Sandya's Reports

Reposted posts from sabdya.wordpress.com

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Album Kenangan Akhir Tahun Ini: Bimbo - Indonesia Antik vol. 3

Album Kenangan Akhir Tahun Ini: Bimbo – Indonesia Antik vol. 3

Di saat saya tengah menulis sejarah Bimbo dalam bahasa Inggris (bagian pertama bisa dibaca di sini), saya terkenang sebuah album Bimbo yang sering saya sengaja putar sewaktu saya masih punya Sony Walkman (kaset tentunya) yang saya warisi dari almarhum bapak. Selain pertimbangan lagu-lagunya yang ciamik, album ini sering saya pilih untuk diputar dalam perjalanan di bus atau angkutan kota karena…

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Bimbo: An Evolution of Pop Music Success Story (1)

Bimbo: An Evolution of Pop Music Success Story (1)

If you are a current speaker of English as the first language, being named “bimbo” or having your band or business entity named “bimbo” may be one of the most insulting things ever happening to you. It might also be the case even fifty years ago. However, for an Indonesian pop music group that has borne the name since 1967, the name has been a blessing and has become synonymous with their…

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The Favourite's Group: The People's Favourite's Early Days and Success (1971-1975)

The Favourite’s Group: The People’s Favourite’s Early Days and Success (1971-1975)

Composers, producers, arrangers, and session musicians are all crucial positions in a musical artist’s recording success. However, many of the people in these positions work in the studio behind the scene, with very few of them getting the fame that the artists enjoy. Among these few, there are those who decide to shift gears and become popular music acts on their own right after years spent…

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"Lagu Gembira": Adikarya Pop A. Riyanto bersama The Favourite's Group

“Lagu Gembira”: Adikarya Pop A. Riyanto bersama The Favourite’s Group

Dalam sejarah musik populer di Indonesia, A(loysius). Riyanto (1943-1994) adalah salah satu pencipta lagu, produser, musisi, dan penemu bakat paling produktif. A. Riyanto pernah mengklaim bahwa ia telah menulis sekitar 1000 lagu. Sayangnya belum ada pangkalan data lengkap yang bisa mendukung klaim ini. Akan tetapi dengan melihat kredit A. Riyanto di direktori Irama Nusantara (iramanusantara.org)…

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A Brief History of Seven Killer Songs: A Playlist

A Brief History of Seven Killer Songs: A Playlist

Last month, I found a Definitive Jimmy Cliff CD at a garage sale for only a dollar. As many ironically titled compilation albums often are, the CD is definitely a far cry from being definitive. The first half of the CD comprises Cliff’s newer stuff from the late 80s to the late 90s, opening with his version of Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now”, a 1993 hit single from the often rerun hit movie

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Lagu Bulan Ini: Ebiet G. Ade - Dia Lelaki Ilham dari Sorga

Lagu Bulan Ini: Ebiet G. Ade – Dia Lelaki Ilham dari Sorga

Untuk pendengar musik Indonesia, mungkin saya tidak perlu lagi menjelaskan siapa Ebiet G. Ade. Ia pertama muncul di paruh kedua dekade 1970an sebagai penyair yang menggubah puisi-puisinya menjadi lagu dan kemudian menjadi bagian dari nafas musik paruh dekade tersebut yang kental dengan sosok-sosok penyanyi-penyair musik rakyat (folk music), antara lain Franky Sahilatua, Bram Makahekum, Gombloh,…

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Lagu Bulan Ini: Esek Esek Udug Udug (Nyanyian Ujung Gang) oleh Swami, juga tentang Bandung, dan Distopia

Lagu Bulan Ini: Esek Esek Udug Udug (Nyanyian Ujung Gang) oleh Swami, juga tentang Bandung, dan Distopia

Beralih dari pembicaraan beberapa bulan lalu tentang lagu yang pertama saya nyanyikan ketika bapak saya merekam suara saya untuk kali pertama, kali ini saya akan bercerita tentang lagu yang pertama kali bikin saya merinding dan menitikkan air mata bahkan ketika saya belum sepenuhnya paham musik dan liriknya. Seiring saya bertambah tua, kemerindingan dan cercah air mata saya tidak juga pudar…

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What I Miss, pt. 1

What I Miss, pt. 1

I have been away from Bandung, my hometown, for almost two years now. Within the last three months, I have been having the most serious homesickness I have ever had. I’ll tell you what I am missing.

