The surge in music streaming numbers from urban Southeast Asian and Latin American users in 2019, known as the "trigger cities" phenomenon, has catapulted emerging artists, predominantly distributed from the West, into global recognition. This study investigates the power dynamics of global popular music, once dominated by Western influences, using cultural hybridity as the approach to grasp how Indonesian artists can maintain their representation on global media with local-driven popular music. It seeks to examine the omnivorous music taste in the hybrid popular music, where ‘coolness’ attracts consumers in a social context to agree on something or someone cool, and Western audiences' perceptions of artists from a trigger-city country, Indonesia. Through an experiment involving 240 young adults from the U.S. and U.K., the study evaluates one of two Indonesian artists’ songs and images using a 2 x 2 between-subjects design. Results underscore the significance of an artist's presence on U.S. music media, particularly Billboard Music in this experiment, in shaping perceptions of cool, contrasting with the impact of viral TikTok exposure. This research advocates for non-Western artists to leverage the global influence of U.S. music media to shape their image, offering valuable insights into trigger-city dynamics for Western audiences. It emphasizes the importance of challenging Western hegemony in popular music, enriching the global music landscape with diverse cultural representations, and addresses specific aspects and criteria for measuring perceived coolness in the context of Indonesian artists' songs and images.

Authors:
Adis Maulidina, University of Indonesia, Indonesia

About the Presenter(s)
Ms Adis Maulidina is a Independent Scholar at University of Indonesia in Indonesia

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