Repeat performance
Datuk Siti Nurhaliza continues her winning streak at Anugerah Industri Muzik.
A LAST minute decision to hold a concert led to Datuk Siti Nurhaliza’s Best Album win at the Anugerah Industri Muzik (AIM) last week end.
Siti says she brisk ly put together the Dato’ Siti Nurhaliza Unplugged concert in April last year after her prior commitments fell through.
“We only had two week s to prepare,” Siti look s back in amazement while speak ing to reporters after the awards show. “But work ing with a team of professionals, they didn’t compromise on quality.”
Dato’ Siti Nurhaliza Unplugged, which is a live recording of her two-hour concert at Istana Budaya, mark s Siti’s seventh Best Album win. But there’s something special about holding the trophy this time. “Winning Best Album for a live recording is very meaningful to me. A live album challenges your credibility more. For a studio album, you can k eep recording and recording until you get things right,” shares the pop diva, who also won the award for 2014’s Fragmen.
“It truly tests your vocal abilities. You sing for two hours straight, you have to k eep hitting the high notes and the (music) arrange- ments are different.”
Siti was the biggest winner of the 22nd AIM awards, nabbing four other trophies including Best Nasyid Song for Mikraj Cinta, Best Musical Arrangement In A Song and Best Vocal Performance In A Song (Female) for Menatap Dalam Mimpi and the fan-voted Choice Malaysian Singer.
Commenting on her best vocal performance win – her 13th one, mind you – she admits feeling the pressure to always do well in the category: “There is a big responsibility on my shoulders. To win is one thing, but then to defend your win again and again is not easy. You can’t think , ‘ OK, I’ve won, I can relax now, I don’t have to improve anymore.’ I’m always practising.”
The Pahang-native’s vocals were on full display that night too, as she delivered the stirring ballad Dirgahayu with Faizal Tahir.
Her duet partner was another big winner of the night, tak ing home Best Pop Song and Best Song for Sejati.
“It was really unexpected,” says Faizal. “With all due respect to the awards, I left after the performance as I still had some work to do in the office. Then I got a call and I had to mak e a U-turn.”
The Best Pop Song category was a highly competitive one, receiving some 17O submissions of the 720 overall submissions across all 16 categories.
Ask ed about the inspiration behind the spiritual anthem, he replies: “When I came up with the melody, I just imagined the lyrics having to do with the relationship between God and I.”
Meanwhile, US-based Malaysian singer Yuna, who has had a big year with her new album Chapters, was also recognised with the Anugerah Kembara for her international achievements.
“Local musicians can go far. There isn’t anyone lik e us out there. We are special. I hope (this award) inspires other people to have the courage to venture overseas in whatever they do,” says the Crush hitmak er who was previously given the same award in 2011.
Malaysian jazz queen Datuk Sheila Majid was also touched by AIM’s gesture. She was honoured with the Anugerah Sri Wirama or lifetime achievement award for her 32-year career.
“The toughest moment was when I was out of Roslan Aziz Productions and I was on my own. I had to learn to swim fast,” she recounts. “Ku Mohon was an album that I did on my own for the very first time. There was a lot of talk that the album would be terrible even before it came out. It made me feel so insecure.”
She proved her critics wrong when Ku Mohon clinched the Best Pop Album trophy while the selfpenned title track won Best Song at AIM in 2000.
Besides honouring established acts, it was also a good night for first-time AIM nominees such as Reena Nick y who won Best Pop Ethnic Song for Joget Sulam Sakti, girl group DeFam who snagged Best Vocal Performance In A Song (Group) for #Supergirls and Ak ademi Fantasia 2015 runner-up Syamel who was named Best New Artiste.
Known as the Malaysian Grammys, AIM was held at Dewan Merdek a, Putra World Trade Centre, on Sunday.