Various: Thai Pop Spectacular  [19 September 2007]  By Deanne
Sole  A wary Thai who listened to the opening minute of Thai Pop
Spectacular might wonder if their country’s pop industry is
being groomed to take the place of Bollywood in the Western
world’s pantheon of unEnglish-language retro quirk. The album
begins with mad-scientist laughter and voices gabbling in both
English and Thai, then segues into a roaring yodel which sounds
enough like a put-on to suggest that this is a comedy skit, but
not enough to tell you what the joke might be, unless it is
simply that the Thai audience is being given a chance to laugh
at the sound of itself trying to speak a foreign language. Our
imaginary person wonders what to make of it all. “Oh, sigh,” he
thinks. “Those ferang. First they ignore us, now they’re
giggling at us. Isn’t it strange? I would never have thought
that these songs could represent us or me if I didn’t have this
album in front of me, if I couldn’t imagine an outside eye
looking at us through it and sayi