The Falsetto

Remember when you have done your homework badly, your teacher might just throw away your book onto the floor. And when you bow to pick it up, you’ll notice the dust covered exercise book has Rukunegara printed on the back. A series of principles which Malaysians strongly uphold.

Expressing the love for nation through alternative or rather non-conformist ubiquitous channels has never been something new. Butterfingers recently have done it, OAG have done experimenting with it. Two of Malaysian ‘grandmaster’ and longest running band which started humbly inside the comfort of bedroom and per hour basis jamming studios, to gigs. Expect some discreet nationalism as the next uber coolness, which these artist imbue into their songs delivering very strong message in their lines and clips about the need for us to save the nation budding talents and crawling industry against the raging wave of music from one particular neighbouring country whose songs and artist pouring in without limit or stoppage. From OAG OrAnG cover which features red, blue and yellow colour theme for the cover art and Butterfingers 1000tahun clip featuring skit news clips on current on-going in Malaysia. The message is very clear: If we were reluctant to support the local music industry, then, who else?

Who can we blame? With the advent of internet and broadband technology, listening to our neighboring nation artist song would be as quick as a few clicks away. Frankly, their songs do have an edge over our songs. Probably their brave and daring producers such as Melly Goeslow which songs seems to keep up with the pace and never slowing on any tempo impressed me. The first time I heard “Jika”, somewhat around 2000, a duet with Arilasso gave my music taste buds a gush of fresh air and uplifting experience during times which the local music scene were saturated with Siti Nurhaliza and other Siti wannabes melancholy jiwangness. Even Arilasso rahsia wanita is a daring lyrical experimentation which never fails to hook listeners attention and it just tickles.

Indeed, after the Indonesian invasion into our music market, artists, producers and composers scrambled to find a formula which intends to explore and diversify the ever demanding music taste of Malaysian. At that moment they realized the potential of exploring unchartered territory of our 20million citizen thirst for diversified music. Yet, Its lucid enough to see that our industry was in a brink of collapsing that time, even the industry figures were adamant to admit it. As our struggling producers, artists and composers become a bit brave in experimenting ( after the likes of Melly Goeslow has done ) with new flavors of music, they still hampered us. I still respect those who had a career flop when venturing into new genre of music as there are those who are ignorant to changes.

Some were too ignorant, and still pushes the envelope of Siti-Nurhaliza-esque melancholy jiwangness to the extend of overexposure sickness. Thinking pattern of a strictly business person; As long as they can produce lots of money, then show them as many time as possible. The ignorance can still be found today when reality show winners were asked to do cooking shows, talk-shows, travelling shows and charity shows; if you know who I refer to. As if this ‘world’ had never had enough of this artist. People of this kind were the ones that going to ruin the industry with stagnancy of distasteful music. They were being given undeserving heavy rotation to the extend, people were forced to listen whether they like it or not. Perhaps with the intention people may get accustomed to it even though the voice was creaking like stuck gearshifts and sounded as ugly as mesin padi.

This resulted in music fans seeking outside music flavors to quench their thirsts for something unique and different.

Today, the turbulence times of our music industry has over, and we walked out of the hiatus with added maturity and with simply more stylistic face, most notable change, the almost wiped out melancholy jiwangness Siti-wannabes out of the local music industry and independent bands winning mainstream awards. It all sums up to a matter of time and our willingness to support them all the way to turn the table around. Its our support and contribution to make it possible these stars would enter the neighboring music scene. Do realize, we have become a nation long enough to have a generational fans, like M.Nasir and Sheila Majid whom my parents loved to listen to were being passed onto me. They did not ask me to listen to them, but what they did was tuning their stereos to their tunes. Other names may include Zainal Abidin, Anita Sarawak and Jamal Abdillah which attempt to refresh their image seems to a bit rocky. Overtime, I learned to appreciate it. I grew up listening to them It’s now or never for us- the current generation- to start looking into the scene and pass the ‘artsy-legacy’ onto the younger generation for them to appreciate. Please do teach your kids to listen honest non-profit motivated artist. Not disastrous distasteful ‘world’ artist.

When the time comes for our industry rise back into prominence, then, those bitterly silent pledges done by OAG and Butterfingers shall be a meaningful move for them, as it takes serious guts to oppose general opinions, and relay it through music. The excruciating pain of standing under the shadows of giants, as giants now refers to neighboring nation bands which took the music scene by storm. Although, rhetorically speaking, music never speak any particular language and music does not divide/border between religion, skin colour or income rate, yet, there is no doubt the healthy competition should exist.

In future, we would brace ourselves for surprises that together runs the industry; as for years of tune experimentation, brilliant, conceptualized and thought provoking artist like Bjork might rise to fame, although having only niche fans with wacky unaligned instrumentation recordings and fusion with contemporary visual arts, yet still, it’s the new many faces of music. The smaller the niche, the visible it will be.

In Bjork case, her messages delivered were none of the Icelandic entertainment industry struggle against any of its neighboring influence, but, the message has become broad and globally interpreted. How should the Chinese government respond if the above song is dedicated to Tibet? Bjork looks cute, but this petite singer is no pop sex toy, she must have inherited the outspoken trait from her unionist leader dad. The poetry skills now have extended beyond “aku cinta padamu, adakah kau cinta padaku” theme. It has become somewhat an intellect game which employs nerve warfare, these boys of MCKK packed with nationalism have chosen this platform rather than what other MCKK boys does; the parliament and courthouses. Music has now become a statement of thousand exclamation mark.