Pen Ran (, ), (c. 1944 – c. 1979) 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.
Life and career
Very little is known of Pen Ran's personal history. It has been established that she was from Battambang in northwestern Cambodia and attended the same school as the younger Ros Serey Sothea, another popular singer of the same era. Pen Ran had a sister named Pen Ram (sometimes Romanized as Pan Rom) who was also a singer in the later years of the Cambodian psychedelic rock scene.
In the 1960s, Cambodian Head of State Norodom Sihanouk, a musician himself, encouraged the development of popular music in Cambodia. Initially, pop records from France and Latin America were imported into the country and became popular, inspiring a flourishing pop music scene based in Phnom Penh and led by singers like Sinn Sisamouth. Pen Ran was an early entrant in this music scene, with the hit song "Pka Kabas" in 1963, but she became a national star when she began recording with Sinn Sisamouth in 1966. while continuing her solo career. The debut of the popular Ros Serey Sothea in 1967 had little effect on Pen Ran's career and perhaps even broadened her popularity as the second leading lady of Cambodian popular music.
Style and legacy
Pen Ran was known for her unrestrained personality and western-oriented hairstyles and fashions, rejecting traditional demands on Khmer women and representing new and modern gender roles. She addressed this topic in the song "I'm 31" which was an answer to Ros Serey Sothea's hit song "I'm 16." Decades later, Nick Hanover described the unique combination of Cambodian and Western influences in the track "Rom Jongvak Twist" as "a Cambodian spin on American dance crazes that sounds less like Chubby Checker than Lydia Lunch." Throughout her career, she is believed to have performed on hundreds of songs, many of which she wrote herself.
Starting in the late 1990s, interest in Pan Ron's music was revived by the album Cambodian Rocks and similar CD compilations, while the documentary film Don't Think I've Forgotten described her as one of the most influential artists of her era, as well as one of the most popular artists amongst younger Cambodians.