Friday, May 29, 2009

music from the 'kingdom



my sister left to study law in the uk when i was 10. during the two years she was there, she'd write home and include a separate letter just for me, the little sister who tried hard to emulate her older sibling.

in her letters, she'd often detail music trends in england, telling me the latest gossip about celebrities and how ridiculously cheap (just 99p!) singles tapes are over there. true to being the little sister who tried hard to emulate her older sibling, i started buying british music magazines, blowing my rm1 per day allowance on fortnightly issues that cost an entire week's worth of recess snacks.

i remember reading about the feud between blur and oasis (i used to favour damon albarn et al a little more those days), the brit pop rivalry that was splashed across every cover of every mag. i listened to alot of supergrass and super furry animals and pasted posters of kavana, OTT, 5ive, spice girls on my bedroom walls.

to put it simply, i grew up with british music. rock, pop, garage (i still prefer daniel bedingfield's "i gotta get through this" than any of his later stuff)...i loved it all. sure, i was into the backstreet boys, but i can sing every song from robbie williams' first and second albums just as well as i can do the tunes by the boys from orlando.

anyway, i was pretty happy this afternoon when fly fm decided to dedicate 6 hours to music by british artists or musicians based in the uk. i listened to their british invasion countdown the entire drive back from seremban to kl and belted out the words to pretty much every song on the playlist.

perhaps the best song i heard during that hour was east 17 and gabrielle's "if you ever", although it'd be far far better if they played "stay another day". i chuckled when the dj, hunny madu (who's a senior from my secondary school, btw), mentioned that she used to swoon whenever she heard "love me for a reason" by boyzone...that single was released just before my sister flew to england and i remember gasping at the fact that ronan keating's just a year older than she is, something i found out through smash hits or top of the pops or whatever.

till this day, i find music by british acts a little more interesting than their counterparts on the other side of the atlantic. give me craig david over ne-yo any day. take that over nkotb. err...err...i can't really think of any other similar pairs.

so yeah, bottom line is...do yourself a favour and listen to more music from the uk, or even the rest of europe for that matter! i'm gonna go see if i still have a mini compo that plays cassettes...

lishun at 11:40 PM

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