Published on Dec 28, 1998
Has anyone wondered where the Asians are? Outside of what is
generically known as “world music”, I mean. Seiko Matsuda was just
wishful thinking, James Iha doesn’t really count and Vanessa-Mae
was statistically possible with the billions and billions of
violin-playing Asians out there. Some Indian artists are getting
recognition in Europe but aside from that the West has been
reluctant to market potential crossovers from pop breeding grounds
Taiwan or Japan. I live in Thailand, the nation where all Asian
music (except we Korean hermits) crosses good-naturedly. The talent
is here but the record labels are worried about album covers.
Anggun (“ANG-goon”) released an all-English album (with
occasional Indonesian lyrics for world music effect) which went to
number one in France. I saw the majorly low-budget video on MTV
Asia (to be more accurate, MTV Southeast Asia) loved the track and
bought it at… -gasp-… the WESTERN section at Tower
Records!!!
Right away it’s apparent that Anggun has that falling of so many
“English-language” albums, that of asinine lyrics. Poor X-Japan,
poor Celine Dion, poor Anggun, but it’s distracting from the
attempted moods. It doesn’t help the boredom of so much New Age
music and Anggun sounds just too second-generation
I’m-going-back-to-my-roots-with-my-Pepsi.
Except in the first track, the title song, where everything fits
perfectly. “Snow On The Sahara” has gorgeous vocal (restrained) and
percussion (ethereal) texturing creating visual, vital moods. It’s
almost worth buying an entire album for but I’d sooner download the
mp3 (whoops… am I allowed to say that here?).
The album peaks occasionally when the Indonesian influences
shine through, like the percussion chorus in “Over Their Walls” but
it’s largely overtaken by the rush to Westernize, the LYRICS,
soulless emoting, karaoke production, and pathetic stabs at
multi-culturalism (suddenly and without reason, singing or mumbling
some lyrics in Indonesian). There’s also a terrible cover of David
Bowie’s “Life On Mars” that I won’t go further into. In the end, it
turns out to be just another boring New Age album.
So Anggun isn’t going to be Asia’s Alec Wek. If she wants to get
that ethnic mix she’s apparently striving for, she needs to ditch
those Australian producers (or wherever they’re from) and get
someone who won’t make her churn out pseudo-ethnic dirge. Paging
Kitaro.