victims can keep their trauma, the public can keep their amnesia, and we can all keep happily dancing to the tunes of our favorite clowns.
