When I was growing up, my dad (RIP) and my mom always had these hours-long mix CDs of various artists that were popular in Indonesia. I usually disliked most of it because they were all slow, sappy love ballads that traded in good musicality and composition for sappy lyrics, overly lush production, and the good ol' key change switcheroo trick just to make sure you feel how intense their emotions are
The only artist I would actively ask for, though, is Chrisye.
Chrisye was an Indonesian pop/world music/ballad singer active from the 80s to the 2000s. As such he picked up a lot of musical stylings from western contemporaries like Phil Collins or Kenny Loggins, but he was able to carve out a unique voice with his style - a style that I think continues to reverberate to contemporary Indo pop today.
Not only did he have a velvety smooth voice, but he had an incredible melodic writing style, as well as a penchant for writing some beautiful prose to match the music. His musical career is littered with highlights, but I'm going to bring up my personal two favourites:
Kala Sang Surya Tenggelam (trans. When the Sun Sinks/Goes Down)
I love, love the sung melody that kicks off the song. Although the song starts off in E minor, it modulates to the A minor key for this lovely bit of harmonic drama. The minor second just adds this yummy flavour of dissonance as it outlines the A minor key. The lyrics are also delicious, equating the setting of the sun with the loss of love on the road of life. It's such good stuff.
Malam Pertama (trans. The First Night)
Just listen to that karaoke-friendly instrumental!! This one is a fairly standard love ballad, but my favourite part of this song is when he takes the initial lyrics and flips it over with a slick, 90s RnB chord progression (the moment happens at 2:26) It's so unexpected but it's such a jam
Anyways thanks for reading, I needed to get this off my chest. Maybe I'll do more???