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27 albums · 1962–2025

Music of Laos, from the khene and the lam to the pop of Vientiane and today

· 1 min read · by 1001 Albums

A man seated in a wooden chair playing the khene, the bamboo mouth organ, at home in Savannakhet province
Two morlam singers and a khene player from Laos on a dark stage, in a sin and checked sarongsThe singer Moukdavanh Santiphone smiling with a trophy and a bouquet at the Lao Music Awards
A khene player at home in Savannakhet province, 2013. Photo: BigBrotherMouse, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Morlam singers and a khene player from Laos at the Maison des cultures du monde in Paris, Festival de l'Imaginaire 2009. Photo: Jean-Pierre Dalbéra, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Moukdavanh Santiphone with her trophy at the Lao Music Awards in Vientiane, 2014. Photo: เกรียไกร สมใจนึก, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Laos's music has the khene at its heart, the bamboo mouth organ, and the lam sung over it, the morlam of Savannakhet and Saravane that the Ocora, UNESCO and Nimbus field recordings and Khamvong Insixiengmai's Bamboo Voices caught, Nouthong Phimvilayphone's khene, the ceremonial ensembles of Champasak and the court music of Luang Prabang, then the singers of the Lao song, Tingnoi Phoyphailin, Xokxai Xokaomnuai, Toukta Souksavanh and Aoy Sengaumphone, the Vientiane pop and rock that Indee Records put out in the 2000s, Aluna, Cells, Modern Dance and the hip hop of L.O.G., and Alexandra Bounxouei, Pull-T Club and Pipo DerNi today. The list has 27 records from 1962 to 2025, one or two by each of the names above and only a small part of what they made; the Lao-language singers and rappers of the diaspora in America and France have no albums on Deezer, Overdance, Smile Black Dog and Black Eyes are not there either, and the song of the highlands, the cassettes of the eighties and nineties that never reached streaming and the court repertoire of Luang Prabang beyond one record would each need a list of their own. About 29 hours of music, 3 days of a few records each.

By genre

Folk & Country 12%Pop 11%Classical 7%Other 70%
  • Folk & Country 12%
  • Pop 11%
  • Classical 7%
  • Other 70%

The genres named most: lao, morlam, folk, pop, luk thung, classical.

The colours of the covers

A stripe for each cover, in the colour Tidal picks from it, sorted by hue; the greys at the end.

Where the music comes from

Music from 1 country: Laos 27. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 2020s

More lists

Lists of Countries first, then others; all of them on the blog. The blog.