The music of Cambodia is derived from a mesh of cultural traditions dating back to the ancient Khmer Empire, India, China and the original indigenous tribes living in the area before the arrival of Indian and Chinese travelers. With the rapid Westernization of popular music, Cambodian music has incorporated elements from music around the world through globalization.
Sinn Sisamouth was a Cambodian singer-songwriter active from the 1950s to the 1970s. Widely considered the "King of Khmer Music", Sisamouth, along with Ros Serey Sothea, Pen Ran, Mao Sareth, and other Cambodian artists, was part of a thriving pop music scene in Phnom Penh that blended elements of Khmer traditional music with the sounds of rhythm and blues and rock and roll to develop a Cambodian rock sound. Sisamouth died during the Khmer Rouge regime under circumstances that are unclear.
Ros Serey Sothea was a Cambodian singer. She was active during the final years of the First Kingdom of Cambodia and into the Khmer Republic period. She sang in a variety of genres; romantic ballads emerged as her most popular works. Despite a relatively brief career she is credited with singing hundreds of songs. She also ventured into acting, starring in a few films. Details of her life are relatively scarce. She disappeared during the Khmer Rouge regime of the late 1970s but the circumstances of her fate remain a mystery. Norodom Sihanouk granted Sothea the honorary title "Queen with the Golden Voice."
Pen Ran, also commonly known as Pan Ron in some Romanized sources intended for English-speaking audiences, was a Cambodian singer and songwriter who was at the height of her popularity in the 1960s and early 1970s. Known particularly for her western rock and soul influences, flirtatious dancing, and risque lyrics, Pen Ran has been described by the New York Times as a "worldly, wise-cracking foil" to the more restrained Cambodian pop singers of her era. She disappeared during the Khmer Rouge genocide and her fate is unknown.
Dengue Fever is an American band from Los Angeles who combine Cambodian rock and pop music of the 1960s and 70s with psychedelic rock and other world music styles. Their most recent album, Ting Mong, was released in September 2023.
Ros Saboeut was a Cambodian activist known for working on behalf of that country's musicians. Saboeut was one of five siblings born to her parents, Ros Bun and Nath Samean. Her younger sister was singer Ros Serey Sothea.
Cambodian Rocks is a compilation of 22 uncredited, untitled Cambodian psychedelic and garage rock songs from the late 1960s and early 1970s. When the tracks were recorded, musicians in the thriving music scene were combining Western rock and pop genres with their own styles and techniques. When the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975, artists were among those viewed as a threat to the regime's agrarian socialist vision, and several of the performers on the album are believed to have been among those killed during the ensuing Cambodian genocide of 1975–1979. A great deal of information about them and their creative output was lost, although some has been recovered since the album's release.
Yol Aularong was a Cambodian garage rock musician, and a leading figure in that country's rock scene of the 1960s and 70s. He is presumed to have been killed during the Cambodian genocide that took place under the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979.
Huoy Meas was a Cambodian singer and radio announcer in the 1960s and early 1970s.
LinDa Saphan is a Cambodian artist and social anthropologist. Born in Phnom Penh, she grew up in Canada and graduated in France. She has supported women artists from Cambodia, co-organizing the first Visual Arts Open festival celebrating Cambodian artists in 2005. Her recent art work had included textiles and embroidery. As an academic, she is currently assistant professor of sociology at Paris Nanterre University.
Drakkar was a Cambodian hard rock band active in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Their music has been noted as an important late-stage development in Cambodian rock of the 1960s and 70s, a thriving music scene that was abruptly crushed by the Khmer Rouge communists in 1975. Some members of the band did not survive the ensuing Cambodian genocide.
Liev Tuk was a Cambodian rock and soul musician active before the Khmer Rouge.
Meas Samon was a Cambodian singer and comedian, active in that country's psychedelic rock scene of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Baksey Cham Krong was a rock band active in pre-Khmer Rouge Cambodia. They are regarded as Cambodia's first guitar band or first soft rock band.
Pou Vannary was a Cambodian singer active in the early 1970s. She was one of many Cambodian musicians believed to have perished during the Khmer Rouge regime starting in 1975.
Cambodian rock of the 1960s and 1970s was a thriving and prolific music scene based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in which musicians created a unique sound by combining traditional Cambodian music forms with rock and pop influences from records imported into the country from Latin America, Europe, and the United States. U.S. armed forces radio that had been broadcast to troops stationed nearby during the Vietnam War was also a primary influence. This music scene was abruptly crushed by the Khmer Rouge communists in 1975, and many of its musicians disappeared or were executed during the ensuing Cambodian genocide. Due to its unique sounds and the tragic fate of many of its performers, the Cambodian rock scene has attracted the interest of music historians and record collectors, and the genre gained new popularity upon the international release of numerous compilation albums starting in the late 1990s.
Violon Sneha is a romantic ballad written by Khmer singer-songwriter Sinn Sisamouth which became a hit song on national radio in the mid-1950s. The violon melody was composed by violinist Hass Salan, and it catapulted Sisamouth into stardom across Cambodia.
"Champa Battambang" is a popular song of the 1960s composed by Sinn Sisamouth, which has become part of Cambodian heritage.