This area around the city square

This is not exactly the city square, which is a sight of fake plastic grass and a smell of a million naked feet. The street next to it, the Dalem Kaum street, is my…

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Lagu Minggu Ini: "Aku Tak Berdosa" (Favourite's Group)

Siapa yang berdosa, tak dapat ku berkata Siapa yang bersalah, susah ditelaah Mari kita, kita renungkan

Minggu lalu dan minggu ini saya rindu sekali pada satu lagu yang dulu sering saya dengarkan waktu saya masih kecil; saking sukanya saya pada lagu itu, ketika alm. bapak merekam suara saya untuk pertama kali, saya nyanyikan lagu itu. Dengan kekuatan YouTube, akhirnya saya temukan lagu yang saya rindukan itu, bahkan sekaligus dalam album orisinalnya yang ditransfer dari piringan hitam dengan cermat…

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Indonesian Classic Song of the Week: "Aku Tak Berdosa" by Favourite's Group

Indonesian Classic Song of the Week: “Aku Tak Berdosa” by Favourite’s Group

This week I’ve been longing to listen to a song of my childhood, a song I was so fond of that when my father recorded my voice for the first time on our first tape recorder when I was a first grader, it was the voice of me singing this song. With the magic of YouTube, I found somebody had digitally transferred the album the song is on from a very good vinyl copy. The credit goes to John Kwa…

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"Sekarang kau tinggal aku...", Yon Koeswoyo (1940-2018)

“Sekarang kau tinggal aku…”, Yon Koeswoyo (1940-2018)

Foto Koes Plus favorit saya dari sampul album Volume 8: in action, kiri-kanan: Tony Koeswoyo (gitar, kibor, vokal), Yon Koeswoyo (vokal, gitar), Yok Koeswoyo (gitar bas, vokal), Murry (dram, vokal). Saya selalu berpikir bahwa suatu saat saya akan menulis tentang Koes Plus (dan juga tentang Koes Bersaudara), mungkin lewat satu racauan di blog saya atau mungkin secara lebih akademik ketika saya…

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Double Review: Peter Cetera's First Two Albums - Part One: Peter Cetera (1981)

Review of Peter Cetera's Peter Cetera (1981) album. Part 1 of review of PC's first two albums!

If you have been following my blogs for quite a while (chances are you haven’t), you would know that I’m a big fan of the band Chicago. Yes, that Chicago that used to be rock with horns badasses then turned into a middle-of-the-road rock champion, and then an AOR ballad band, and then a band too persistent to quit (still touring after all these years). Out of all the former and current members of…

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Video Game of the Moment: Art of Fighting 3: Path of the Warrior

Video Game of the Moment: Art of Fighting 3: Path of the Warrior

Once upon a time in 1996, in the corner of a local arcade stood a conversion kit machine with Art of Fighting 3: Path of the Warrior inside. The owner of the arcade loved to change his kits in sequence. Next to the aforementioned kit was a Street Fighter Alpha 2 conversion kit machine, which previously housed its prequel. Prior to Art of Fighting 3, Art of Fighting 2 was there; when it ran its…

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Live Album at the Moment: Various Chicago Bootleg Albums of Their Performance at Toronto Rock n' Roll Revival 1969

Live Album at the Moment: Various Chicago Bootleg Albums of Their Performance at Toronto Rock n’ Roll Revival 1969

My cassette had the exact same photo on the cover. Interestingly, this photo couldn’t have been from 1969, as this stage design was clearly from their later world-touring days. The photo was taken from http://rockasteria.blogspot.com/2012/02/chicago-live-in-toronto-1969-us.html, where you can also find the original liner note for this live album (that is sometimes missing in later releases). As a…

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Bee Gees 1st at its 50th

Bee Gees 1st at its 50th anniversary, a truly crafty album and a pleasant journey

Bee Gees 1st was released fifty years ago yesterday. Contrary to its own title, it was not the Bee Gees’ first long-play or full-length release. It was titled and marketed as such to mark the then-quintet’s (the three brothers and two other unrelated musicians) first foray into the international music market, following their considerable success in the brothers’ adopted homeland Australia with a…

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Our (Eca, Gentra, and I) first Eid in the United States, recorded and narrated by Eca.

[gerrykeay]

why is it always that the sign that the robot/AI is becoming ~*too human*~ is when they fall in looove

give me a robot who realizes they’ve ~*exceeded their programmed parameters*~ when they get incredibly emotionally attached to their favorite movie and start writing fanfiction about it

[arrowhearts]

Tags: a robot who gets a pet and suddenly this small animal is more important than their programmed mission a robot who discovers they really REALLY like chocolate a robot who accidentally breaks a household appliance and cries in frustration a robot who is woken up by their programmer and mumbles ‘five more minutes’ god there are so many human things for a robot to do I LOVE IT GIVE ME ALL OF THESE STORIES

[sweetsarsaparilla]

A robot that gets into an editing war on Wikipedia because this other person is wrong and not citing sources and clearly biased and no it will do that calculations later because this is important.

A robot who doesn’t like one scientist because it thinks her hair is stupid.

A robot that finds logical paradoxes meant to disable it incredibly funny as if they’re jokes and comes up with its own.

A robot that develops a deep interest with a random trivial object like doorbells, dice, or ribbons and devotes a lot of its processing power to studying them. Fascinating.

A robot that was broken down for a while until some animal nested inside it and after it was repaired it was honored that an organic creature chose it as its shelter.

A robot that likes the class of the human-visible electromagnetic spectrum designated as ‘aquamarine’ (#66CDAA) and surrounds itself with this colour as much as possible, even collecting (or stealing) all objects of this colour. Similar colours like sea blue or teal will not be accepted.