A comprehensive history of Thailand’s popular musics has not yet been written. Thai scholars and critics have begun to write about them (mostly in Thai), but scholarship in Western languages is scattered and sketchy. These musical traditions, shaped by socioeconomic class and geocultural region, have absorbed Western musical influences in unexpected and thought-provoking ways.
What is Thai popular music? Excepting certain ritual repertories, Thai “classical
” music has constantly absorbed melodies...