Comeba queen
Sheila Majid
IL . , . w . r r k
Dayang Nurfaizah
a always delivered while dressed in classy frocks and with her hair pulled back into a bun, raised Dayang’s profile. Finally, people stopped and listened.
No doubt, it’s these ballad-driven successes that inspired the direction of her latest self-titled album. The 10-track offering, comprising seven new numbers and the three aforementioned singles, is chockfull of sprawling ballads from start to finish.
It gets off to a strong start with Layarlah Kembali – a heartrending track that sees Dayang begging for the return of an ex-lover. The strength of its melody here is sure to give Dayang her next big hit. The big, dramatic chorus also allows her to demonstrate her vocal prowess, making this a strong contender for next year’s AJL.
Again, she pines for her former flame in another potential chart-topper, Dia, which thrives on a catchy chorus.
Relationship pains are the main subject of the album and with the singer’s emotionally-charged delivery on each track, especially on the crushing Separuh Mati Ku Bercinta, she truly moves listeners.
While the other tracks on the album have subtler melodic hooks and take a couple of repeated listens to get into, tunes like Dalam Diam and Usah Bilang Cinta are gems too.
Dayang Nurfaizah is for anyone who can’t get enough of the goosebump-inducing ballads the powerhouse vocalist is known for.
–KC
FOR a guitar player, LK Wong can rock a set of keys. The songwriter has fashioned together a selection of songs which exude his homage to retro synthesisers in the Vulcan
There is a rudimentary charm about how the keyboard parts are fitted together, but the tunes also espouse studied songcraft.
Not surprisingly, he bears his sixstring fangs first on curtain raiser
which is otherwise a lovingly-crafted synthy excursion dipping gleefully into rocky waters at just the right times.
Celebrations is a mind-bender throwing in almost everything and the kitchen sink. There’s pop, prog, jazz, Carnatic ... and their various permutations. A blistering keyboard lead run in the middle should surely have raised his profile in the keyboardist’s stakes.
Analogue Dreams is a strangely-titled one, since it’s easily the most guitaristic piece on the album. But his developing synth strings trademark still underpins ON this day in 1990, Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares 2 U began its four-week run as the No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The pop song was originally written and composed by Prince for his side band project The Family.
O’Connor covered the song with a different arrangement for her second album IDoNot Want What I Haven’t Got.
An iconic music video was shot by John Maybury featuring mostly close-ups of O’Connor’s face. It made history when it won the MTV Video Music Award for Video Of The Year in 1990, making O’Connor the first female artiste to receive the honour.
But what did Prince think about O’Connor’s success with his song? Well, O’Connor told a Norwegian radio station in 2014 that she and Prince did not get along. this tune. Here, he wails on his chosen instrument in the vein of Joe Satriani and has production down pat for it, too.
Forlornly-titled Room 106 is the singular track to feature vocals, and Shaynon Lee makes a fist of it on the jazzy pop song, with Wong supplying some propulsive guitar fire power during the song’s outtro. There is that feeling of resignation, though, that he might perhaps find his best “voice” from his instrumental prowess, instead.
Vulcan Sunset is a curious selection of tunes at a time badly needing a sense of wonderment. — N. Rama Lohan
LK Wong
“He summoned me to his house after Nothing Compares 2U . I made it without him. I’d never met him. He summoned me to his house – and it’s foolish to do this to an Irish woman – he said he didn’t like me saying bad words in interviews. So I told him to (expletive) off.”
She added: “He got quite violent. I had to escape out of his house at 5 in the morning. He packed a bigger punch than mine.”
Ouch. O’Connor probably missed this because in a Rolling Stone interview published in 1990, Prince said he was a fan of O’Connor’s version.
“I love it, it’s great! I look for cosmic meaning in everything. I think we just took that song as far as we could, then someone else was supposed to come along and pick it up.”
Yeoh
– Angelin