Riding the Wave: How Indonesia’s New Upbeat Sound Became My Daily Dopamine (and Why Germany Is Having Its Own Version of the Same Moment)

I don’t know exactly when it happened, but at some point in the last half year my music habits completely drifted away from the usual German rap, US pop, and the vibe-less playlists Spotify makes for every student who has zero time to think about their life. Suddenly half my daily playlist was Indonesian music. I’m talking about this new, hyper-catchy, upbeat wave that feels like drinking an iced coffee straight into my nervous system.

It hit me again when I scrolled through my own Spotify playlist the other day. Songs like “Stecu Stecu,” “Garam & Madu,” “DJ Goyang Dua Jari,” or “Sialan” are so different from the sad, slow Indonesian tracks I was imagining before. This new sound is alive. It’s fast. It’s cheeky. It’s bright. And it belongs fully to now.

What fascinates me even more is that this upbeat Indonesian sound isn’t just “new music”, it’s a cultural shift. It’s the sound of a generation that lives online, that dances on TikTok, that jokes in fast edits, that mixes traditional elements with electronic weirdness and just hopes it works. And despite living in Germany, this sound somehow fits my own life perfectly. It wakes me up better than coffee. It’s emotional without being heavy. It feels modern without trying too hard to be Western. It’s Indonesia reinvented.

I guess this is why I love this topic. Because the more I learn about music and marketing, the more I see how these shifts don’t come out of nowhere. They’re created by people, by communities, by moments that go viral even when nobody plans them. Indonesian upbeat music didn’t grow because labels were pushing it. It grew because young people used it. Danced to it. Remixed it. Spread it like wildfire.

And honestly? It’s kind of refreshing to see a music culture that’s not embarrassed to be joyful.

If you want to get a feeling of what I’m talking about, I’d place a listening suggestion right here, maybe something like:

Song suggestion: “Stecu Stecu”  (the perfect example of how Indonesian TikTok beats blend chaotic fun with recognizable local rhythm)

A Youth Movement Disguised as a Playlist

The more I listen to this new Indonesian sound, the more I realize that it’s not just about music. It's about identity. You can hear dangdut influence tucked into modern production, a blend of rap and spoken slang, catchy hooks that feel engineered to go viral, and this very specific rhythm that instantly makes you want to move.

It’s like the songs were made to soundtrack a generation that talks fast, scrolls fast, and feels everything intensely for 45 seconds before switching to something else.

From a marketing POV (and this is what I mean with “not wanting this to sound like a lecture”), Indonesian producers understand the platform better than the platform understands itself. TikTok rewards speed. It rewards rhythm. It rewards the hook that hits immediately. So naturally, musicians shaped their sound around this.

But unlike the more polished, algorithm-calculated music you often see in the US, Indonesian artists keep their personality loud. Their slang, their humor, their cultural references. It doesn’t feel like they’re trying to appeal to a global audience and ironically, that’s exactly why global listeners (like me in Germany) find it refreshing.

And Then There’s Germany… Not the Same Sound, But the Same Moment

Here’s the funny thing: even though the sound itself is completely different, Germany is experiencing a similar kind of shift.

Artists like Ski Aggu, Domiziana, Paula Hartmann, 01099, they didn’t break through radio or TV. They broke through TikTok clips, memes, chaotic edits, festival recordings, and people posting their outfits. Their music doesn’t sound Indonesian at all, but it plays the same role.

It’s the music young people use to express themselves.

Germany’s equivalent to the upbeat Indonesian wave is the whole mix of melodic rap, techno-influenced pop, and club-leaning hits that blow up because the chorus is just perfect for a TikTok moment. Songs don’t need to be lyrical masterpieces, they just need to capture a mood. A joke. A vibe. A night out.

The way both countries experienced this shift is basically the same: the community, not the industry, is doing the marketing.

If I placed a song suggestion here, I’d choose something like:

Song suggestion: 01099 x Ski Aggu – “Anders” (it represents this fun, youthful, non-serious energy that parallels what’s happening in Indonesia).

But I’d keep the focus on Indonesia, because Germany’s role here is simply to show that this phenomenon is bigger than one country

Why This All Matters to Me Personally

The truth is: I love Indonesian upbeat music because it gives me something that German music sometimes doesn’t: warmth. Not emotional warmth, but cultural warmth. It makes me feel connected to where I come from without digging into heavy nostalgia. It’s Indonesia in HD. Indonesia for Gen Z. Indonesia that breathes the same internet air as the rest of the world.

And it’s cool to see how two completely different countries can reflect the same type of energy: young people defining their own taste, their own aesthetic, their own sound. Music that travels across borders not because the industry wants it to, but because regular people choose it.

When I listen to these songs in Germany, it feels like I’m part of a global moment, even if that sounds dramatic. But it’s true. The same tracks that go viral in Jakarta are showing up in the playlists of people in Berlin. The sound of youth is no longer local. It’s traveling, mutating, merging, connecting.

And that’s exactly why I wanted to write this blog. Because sometimes music says more about a culture than anything else. It shows what we celebrate, what we escape into, what we share, what we want to feel. And right now, Indonesian upbeat music is shaping a whole new emotional space, one that I’m very happy to have discovered.

Final song suggestion: “Garam & Madu”  (it perfectly captures the mix of fun, rhythm, and pure catchiness that defines this era)

Final Thoughts

I guess what I’m trying to say is this: music doesn’t just follow trends, it reveals who we are in a specific moment of our lives. And right now, the music I listen to connects two parts of my identity that I never thought would overlap: my life in Germany and my roots in Indonesia. This new upbeat wave feels like something my generation built for itself, a reminder that culture keeps evolving even when nobody is paying attention.

And maybe that’s the real beauty of it. These songs weren’t made to impress critics or fit neatly into genre boxes. They exist because people wanted to dance, to laugh, to feel alive, to create something that sounds like them. And somehow, through the internet, through pure chaos and community energy, that sound made its way all the way to my headphones in Germany.

So if there’s anything I want you to take from this: don’t let algorithms or genres tell you what your music taste should be. Explore. Mix. Jump around between sounds. Fall into weird playlists. You might end up finding a piece of yourself in a place you never expected, just like I did.

And who knows? Maybe your next favorite song is already waiting for you somewhere on the other side of the world.

Written by: Christina Kyriakidou