Youngsters in the latter group make it a point never to blend in with the usual crowd. It could be that boy wearing a fedora hat and a sharp suit sitting across the train aisle, or the girl who slings an old-school Lomo film camera around her neck and snaps endless pictures.

Be it subtle or loud, these young people are making statements with their fashion sense, music selection and their attitudes towards life.

Dr Yasser Mattar, a sociologist at the National University of Singapore, calls subcultures a 'reaction against other forms of culture, such as popular culture, national culture and traditional culture'.

He likens what is happening now to the 1970s, an era which saw punk take on middle-class values in Britain, hip-hop rail against prejudice in New York and heavy metal challenge Christianity.

Local youth might not have the same lofty goals, but that has not stopped them from experimenting with the plethora of music genres, or dipping their toes into the visual arts scene.

From networking sites like MySpace, where musicians worldwide can share their songs, to global fashion blogs, there is no shortage of inspiration.

The recent indie music phenomenon has also launched a fashion trend, with drainpipe jeans, thrift apparel and vintage accessories like Ray-Ban wayfarers becoming the norm among young adults.

For genres like ska - a mixture of jazz and calypso from the Caribbean - fashion plays a big part. Famed for wearing monochromatic colours - which symbolises the unity between whites and blacks - so-called Rude Boys have a regimented dress code.

Dr Mattar agrees that music is bound to pervade other aspects of life.

'When a young person finds interest in one aspect of a musical style, he often gets introduced to the other accompaniments and soon identifies with all aspects of that musical style.'

But with retailers quick to exploit the latest fads, subcultures can quickly turn commercial and become - gasp - pop culture.