By Aisha Hassan on November 4th, 2020
We made you a Spotify playlist for your next vacation and filled it with artists from Southeast Asia and beyond. We’ve chosen a range of songs that hopefully capture that special road trip feeling: It’s part nostalgia, part anticipation, and a strange sense of going both somewhere in particular and nowhere at all. Whether the tracks are upbeat or unfold slowly, we can imagine them as the movie soundtrack for a journey. Most importantly, we’ve included many Southeast Asian musical artists we love and want you to discover.
There’s a strong Malaysian contingent, with artists like Lost Spaces, Kaisha, and Lunadira to get you feeling groovy and moody (in a good way). We’ve added one of our favourite covers by Singaporean songbird Linying and even an old-school track from Cambodian legend Sinn Sisamouth for a retro interval. There are appearances from London-based Filipino artist No Rome, 88rising-signed Indonesian artist Niki, tropical pop Thai band Gym & Swim, and many more.
You’ll also find plenty of classics here, from bands like Queen, Fleetwood Mac, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Then there are the songs that remind us of teenagehood, from artists like Yellowcard and Bon Iver.
Whether you’re driving down the highway on holiday or cruising on the highway of life, we hope you enjoy the playlist and support artists from around the world.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Aisha Hassan is a writer, journalist, and co-founder of Dia. Previously, Aisha worked for Quartz in New York and Harper’s Bazaar in Malaysia. Her fiction has been published in international literary magazines. She has a bachelor’s degree in English Language & Literature from the University of Oxford, and a master’s degree from Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism.
