ABSTRACT
Globalization, the ease of access to information technology and the space given to youth subcultures have all contributed to the proliferation of metal bands, with the effect that many have diversified musically and ethnically. This chapter traces the cultural origins of the Mat Rock music subculture to the hybridization of western rock music with Malay folk musical traditions. In the process, it challenges dominant theoretical understandings of the boundaries, limitations and impermanence of the development of subcultures, as well as the one-dimensional portrayal of the political apparatus in contemporary Singapore as all-encompassing and all-knowing. The chapter explores the gaps in scholarly understandings of Asian youth subcultures, in addition to opening up new avenues for appreciating socio-dynamics in Singapore. In spite of strong social and political censures, the subculture has expanded its social space in the public realm through the colonization of pockets of commercial and performative spaces within the urban environment.
